Podcast Transcript 111. An Interview with Courtney Milan: Law, Books, and Recommendations

Here is a text transcript of Podcast 111- An Interview with Courtney Milan: Law, Books, and Recommendations. You can listen to the mp3 here, or you can read on! 

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[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to another DBSA podcast. I’m your host Sarah Wendell, and with me is New York Times bestselling author Courtney Milan. In this episode, we talk about the lawsuit filed by Ellora’s Cave against Jane Litte and Dear Author. We talk about legal things in general, why it’s a bad idea to piss off lawyers and journalists, and we have a very fascinating discussion thanks to some really smart questions asked by some folks on Facebook.

First, a few housekeeping notes: This podcast is being produced independently by Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, LLC, of which I am the managing member. Yes, that’s my actual job title: I am the managing member. I hope you enjoy that as much as I do. This podcast is part of the DBSA podcast feed but is not being produced by To By Read, LLC. Moreover, Jane isn’t here. We live really far away from each other, and she’s not in my kitchen. My dogs are, and two out of three cats, but not Jane, which is why we’re here talking about the lawsuit.

And speaking of: There have been some really great things that have happened since the lawsuit was filed and some not-so-awesome things. The not-so-awesome part: Jane has a lot of harassment heading her way, some of it online, some of it off, and it sucks. Moreover, there are people who have contacted other review bloggers asking that comments made to reviews that are years old be removed because that person now fears lawsuits. The chilling effect of the Ellora’s Cave suit against Dear Author is very, very real, in my opinion. However, the good news: Much support online has emerged from a huge number of people reaching way beyond the romance community, and we raised over $50,000.00 for Jane’s legal fund in four days. And one of the things that Courtney discusses is why that is important and what kind of message that sends in a larger context.

So the first half is legal stuff, which is usually not what we talk about, and then the second half is mostly author and discussion, which is awesome, so I hope you enjoy both parts.

This podcast is brought to you by InterMix, publisher of The Affair, the brand-new, red-hot e-serial from New York Times bestselling author Beth Kery. The Affair began on September 16th, and you can download new installments on Tuesdays wherever eBooks are sold.

The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have information at the end of the podcast as to where you can find this, as well as links to all of the books that we discuss, and one of the questions I ask Courtney is what she’s been reading, and she said, oh, my God, I’ve read, like, five good books in the last three weeks, so this might be an expensive book-buying podcast, but she has a lot of good recommendations for you.

And now, on with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: Well, I am really glad that you agreed to do the podcast, so thank you very much.

Courtney Milan: You’re welcome.

Sarah: I have questions for you from various readers and from myself, but I wanted to start by asking you specifically about the lawsuit and your response to it, because if I am interpreting your response correctly, and this is a, a bit of extrapolation on my part, you’re really pissed off.

Courtney: Oh, what gave you that impression?

Sarah: I just, I’m, I’m, I’m not sure if I’m accurately gauging the level of anger, but I was thinking you were sort of approaching nuclear.

Courtney: I don’t know that I’m quite at nuclear? I have been more pissed off about things, but I think the thing that snapped for me – like, when, when the lawsuit was first filed on Friday – ?

Sarah: Yeah.

Courtney: – my first reaction was, well, that’s a shitty thing to do, and she will never prevail, but that’s going to cost a lot of money. That sucks. You know what really, really pushed me over the edge was a tweet from Jaid Black on Twitter – obviously, a tweet on Titter, yeah – I can hear the –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: – but a tweet where she said something which was a misstatement of a law in question, and that just put me over the edge. ‘Cause, like, not only are you irrational, not only are you chilling speech, but you are wrong.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: It just sort of, just sort of, like –

Sarah: You’re factually incorrect! This is not okay.

Courtney: You are incorrect, and that, that right there was it for me. And I –

Sarah: You know, I don’t, I don’t blame you.

Courtney: I mean, it’s, and it’s ridiculous, because I was kind of, like, saying a couple things before that, but that right there for me, I was like, oh, no. No. No, you are wrong. You are wrong about something that matters, and now, now it’s, it’s done.

Sarah: Well, I mean, it’s not like she was talking about, you know, something really important like protected speech or the Constitution or anything like that, right?

Courtney: Correct. Exactly.

Sarah: [Laughs] My experience, ‘cause I’m, I’m married to an attorney who is not a litigator, he does public finance, but my sense of having met many, many attorneys – and there are so many of you writing romance – one thing that immediately pisses off attorneys is when someone misuses the law or gives very bad advice in a legal sense or in some way treats the court system as if it is not important.

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: And everything that goes with the justice system –

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: – the establishment of laws and the interpretation of laws. Anyone who treats that as if it is not important immediately has pissed off all the lawyers, and that’s really not a good thing to do.

Courtney: You know, I actually had a long post that I didn’t post, mostly –

Sarah: Many, many, many people who are listening to this just went no, no, no! Post it! Post it! Put it up! [Laughs]

Courtney: It was a long post that went into the difference between what Ellora’s Cave says in their suit and what Patty Marks attests to in her affidavit that she files alongside the suit and what Jane actually says. Then you can see that there are, there are subtle but really legally important differences between every single thing that she says. It’s things like, Jane says a set of authors has not been paid, and the suit says, she says we’re not paying our Authors. Authors capitalized, which has previously been defined as people who are contracted with Ellora’s Cave. Those are two totally different things, right? You can swear in an affidavit, we’ve been paying our Authors, and yet still have it be true that there is a set of authors who have not been paid. This is one of those things, it is so close to the line that, you now, just looking at it, I, this is one of those things where I just want to sit that lawyer down and say, you are an officer of the court. Do you think that this is a fair representation to the court of what is happening?

Sarah: Like I said, never piss off lawyers by treating the justice system as if it is unim-, unimportant.

Courtney: Exactly. So, you’re right, there’s a lot of things that really piss me off about it.

Sarah: One of the things that I thought was really awesome, though, was the fact that you led the #notchilled hashtag, because it’s one thing for a blogger to report what authors are privately telling her –

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: – and I get some – I don’t get as much – but I get some of the same email that Jane gets about, I have a problem with this publisher, I have a problem with this agent, and can you help me? And most of the time, I, there’s very little that I could do except to write about it, and sometimes there’s not even a reason for me to write about it except to say, someone says that they’re angry, in which my response is, you should say that you’re angry. It is very terrifying and scary for an author to take that step, and I totally get that, but within the, within the framework of what you started on Twitter, that was a safe space because you had defined it from the start by saying that the fact that what I’m saying is protected doesn’t protect me from scurvy, doofus lawsuits, but I’m going to do it anyway. Throwing down the, the sort of, all right, now it’s on, has opened the door for a lot of other people.

Courtney: Well, I think that there were a lot of people who really wanted to say something in the first place –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: – and you could tell by the level and the, the type of subtweeting that was going on. Like, oh, the subtweets that were sort of like, wow, I do not know what to do. This looks really bad.

Sarah: Oh, shit.

Courtney: You know, is there a turtle shell I can hide under? I just think that it was one of those things where it really needed just a little bit of a crack –

Sarah: Yep.

Courtney: – and then people would start speaking up. It also had the interesting side effect of really pissing off Tina Engler/Jaid Black –

Sarah: Oh, my goodness.

Courtney: – which I have to say has been a very interesting thing to observe.

Sarah: How so?

Courtney: [Laughs] Oh, you’re not going to let that one go.

Sarah: No, no, not at all.

Courtney: I just think that she would be a hard person to have as a client if I were a lawyer.

Sarah: You don’t say.

Courtney: You know, it’s just, one of the things that I would advise her to do if she were my client is I would advise her to keep a journal and to write all of these things that she’s feeling in there, and when the lawsuit is over, she can publish that. [Laughs] If she still wants to. But I feel that in some ways it has made it really easy for people to decide which side they’re on, because I don’t think she understands how to sound like a rational individual. There’s a, there’s a, there’s a real trick to being able to, to write when you’re angry without sounding like you’re coming from nowhere, and I don’t think she has mastered that skill yet. That’s, that’s kind of a negative in her PR quiver. There’s a real skill to being, to be able to be angry and still sound reasonable. But the thing is, I really hate calling women out, no matter who the woman is, and saying, oh, you’re incoherent and emotional.

Sarah: I totally understand that.

Courtney: Because, because I, I don’t –

Sarah: That’s the accusation that’s leveled at us all the time.

Courtney: You know, honestly, I can understand why she’s angry –

Sarah: But it’s important to be coherent right now.

Courtney: Correct. Yeah. I, I think that, you know, I can understand why she’s angry, and I can tell that she’s angry, but I also think that she, as the CEO of a company, needs to understand that angry blogging is not helping her.

Sarah: One of the things that I find really interesting is that you personally have a multileveled point of observation on this situation. One, you’re an author, and two, you write publicly about publishing, and three, you’ve also worked with the Supreme Court, and you’ve worked on constitutional issues, and you’ve worked in judicial settings where protected speech has been something that has been discussed or decided. So not only do you have a sort of view on this from a personal standpoint of, I’m an, I’m an author who also deals with contracts and payments and things like that, and you also have this whole vast history of legal experience dealing with the same sorts of issues. Does one influence your position more than the other? Have, have you also thrown away many, many blog entries of let me explain to you all the things of the First Amendment here. Just sit.

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: This is, like, 6,000 words, but you’re going to like every one of them.

Courtney: Yes. I –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: There, no, the – I think the closest that I came was I had, like, this massive, like, multipart tweet the other night that was sort of like, let me give you some info on the history of libel. Back in 1964, there was this case called New York Times vs. Sullivan, and it was about, shockingly, libel!

Sarah: No!

Courtney: No. And there, there was more detail that I went into. Yeah, I mean I think that’s something –

Sarah: You mean the Freedom Riders and everything.

Courtney: – that a lot of people don’t realize, that there was a period where anyone who spoke up about stuff in the South would get slapped with a libel suit.

Sarah: So you didn’t send reporters.

Courtney: Right. And, and you know, the ad that I tweeted, it was a – for those who didn’t see it, it’s a, it was a, an ad purchased by, like, a Who’s Who in Civil Rights talking about the civil rights movement and what they had been doing, and the ad itself was not 100% factually true. For instance, they said that Martin Luther King had been arrested seven times. He’d only been arrested four times, you know. And it was little things like that, that you know, you get an ad and you can find one little thing that they say in it that’s not true, and then you slap them with a libel suit, you know. You put this massive judgment on it, you pall the whole enterprise, and that, you get to a point where, where newspapers don’t want to talk about it, so that, that case was very important for civil rights, because there were so many people who were unwilling to actually write about civil rights, because they were going to get slapped with, like, million-dollar judgments for just covering what they believed to be the truth. But this is the kind of thing where, you know, a judge who saw this kind of case and saw the underlying evidence could send a very strong message at the TRO stage, which is where we are right now. I’m sorry, TRO is, is ab-, abbreviation for a temporary restraining order. So the temporary restraining order hearing is coming up on October 27th. If they saw the kind of evidence that I’m positive that she’s going to be able to present, this is the kind of thing where a judge who really understood the First Amendment issues would write something in response that would be along the lines of, I see very little likelihood of success on the merits in this case, which is basically sending a message to them that says, you know, keep on with this and you’re going to get spanked.

Sarah: I don’t know of any judge who hasn’t already said to Ellora’s Cave, keep on with this and you’re going to get spanked.

Courtney: This is a good point.

Sarah: [Laughs] There’s a lot of judges in Ohio who are like, no, really, why are you here? Where did you go? You file, then you run. Now you’re here; what are you doing?

Courtney: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: The thing is, I don’t, I don’t know how much liquid cash Ellora’s Cave has to keep running this lawsuit.

Sarah: That’s the thing that I’ve questioned. The, the, (a) the amount of liquidity that it takes on their part to move this forward, because it’s never cheap –

Courtney: Exactly.

Sarah: – and if, if there are authors who are sta-, sating, stating, publicly, in, you know, written form in many places, I have not been paid, and there are other professionals who’ve worked with them who have said, I have not been paid –

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: – then the questions of the liquidity become even more important. If you’re not paying them, what the hell are you doing?

Courtney: I, I do worry that there is a, a serious lack of underlying liquidity here. And here I am, this is slander potentially, ‘cause it’s spoken?

Sarah: It’ll be transcribed, so it could be libel, too.

Courtney: Whoo!

Sarah: Yeah, sorry.

Courtney: You’re, you are also going, as ho-, since you are posting – well, actually, no, not necessarily. I think that you would be immune under the Communications Decency Act, although that would not necessarily stop anyone from suing you.

Sarah: Are you trying to tell me that I’m decent?

Courtney: No.

Sarah: Wow, no one’s ever called me that before.

Courtney: [Laughs] I was not –

Sarah: Usually I get indecent. [Laughs]

Courtney: No. Sadly, I was, I was trying to say that you were immune under Decency, but –

Sarah: Oh, I see. Oh, it’s okay.

Courtney: So I don’t know if that makes, means immune from decency or –

Sarah: I’m definitely not immune.

[Laughter]

Courtney: Okay, so, so here’s my slander. I think there –

Sarah: Drum roll – [drum roll]

Courtney: – are many reasons to doubt the liquidity of Ellora’s Cave. The huge one is the tax liens. If you poke around, there have been other lawsuits that have been filed against Ellora’s Cave that Jane didn’t even talk about, partially ‘cause we don’t what happened to them. But she was sued in 2011 by a company that provided her equipment claiming that she was behind, like, $180,000.00 in payments.

Sarah: Good God.

Courtney: I know!

Sarah: And that suit was settled? Never went anywhere?

Courtney: I have no idea what happened to that suit. It may have been settled; I don’t know. I have not actually tried very hard to figure out what happened to it. It got, all I know is that it got removed from state court to federal court and then sent back to state court, and then I’m not really sure what happened to it.

Courtney: But I do know that she was – true fact: She was sued claiming that she owed $180,000.00.

Sarah: To a company who had done business with, with Ellora’s Cave.

Courtney: Correct. Yes. And these are not, none of these things are good signs for the liquidity of the company, right. When you have repeated instances of them not paying really basic bills, that is very worrisome. Like tax bills, you know, and these other things, and I believe that Jane pointed out that there was a lease issue and just all sorts of stuff.

Sarah: Didn’t you tweet a, an article that was, like, 10 signs that a company is not doing well?

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: The heads of the company leave, there’s liens or tax filings against the company or against the people who run it, there are many signs that a company is not –

Courtney: Layoffs.

Sarah: Yeah, layoffs.

Courtney: That sort of thing. I think she honestly believes that she is the victim because she is trying really hard to pay everyone and just doesn’t have the money because she has committed so many of her funds to so many different places.

Sarah: There’s definitely a thread of, I am the victim here, running through everything that she has said online –

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: – in the last three weeks.

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: When the – I was about to sign off for the day when Jane started tweeting that the lawsuit had been filed, and I promptly, you know, closed my computer and started to get dinner ready, and my husband came home, and he was like, why are you flipping out? And I was like, you do not understand. This is really bad for me because there are still cases that are deciding and interpreting how are, are bloggers journalists?

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: Is what we do journalism? ‘Cause sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes I’m just going off about something.

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: Sometimes I writing my opinion about a book, and sometimes we’re doing journalism. It’s not always the same, because we – if you, if you think about us like, the cumulative whole of a blog, if you think about it like, say, like it’s the USA Today. We have the money section and the left section and the purple section and the TV section and the book review section –

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and then the news section! We have all of these things in various proportions on a given day. So the idea that bloggers have not really fully been accepted and interpreted as journalists freaks me the hell out, because what she was doing was journalism.

Courtney: It clearly was.

Sarah: And so for Ellora’s Cave to sue her is like suing a newspaper for reporting on something that you don’t want them to report on, like civil rights in the South, as you were pointing out earlier.

Courtney: Right. I mean, I, I don’t want to make the analogy too strong –

Sarah: No, not at all.

Courtney: – because I, I feel like I don’t want to say, this is just like the civil rights struggle, because it’s not.

Sarah: No. No.

Courtney: But on the other, but I know that’s not what you were trying to say. I just want to throw that out there, that, the fact that this is the historical record of what has happened with libel and the fact that the motivation is the same, to try and keep something out of the news cycle –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: – does not mean that the underlying – I mean, this is, this is a business thing that has had some terrible implications for many people, but it’s not really the same as, like, people getting –

Sarah: As the civil rights movement?

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: Absolutely. It’s, to quote Jon Stewart, no one is like the Nazis except Walmart.

Courtney: [Laughs]

Sarah: Because you understand, like, from my perspective, as, as, as, as irritated as you get when everyone thinks, like, this is just like slavery, this is just like the civil rights movement. Whenever somebody brings up Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, I’m like, okay –

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: – no, please, just stop. Please!

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: Just stop! Nothing is like the Nazis except Walmart. Don’t you know that? It is spoken by Jon Stewart; it is the truth! [Laughs] Have you noticed that the press coverage of the suit so far has not led or ended with the, yeah, and romance is ridiculous and crazy anyway. Like, it’s amazing!

Courtney: I’ve been so excited that they’ve been able to talk about somebody, a publisher of erotic romance, without making jokes about the fact that, ohhh, erotic romance! Woohoo!

Sarah: Penises and boobs!

Courtney: I know!

Sarah: I mean, HarperCollins couldn’t buy Harlequin without business journalists, whom I otherwise have a great deal of respect for, making really stupid jokes about sex and, and boners and really stupid, stupid analogies. That was like, that was a multibillion dollar business deal; surely that was going to get some, some respect. No! None at all. But no one who has talked about this has made the, yeah, and it’s just romance and they’re all stupid and crazy anyway. Like, no one has done it!

Courtney: Yeah!

Sarah: It’s great! I’m so excited! Except for the part where there’s a lawsuit that sucks. Otherwise, it’s great! [Laughs] Remove the core of suck –

Courtney: And I find, in some circumstances, like some of the people who have covered it have been operating from a point of pissed-offedness as well. And that –

Sarah: It wouldn’t surprise me. Journalists tend to get very pissed off about this as well.

Courtney: They look at that, they look at the underlying story, and they say, I could have written this.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: I want to make sure that this information is not suppressed. This is not okay.

Sarah: So effectively, what this lawsuit may possibly have done – conjecture ahoy – is that not only has it pissed off lawyers, but it has also pissed off journalists.

Courtney: Correct.

Sarah: So this is two large groups of people who generally take their professions and the reputation of their professions very seriously.

Courtney: There’s also romance readers, romance authors, and romance editors.

Sarah: I was just about to say, much like the romance community! Hmm. That sounds like a clusterfuck.

Courtney: You think?

Sarah: Except that my friend is in the middle of it? It’s epic.

Courtney: Yeah. It –

Sarah: It’s epic in scale.

Courtney: This would be, this would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that someone will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars so that she defends telling the truth –

Sarah: By telling more of the truth.

Courtney: Correct.

Sarah: That was the hardest thing about writing up the description of the, of the legal fund, because if you’ve worked in law and in litigation or even in, in civil suits or even just financing anything, you understand how expensive any kind of litigation is, and it was really hard for me to say, okay, it sounds like $20,000.00 that, that Jane put up initially, that, that, that sounds like a lot of mo-, a lot of money, and it is, but it’s nothing compared to what this will cost if it moves forward through the next hearing.

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: Like, that 20 grand will be gone. It is –

Courtney: And fast.

Sarah: – a very meaningless amount of money in the larger context of what this could easily cost.

Courtney: That’s, see this is, this is the thing that – I think I tweeted briefly about this. You could get someone to write a complaint, and you could get someone to write the complaint that Ellora’s Cave put up for maybe $3,000.00. That’s the scary thing.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: You don’t need somebody who has a high hourly rate, and at a guess – again, this is a conjecture – the lawyer that she has who filed the suit is not anyone who appears to do First Amendment defamation work ever. You know, I think his, his biography says something like, that he’s, like, one of the main attorneys in Ohio for getting lottery payments rescheduled or something like that?

Sarah: Huh?

Courtney: Yeah. He’s, he’s clearly, clearly a commercial attorney.

Sarah: So this is not a First Amendment dude.

Courtney: No. No, he’s not even remotely a First Amendment dude, so, yeah, you know, it seems to me fairly reasonable that you could sit down with somebody, they could take a look at the single blog post, get an affidavit out, write up the complaint, which, honestly, you could have written it up, honestly, three or four hours max.

Sarah: It’s not an expensive proposition to file a complaint necessarily.

Courtney: Yeah. So, 300, you know, 3,000 bucks, maybe, to file that.

Sarah: And then to defend it is, could easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Courtney: Exactly. That’s a problem. That’s what, that, that’s one of the other reasons why I think it’s so important to make sure that the information that is here is magnified, because I never want it to be the case where somebody feels like, oh, this information is really inconvenient for us to have out in the public, so I’m going to spend $3,000.00 and force someone to get a second mortgage on their house –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. To keep it quiet.

Courtney: – to try and get out of this. I mean, that’s, no. That’s not okay.

Sarah: No. There’s, I mean, there’s a lot of reasons why litigation is expensive. The expense of hiring a good attorney comes with a very high billable hourly rate. That’s –

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: – that is the expense of the practice –

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: -in this country and, and many others. Law is expensive, especially if you hire people who are good at it.

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: Much like you want someone operating you who, on your body who is good at it!

Courtney: Correct.

Sarah: You want skill, and with skill comes a higher rate of pay sometimes. Often.

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: Frequently, in fact. The other thing that is, is troublesome is that because Ohio does not have any SLAPP statutes in place, this can’t be dismissed so easily.

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: And it is highly unlikely that Jane would get her legal fees paid by the opposing –

Courtney: I agree.

Sarah: So, to everyone who has contributed to the legal fund, thank you, thank you, thank you. This is why it was so important. And I hate, hate, hate asking people for money. I can’t even possibly tell you how deeply uncomfortable it makes me.

Courtney: Oh, God, I can imagine exactly.

Sarah: Gaaah.

Courtney: I think the other thing that it helps with, though, and this is one of those things it would, it would help more if I felt positive that there was someone rational on the other end?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: That this is a sys-, if, if you’re in a circumstance where one person was hoping to get something out there quickly, letting them know that you’re loaded for bear is a good thing.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: Okay, if you want to bring it, we’re prepared to have it brought.

Sarah: Yes, we have prepared in four days and a significant amount of money to have it brought.

Courtney: And I think that’s, that’s a good message to have sent out there.

Sarah: Especially because there were a number of anonymous donations from people who quietly communicated to me through the software that they did not feel like they could put their names on their donations, but they could not not contribute. They had to help.

Courtney: Right. I, I’m not surprised by that.

Sarah: There’s, there’s some, an incredible amount of badassery going on –

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: – to, to help her out, even from people who openly don’t get along with Jane or have, have had problems with her in the past.

[music]

Sarah: Aside from the lawsuit, I have other questions, because I didn’t want to bring you just on to talk about the law, because I’m sure that gets boring after a while since you no longer practice or teach law at all.

Courtney: Since I no longer practice or teach law at all, I could probably talk about it indefinitely.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Do you miss teaching and, and practicing and, and, you know, running around with dudes in robes?

Courtney: Well, okay, so I never practiced.

Sarah: I beg your pardon. You were a –

Courtney: I, I, I was only, I was only ever a law clerk –

Sarah: Clerk.

Courtney: – and then a law professor, so I never technically, actually practiced. I have not taken the bar. I do not want to ever take the bar.

Sarah: [Laughs] So you have not practiced, but you have clerked –

Courtney: I have clerked.

Sarah: – in some several badass locations, and taught.

Courtney: And I’ve taught. I miss teaching. I don’t miss faculty meetings.

Sarah: Oh, I don’t think anyone would say, wow, now that my life is over, I want more faculty meetings. I have a question here from Theresa Romain, who – I don’t know if you’ve read her books –

Courtney: Yes, I have.

Sarah: – They’re awesome.

Courtney: I actually just went – I had been falling behind – I just went on a Theresa Romain binge and finished up, like, three of them in the last week.

Sarah: Isn’t she great?

Courtney: She is really awesome.

Sarah: I just, I just feel like she is one of the underappreciated fine writers of historical romance. Every –

Courtney: Oh, completely.

Sarah: Every, every scene that’s in her books is there for a reason, and it has a function, and it, and it has a job as much as it has an artistry to it. I just, I love reading her books.

Courtney: I do too. They’re really very quiet. I don’t want to use the word quiet, ‘cause that always gives the wrong impression, but they’re very, they’re very emotionally honest.

Sarah: And thoughtful.

Courtney: And thoughtful, yes. It’s a very good way to put it.

Sarah: Yes, this, none of her books are the type of story where you think, okay, I have read this before.

Courtney: Yes, exactly. Or if you think you’ve read it before, then it turns into something, and you’re like, I was not expecting that. That’s good!

Sarah: Like, like A Bollywood Affair. I have read that type of trope before –

Courtney: Oh, my God.

Sarah: – I have not read that book before.

Courtney: Yes, I – you know, the amazing thing about that book was how familiar it felt while being so different.

Sarah: Yes! Yes! Yes, yes, and yes! I don’t know if you –

Courtney: I loved, I just, I also just read that this week. This has been a week of me reading really damn good books.

Sarah: I know, isn’t that just terrible when that happens!

Courtney: I love it.

Sarah: I love those books.

Courtney: I think after my last one I was like, I have to read another damn good book, and, and it’s always scary trying to pick something after you’ve read, like, five good books in a row, and you’re like –

Sarah: Oh, I know, it’s like you can’t sustain the streak. It’s just not possible.

Courtney: I know. It almost makes you want to read something terrible just to get the taste out of your mouth.

Sarah: I can help you with that, if that’s your goal.

Courtney: [Laughs]

Sarah: Just let me know; I’m here for you. [Laughs] So Theresa asks:

See what you can get her to tell you about the Worth saga. First book release, how many books in the series, anything, anything at all!

So, yeah, it’s like I’m asking you about the law, only instead of law, I’m saying Worth.

Courtney: Yeah, so –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: Okay. Let me see what I can tell you about the Worth saga. I think I have told everyone the basic premise, which is that the Worth family, the father was convicted of treason, the family lost everything, the elder brother was transported for separate things, which I’m not going to get into great details at this point, and so the remaining children who had been brought up to be ladies and gentlemen were left with basically nothing and everyone hating them, and sort of have had to make their own way in society.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: So that’s the underlying premise of the series. Things I can tell you about it: How many books. I know how many books. I have still not decided if the number of books is a spoiler, and the reason I say that is, I think I can say fairly upfront that one of the things that nobody knows when the series starts is where Anthony, the brother, the elder brother who was transported, is at this point –

Sarah: Hmm.

Courtney: – and if he’s alive.

Sarah: So if you talk about the number of books then you are spoiling part of the plot.

Courtney: Correct. I will say that there will be books in the series that are not about Worth family members, although the Worth family members will be present in those books. At least some Worth family members will be present in those books.

Sarah: At some point, someone will say the word Worth.

Courtney: No, nonono.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: Don’t be like that. They’ll, they will, there’ll, they will be present. And it will not be – and every, every book will be moving this plot, this, this overarching series plot regarding Anthony Worth forward in some way.

Sarah: Hmm!

Courtney: So I, I don’t, it’s not going to be a, sort of a vague seri-, a vaguely ill-defined series. I know exactly how many books there are in this series. I have covers for 90% of the books in the series. I just haven’t put them up yet. I don’t know exactly how I’m going to structure the first few books, and I don’t want to give out things that will end up being spoilers by the way I structure them, and also, I’m still figuring stuff out. One of the reasons I have said very little about this upcoming book is that the exact – I know what happens once the action starts going, but I don’t, I’m still arguing with myself over whether the thing that starts the action is stupid or not, so I haven’t said anything about it because I’m probably going to change it. There’s, there’s, there’s parts of this that, that are, I’m working on. I know more about happens in later books in the series than I know about the first book in the series. How’s that?

Sarah: That must be fun.

Courtney: It is!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: It is. It’s the only, but it’s the only way to do this.

Sarah: Yes. I know where I’m going. I’m going to get there.

Courtney: Correct. I have to know where I’m going, and then the beginning is just a matter of making sure I put something that is along the right path.

Sarah: Erin  wants to know if you had fun researching Jane’s colorful wardrobe, and she also wants to say thank you for Jonas.

Courtney: Oh! Well, did I have fun researching Jane’s colorful wardrobe? I had a lot of fun with that.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: That was great. I basically was looking for pretty much any cutting edge dyes, fabrics, whatever, that you could do that would have been, like, shocking and new to people?

Sarah: I can totally hear somebody screaming at the, at the radio, what book are you talking about?

Courtney: Okay, this is, this is Jane who is the heroine of The Heiress Effect. What is her name, Jane Fairfield? I think that’s her name.

Sarah: [Laughs] I think it might be Fairfax, but I could be wrong. I don’t remember things.

Courtney: Jane Fairfax? I’m, I’m pretty, it’s, I’m pretty sure it’s Fair-something. She’s the heroine of The Heiress Effect, and her shtick is that she’s trying to make sure that she’s not socially acceptable, and one of the ways that she pulls that off is by wearing clothing that is, while perhaps modest, completely and utterly over the top.

Sarah: You are correct, by the way, it’s Fairfield. Way to, way to remember your own character’s name. [Laughs]

Courtney: It is actually quite difficult for me. I –

Sarah: I don’t remember any character names.

Courtney: And you’re welcome! I had a lot of fun writing Jonas. Jonas, for those who don’t know, is the hero of A Kiss for Midwinter, which is a Christmas novella about birth control.

[Laughter]

Courtney: Yeah, it’s very Christmassy, yes.

Sarah: What could be more Christmassy than birth control?

Courtney: I know. And all the many types.

Sarah: Of course! Amanda, who writes for me, wants to know, you’ve become sort of a big voice in the process of establishing your career, and she’s curious how your, how you handle such an unexpected role in the community – unless you expected it entirely. Have the responses been mostly favorable from fans and industry people? Have your comments ever warranted hate mail or trolling from people? And how do you handle that?

Courtney: I think it’s about 98% positive and about 2% trollery, which is actually a pretty good ratio in my mind.

Sarah: Yep! That’s pretty decent.

Courtney: I assume that there is probably, like, a silent, like, 30 to 40% that dislike me for one reason or another, which is totally fine by me. Obviously I did not really expect that. It still – every once in a while, like, someone will say, oh, well, that’s what Courtney Milan did, but she’s Courtney Milan. I’m like, who the fuck is Courtney Milan?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: But it still, it still surprises me. Like, like, my first book came out in 2010, right, so it’s only been four years and change now.

Sarah: Yep!

Courtney: It still surprises me when people know who I am. Like, honestly, like, it’s, it’s, it’s bizarre to me that people would know who I am for any reason. Reader, whatever. In terms of, like, how it feels, like, I don’t know. I mean, I was a law professor, so I’m good at having a big mouth.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: Right? It just happened, but I think the reasons that it happened are the reasons why it’s easy for me to continue. I don’t, I don’t think I’m putting on a role when I talk about stuff. I usually talk about things that I know about and that I care about. And I happen to know and care about things that I think tend to be important to the community as a whole. And that’s sort of been a happy circumstance, and it – happy, depending on how you see it. But you know, you know what I mean. Like –

Sarah: I know exactly what you mean.

Courtney: So, so, I just continue talking about things that I know about and that I care about. And one of the things that I just, I think is really important for me not to do is to tell myself, well, I’m going to have a regular blog, and I’m going to go out and look for things to blog about. Because I think that when people do that, they inevitably start, start talking about things that they either don’t know about or don’t care about.

Sarah: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Courtney: And that’s when I see a lot of people sort of, like, jumping the shark. I only say stuff when I actually feel like I have something to add. And I maybe wrong, and some people may disagree with me about that, which is fine, but I, I really do think that too often – see, you know, I wrote this blog post a while back in response to actually a Smart Bitches post about newsletters, I think, in which I talked about the error of numerosity, which is what I call it, you know, and it’s, like, people thinking, I have to have as many people on my mailing list as possible. I have to have as many Twitter followers, as many Facebook likes, you know. The more I have, the better I am, and I don’t think that’s true. I think that quality counts for a lot.

Sarah: Yep!

Courtney: So for everyone who feels like they have to do stuff, and they have to do stuff now, and if they don’t have X, then they’re failing, I just want to say, you need to be more lazy.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: No, really. You know, be honest with yourself about what you’re good at. About what you do that makes people want to know more about you. And just give yourself permission to only do those things and to not do them constantly. I don’t know. That’s my take on things. Maybe it’s just because I am lazy, and I don’t want to have to, like, spend all of my time, like, tweeting about my books are something. I don’t know.

Sarah: Part of being an author is knowing that there are things that you should be writing.

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: Ev-, if everything that you do is stuff that you should be writing, that kind of sucks the joy out of all of it.

Courtney: Yes. I, I think that is definitely true.

Sarah: All right. So one other question from Rachel.

Courtney: Okay.

Sarah: How can we as readers best support you? What are the best purchasing channels? Should we request that libraries carry your books? And also, who are your favorite authors?

Both of these questions are totally easy. [Snort] Except not. [Laughs]

Courtney: Well – [laughs] okay, so how can you support me? Honestly, not your job. Right? Your job is to read my books if you want to read them. If you don’t want to read them, then don’t. But I don’t, like, I’m not one of those people, I don’t have a street team, I don’t, like, do a lot of other stuff. It’s, it’s my job to make sure that my books are everywhere that you want to buy them. Right? If I make my book available for purchase somewhere, I’m okay with you buying it from there, and I don’t want to tell you where to buy my books or how to get my books done or whatever, right. If you want to ask your library to carry my book, please do so, but don’t do it if you don’t want it, because then librarians will think that there’s more demand for my books, and then they’ll get pissed off, right? So just, like, do what you would normally do. If you like my books then, then, you know, buy them, ask your library to carry them. If you don’t like my books, then don’t. So, I don’t know.

Sarah: Like, five people just wrecked their cars in relief, having heard you say that.

Courtney: Really?

Sarah: Oh, yes. I think, I think one of the things that has changed, I want to say in the last year or two, is – or even more than that – some of the byproducts of authors and readers being able to speak so directly so often have been awesome, and some of the things that have evolved from those conversations have been incredibly good for the genre, but one of the things that I think is not is the language of here is how you can best support me. And to have an author say, no, it’s not your job to support me, it’s my job to support me, probably made about four or five people pull over and go, oh, thank God! [Laughs] ‘Cause there’s a lot of the contrary of your message being said.

Courtney: That, that may be the case. I just, you know, like, I, I appreciate the fact that people want to support me, but generally the people who are asking that question are the people who are going out and telling their friends, oh, my God, I love this book. Let me – I mean, you’re already supporting me. It’s, it’s my job to write books that make people want to tell their friends about it, and if I can do that, I’m not worried about anybody supporting me in any other way. So, like I said, it’s my job to do all the things that count as support, right? It’s your job to just do what you want to do. It’s not even your – not, it’s literally not your job, right. This is literally my job. Literally, this is not your job.

In terms of my favorite authors, oh, there are so many of them. Okay, so, like, historical romance. And I’m going to try and, so, I, I will actually really love a lot of the usual suspects, like Tessa Dare and Sarah MacLean and Julia Quinn and, you know, I could go on and on. You mentioned Theresa Romain earlier, who I think, like you, is a hidden gem historical romance. The other one that I think does not get a lot of play but who writes really, really fabulous books: Elizabeth Essex.

Sarah: Really!

Courtney: Have you read any of her stuff?

Sarah: I just got an, an anthology that she’s in yesterday.

Courtney: This is – I have read that story. It’s a Christmas story. It’s pretty good. It’s not, it’s not her, my absolute favorite, but it’s not my absolute least favorite by her.

Sarah: What is your absolute favorite by her?

Courtney: Oh, God. Okay, so it’s one of her scandal series. I have to look it up, ‘cause they all have scandal in the name, and I can never remember which is which.

Sarah: I have the same problem with Theresa Romain. My favorite series of hers, the Kensington ones that come out in October, but it’s all Season for Something. It’s Season for –

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: – Something or Other with the, the –

Courtney: So her, Elizabeth’s most recent book is A Scandal to Remember, and that on was pretty fricking awesome, but my absolute favorite was – not that one – I’m clicking on all of them right now.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: No, not that one. Almost a Scandal. Oh, God, this is my, this is like, this is, like, my total catnip. So, I have this thing about girl dresses as a boy, and I have this thing about, like, buttoned-up people made for duty. So, the premise of this book is that the heroine’s brother was supposed to serve in the British Royal Navy, but he doesn’t want to, because he wants to be a scholar, so he runs away. And rather than have her family be disgraced, the heroine dresses as a boy and takes his place. And –

Sarah: Holy crap.

Courtney: I know, it, it’s so awesome. And the, the ship’s lieutenant is the one who sees through her, figures out who she is, and he’s like, you know, like, what to do? There is a woman on my ship, and I should not be so attracted her, but I am. It’s so good.

Sarah: Ohhh.

Courtney: It’s, like, everything. That is exactly – it’s, it’s such – I, I love that book so much. So.

Sarah: That’s always –

Courtney: Elizabeth Essex. I think she’s a fantastic writer. She has, her, her, her phrasing is beautiful. She tends to write books that are set in the navy, and her worldbuilding with the whole naval ships and the chain of command and what’s, it’s so good. Like, she just makes you feel like you are right there. It’s – she’s fantastic. I really like Rose Lerner. I think she’s another author that people may not have heard of who is a fantastic writer of historicals.

Sarah: I think she’s amazing because she originally was with Dorchester –

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: – and her books came out –

Courtney: Like, the very worse time?

Sarah: Yeah, the, the market wasn’t ready for them. And now there are people saying, I want to read this type of book and this type of historical sex, setting, and Rose Lerner is like, here are all of the things that you asked for. Please enjoy your catnip.

Courtney: Exactly. So I really, really, really like her books. I’ve read her upcoming January book. I don’t want to, like, tempt people with it too much, but it is awesome!

Sarah: You can go ahead and tempt people. I will link to the pre-ordering in the, in the podcast entry.

Courtney: Oh, yes. It is about two men who are brothers and confidence men, who have been sort of, like, using their charm to swindle people. And they come up with this idea of one last con where they’re going to get his younger brother to marry some wealthy woman, and that’ll be it; they’re going to settle down. And so they pick the woman in question, and the older brother, alas, begins to fall in love with her.

Sarah: Oh, crap.

Courtney: Yeah. It’s so good. I love it. A couple weeks ago, I read a fantastic novella by Alyssa Cole, and this is in the anthology For Love & Liberty, and it’s called “Be Not Afraid,” and it was so good. So, so, so good. It was one of those things where I started reading, and it was a combination of worldbuilding and writing and characterization. You know that feeling when you, you sort of, like, peer into the edge of a book and it sucks you right in?

Sarah: Yes. Oh no, oh no, oh no! Good bye!

Courtney: And it’s like, literally like, you know, I sat down to read it over lunch, and I looked up, like, two hours later, and I was like, oof! That was something. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: – you know, like, I had no, no idea that was going to happen. It just pulled me right in –

Sarah: Oh, I love that

Courtney: – and it was so, so, so good. I absolutely love that book. I have mentioned A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev, which I just read earlier this week, which, oh, my God. One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is the power of worldbuilding. And I think in some sense, if you’re writing in settings where, which are very familiar to romance readers, you don’t have to be as good at worldbuilding, right? Like, if you’re writing historicals set in the Regency era, you don’t have to really explain to people what a ball is. You don’t have to explain a lot of stuff, because it’s already part of the collective knowledge. And ditto if you’re writing, like, a small town contemporary, or any of that stuff, right? Whereas if you’re writing a book that’s set, know, in China, you have to work a lot harder, because there’s so much more that’s unfamiliar, and you have to fill in that familiarity without boring the reader or scaring the reader.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: And I think that when you, when you read someone that has really good worldbuilding, it is like nothing else. Sonali Dev’s book was like that. I don’t know if you’ve read Sherry Thomas’s The Hidden Blade?

Sarah: No, but one of our reviewers did. And they said the exact same thing.

Courtney: It’s, it’s the prequel to, I think it’s My Beautiful Enemy, and I actually think I liked it better than My Beautiful Enemy, and one of the reasons I did is that the worldbuilding was so sharp. You felt like you were right there, and a really, somebody who’s really good at worldbuilding can make you feel like something you’ve never experienced is familiar to you, and that is a talent that not many authors have. So, I’ve been thinking about worldbuilding a lot and the power of really good worldbuilding.

Sarah: That is something that I really enjoy, and an author who can build a world, even if it’s a world that should otherwise be familiar to me, good world-, good worldbuilding makes it familiar and new.

Courtney: And it’s not just historicals, right. So as an example –

Sarah: No. No, no, no. No. Even contemporary has worldbuilding.

Courtney: Yes. So as an example, Joanna Wylde. I, I think you pronounce her last name Wylde, Willed, W-Y-L-D-E.

Sarah: I think it’s Wylde.

Courtney: Okay, she writes these books about motorcycle clubs which I would never have thought that I would want to read. And in so many ways, you think to yourself, this is deeply fucked up.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: Right? You know, like, woo, wow, that’s a, don’t want to touch that. That’s pretty misogynist. But on the other hand, it feels so real when she does it, and that is –

Sarah: And it’s compelling

Courtney: – she’s, she is such a compelling world builder.

Sarah: I think Angie James calls that crack contemporary. You can’t, it’s like crack. Just get –

Courtney: Yeah, you know, the crack, the crack component is one of it, is one part of it, but it’s also, you know, like there’s some things that are crack that I don’t think have very strong worldbuilding?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: She really sets the rules of her world up, and she makes them very clear. I love it. You know, just from a pure standpoint of appreciating the craft, in addition to the fact that these are crack stories that, you know, that sort of, like, suck you in. It’s, there’s, there’s something about what she’s doing with the world that you just, it’s not the same as somebody who is sort of writing in a soft world where the reader fills in 95% of the details.

Sarah: Yes. Or if you enter a, a world with a reader that is familiar, and then all of a sudden there’s many unfamiliar new things about it. It’s, it, the, the familiar is going to tantalize them, and then the unfamiliar is going to compel them to keep going.

Courtney: Exactly.

Sarah: Sonali Dev did that exactly, ‘cause Jane and I were talking about this last week, that there are so many familiar tropes in there, and not only is, is, as a writer, is she familiar with them enough to subvert them a little bit, but to play them out so openly that anyone who’s familiar with those particular characters is like, I’m, I know this story, and then all of a sudden it is not a story you know, and you can’t stop reading it.

Courtney: Yes. I completely agree.

[music]

Sarah: And that is all for this week’s episode. I almost split this one in two, but I decided to make it nice and long, just the way you like it, so I hope you enjoyed this interview. Thank you to Courtney Milan for taking a lot of time to talk with me and for all of the book recommendations, of which I bought most. I presume that that is a problem for you too.

Now, greetings from under the rock where I live. I just realized very recently that you can leave reviews for the podcast. I know. The rock under which I live is very, very nice, I assure you. But there are reviews! A bunch of you have left really nice reviews at a few of the different podcast services that you use to listen to this here podcast. Thank you! That is completely awesome and very much appreciated and des-, despite the fact that apparently I live under a rock and forgot that you can review things like this podcast, even though reviews are kind of what I do, I am very grateful, so thank you for reviewing the podcast. That’s awesome! I hope that it helps other people discover it or at least helps them find more podcasts to listen to where then you immediately go buy books, because, well, that’s what I do when I’m done editing. I presume that’s what you do when you’re done listening.

The music this week was provided by Sassy Outwater, and you can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater, and she’s talking a lot about her engagement and what her fiancé likes to cook, so you might want to follow her on Twitter because, my goodness, that woman eats well. This is the Peatbog Faeries, which I’m sure you knew. This is a track called “Nyup,” and it is from an album called What Men Deserve to Lose. You can find them on their website, peatbogfaeries.com, you can find them on iTunes, and I will have links to other places where you can purchase their music.

This podcast was brought to you by InterMix, publisher of The Affair, the brand-new, red-hot e-Serial from New York Times bestselling author Beth Kery. The Affair began on September 16th, and you can download new installments on Tuesdays wherever eBooks are sold.

If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed. You can find us at iTunes or on PodcastPickle and also Stitcher, and I have a new podcast app on my phone that my husband told me about. It’s called PocketCast, and it’s pretty rad, and we’re in there too! I was very excited. I don’t actually listen to myself, though. That would make me cringe, and it’s very hard to walk your dogs while you’re cringing listening to your own voice for a half an hour.

If you have ideas or things that you would like to say or suggestions or questions or book recommendations or ideas of who we should interview, you can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com. You can leave us a voice mail on 1-201-371-DBSA. Please be aware, that is a number in the States, so if you’re not in the States, prepare to pay very little, because your mobile service is all cheaper than ours, not that I’m jealous. Don’t forget to leave your name and where you’re calling from so we can include your message in an upcoming podcast.

Future episodes will include me interviewing Amanda about New Adult because she’s actually a New Adult. She’s located solidly within that demographic, and I am not, so we have a very interesting discussion, and I have interviews planned with many other people. Like I said, if you have ideas of who I should interview, you should email us.

But wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, Courtney Milan and I wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend.

[really good music]

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General Bitching...

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  1. Evelyn Alexie says:

    “Christmas birth control” sounds like some kind of immaculate contraception.
    (Catholic humor)

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