Dear Bitches, Smart Author Podcast, April 22, 2016

 

[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, I’m Sarah Wendell, and this is episode number 190 of what used to be the DBSA podcast and is now Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, or SPTB, heh-heh-heh.  Now, for the record, I did not rename it.  I got a name from someone much better at naming things than me, but we’re changing the name of the podcast to Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, which is a smart podcast about romance novels!

Today, the Bitches have Assembled at RT in 2016.  Amanda, Carrie, Elyse, RedHeadedGirl, and I sit down at RT in Las Vegas, and we talk about the conference, the fun of taking a book-focused vacation, the oddly high-priced new Kindle, Amanda’s frustrations with Snapchat, pop-up signings, and heading to Flavor town.  Our language is a little salty, so you might want to use your headphones for this episode.  Also, you can probably tell, this is my incredibly awesome post-RT voice.  I managed not to get conference crud, but my voice is shot.

This podcast is brought to you by J. Kenner’s Dirtiest Secret, published by Bantam Books, available in paperback and eBook.

The memory of Dallas Sykes burns.  Everyone knows him as a notorious playboy, but to me, he is the one man I desperately crave and I can never have.  We’ve tried not letting ourselves give in to desire, and for so long we’ve told ourselves no.  Now it is finally time to say yes.

You can find out their Dirtiest Secret with J. Kenner’s new SIN series, on sale April 19th everywhere you buy books.

If you are a regular podcast listener or a reader of the transcripts and you’d like to support the show, please have a look at our Patreon campaign at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  By listener request, I set up a Patreon, which is a little bit like Kickstarter.  Instead of a single project, you support an ongoing program with a monthly pledge.  Listeners who wish to contribute can make a monthly commitment starting at $1 a month, and you’ll be helping me reach goals like commissioning transcripts for the seventy-plus episodes that don’t have one yet.  You can see all the rewards and all the options at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash SmartBitches.  And for everyone who has nudged me to set one up and everyone who has already backed the show, thank you.  You are entirely made of awesome, and you have excellent taste.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is, and as always, there will be links to all of the books that we’re discussing in this episode as well.

If you’re thinking of going to Romantic Times in Atlanta, we would love to know, because we would love to throw a party for all of our listeners.  So you know, if you’re thinking about going or you register, send us an email, let us know.  And if we start to organize rad things, we will totally let you know.

But in the meantime, on with the podcast.

[music]

Elyse:  I mean that party was fucking amazing.

Somebody:  You liked it?

RedHeadedGirl:  It was great.

Elyse:  It was so much fun.  People were having so much fun.

RHG:  Amanda, did you tell Sarah about the idea for the ribbon?

Amanda:  Oh, yeah.  So I was leaving the Kensington thing, and I, one of the women who was at the reader recommendation party, she’s very nice, so, she taught me something about Snapchat.  She’s like, I’m following you on Snapchat.  Are you snapping anything?  I was like, yes, I’ve been snapping shit all fucking week!  She’s like, well, I’m not seeing it, so apparently – I didn’t know this, ‘cause I don’t do this, but in order for people to see your account publicly without having, without you having to add them to your friend list, you have to, like, turn that feature on.  So I’ve just been snapping things, and no one’s been seeing it, because of that.

Sarah:  Fuck!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Fuck!

Amanda:  So anyway, I had no idea you had to do that.  But anyway, she saw me after the Kensington thing, ‘cause she was helping authors, and she’s like, something for next year, she’s like, you see all these authors who have, like, these specialty ribbons, like, you know, award winner, whatever –

Sarah:  Publisher, yeah.

Amanda:  – and then, so, sometimes it’s hard, on your badges, like, our blog, like, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda:  – isn’t on our badge, so, like, people don’t know what blog we’re affiliated with, so maybe we can get specialty stick-on ribbons –

Carrie S.:  Yeah.

Amanda:  – to stick onto our badges that say Smart Bitches or whatever, so we’re easily identifiable –

Sarah:  Oh, totally!

Amanda:  – on our badges.

RHG:  Yes.

Carrie:  Yeah.

Elyse:  What about just, like, a big pin of The Ladies?

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.  Totally doable.

Amanda:  So, I thought it was a good idea.  She’s like, because, you know –

Sarah:  The pin of The Ladies would be really good swag, ‘cause I notice those stickers went.

RHG:  Oh, yeah.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Elyse:  Speaking of which, when you get more in, I just had to replace my Kindle, so –

Amanda:  She needs more stickers.

Elyse:  – I need more stickers to decorate.

RHG:  Yeah.  Did you –

Sarah:  I have ‘em in the drawer.

RHG:  – pay $290?

Elyse:  No, I bought the much less expensive one that I know Amazon loses money on, which is fine with me.  I cannot figure out why – okay, so –

Sarah:  The new Kindle.

Elyse:  – it’s self-charging.  Like, it’s got a self-charging cover –

RHG:  And it, it’s got a leather cover.

Elyse:  – and it’s got a – that’s the –

Sarah:  I don’t want a leather cover.

Elyse:  I don’t want a leather cover either.

RHG:  But it’s self-charging, Sarah, and it comes with special offers so that you have to see ads in addition to paying two hundred –

Sarah:  For what, Old Jew and Goy Boy?  That was on my Kindle for a weekend, and I kept taking pictures of it.  Like, what the fuck is this Old Jew and Goy Boy?  C’mon now!

Carrie:  Oh, my God.

Sarah:  Yeah, super gross.

Somebody:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So, you guys having fun?

Everybody:  Yes.

Amanda:  And very tired.

Sarah:  Very tired?

RHG:  Very tired.

Sarah:  I love how we do this podcast on a Friday morning, and we’re all like –

Amanda:  I’m always tired.

RHG:  I want to die.  [Laughs]

Amanda:  I’m always tired.

Elyse:  My feet hurt a lot.

Amanda:  Yeah.

RHG:  Aww!

Sarah:  I can’t sleep in!  My brain’s like, east coast time!  It’s 9:30!  I’m like, it’s 6:30 here, so no, thank you.

Carrie:  I’m totally spoiled this year.  Totally spoiled, because this is, like –

Sarah:  This is your time zone.

Carrie:  – really close to –

RHG:  Yeah.

Carrie:  – where I actually live, so my flight was short, my time zone is compatible.  I’m like, woohoo!

Sarah:  Last night on my way to dinner, I was texting with my youngest son, ‘cause he got in a fight with his brother, and he was texting me through Google Hangouts, and so I took a picture of myself at the elevator.  He goes, how do you take pictures?  I’m like, there’s a little camera underneath where you type, so my phone is at, like, 17% battery, and I haven’t had time to stop and plug it in to my external battery to recharge it.  Like, I’ve been that back-to-back-to-back, and all of a sudden I hear my phone, beep!  Beep!  Beep!  And he sent me, like, eight pictures of himself in bed with his bear, with his book, here’s me and Dad.

Everybody:  Aww!

Sarah:  So he’s, like, sending me all these pictures.  He’s like, wait, you haven’t had dinner yet?  Mommy, I’m in bed!

Carrie:  [Laughs]

Everybody:  Aww!

Sarah:  What’s wrong?  I’m like, oh, it’s only 5:30 here.  Ohhh!  Does that mean I can have dessert now too?

[Laughter]

Sarah:  No, you’ve already brushed your teeth.

Elyse:  Well played, sir –

Sarah:  Oh –

Amanda and Elyse:  – well played.

Sarah:  – he’s quite devious and brilliant.

RHG:  True story:  it didn’t occur to me – like, I’ve been watching the Oscars my entire life, and most of my life I was like, God, this ends at, like, midnight, and then they go to a fucking ball?

Sarah:  Yep.

RHG:  And eat dinner?

Sarah:  Yep.

RHG:  And it occurred to me…

Somebody:  [Laughs]

RHG:  …five, six years ago, that –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

RHG:  – oh!

Carrie:  Oh!

RHG:  OH!

Carrie:  Oh!

RHG:  Oh.  I mean, it’s still late, but it’s not, like, late-late.

Sarah:  No, the, you know, the, the, the go-, the red carpet is always, like, I always feel horrible because it’s, it’s, like, 3:30 in the afternoon.

RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  It must be hot as fuck –

Carrie:  Oh, yeah.

Sarah:  – and they have all these gowns on.  I’m like, there must be somebody who’s, like, spritzing them and then hosing them off so they’re not sweaty and gross, and then the men wearing tuxes, I always feel really bad for them.

Elyse:  Celebrities don’t sweat, Sarah.

Sarah:  That’s true, I forgot, they’re aliens.

RHG:  They, yes.

Sarah:  I love how many paranormal worlds there are where the explanation for that, you know, preternatural beauty and style and being famous is that you’re either an alien, you’re a Valkyrie, you are some other non-human creature, and that’s the explanation for your fame.

Amanda:  ‘Cause humans are gross!

Carrie or Elyse:  Right.

RHG:  Humans are disgusting.

Elyse:  We are disgusting –

Amanda:  We’re gross.

Elyse:  – and no one wants to take, you know, like, think about the fact that, like, Brad Pitt poops like everybody else does.  We just pretend like he doesn’t.

Sarah:  He, he does not, come on.  He’s an alien.

Elyse:  He survives, he survives off the, the dew of morning flowers.

Amanda:  But you know there’s at least one person who probably gets off on the fact that Brad Pitt does poop.

Sarah:  Oh, there’s more than one person.

RHG:  Yes.

Elyse:  Oh, I’m sure there’s –

RHG:  There’s more than one, definitely.

Elyse:  There’s fanfiction out there.

Amanda:  Yeah.  At least, yeah.

Elyse:  For sure.

RHG:  Absolutely.  And if there wasn’t, there is now, ‘cause Rule 34.

Sarah:  Sorry!

Elyse:  I’m glad we took those – it’s, it’s always my responsibility to take it to a gross place.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  I appreciate that you do that.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Elyse:  Thank you.

Sarah:  Good job.  Way to take us to somewhere nasty.

Elyse:  You’re welcome.

Sarah:  So what’s the best thing that you’ve attended so far?  Given that it’s not over yet, and the Avon party is tonight –

Somebody:  Whoo!

RHG:  The Avon party’s tonight.

Sarah:  – and –

Elyse:  And the Avon party is always amazing.

RHG and Somebody Else:  Yes.

Sarah:  Well, it’s their diamond anniversary, so they are, they’re like, they’re –

Elyse:  So I get diamonds?

Amanda:  Yes.

Sarah:  Well, at the gambling night?  The casino night?

Amanda:  They had rings.

Carrie:  They had –

Sarah:  They had little cubic zirconia solitaires to give out.  Everyone got a little diamond ring.

Elyse:  That’s adorables!

Sarah:  Isn’t it?

Elyse:  It is!

Sarah:  So cute!  So, it’s their diamond anniversary; they’re promoting all the older classic romances –

Somebody:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and their party is always awesome, so that hasn’t happened yet –

Elyse:  Right.

Sarah:  – but up until now, what’s the best thing you guys have done?

Carrie:  Is it tacky to, like, mention one of our panels?

Sarah:  No!

Carrie:  ‘Cause it’s true!

Elyse:  Yeah.

Sarah:  No.

Carrie:  I, I am not –

Sarah:  I mean, I don’t think so.

Carrie:  – tooting my own horn, because I had no part in putting it together, so I feel l can say this safely:  that reader rec part was a blast.

Sarah:  Oh, I’m so glad!

RHG:  That was amazing.

Carrie:  And when, when Sarah said, so does anybody have a book they want to recommend?  And this sea of hands, like, shot into the air!  I was like, this is the most satisfying moment ever.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Elyse:  And it was definitely, like, oh, I am among my people, ‘cause someone would say, Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie, and the whole room went, AHHH!

RHG:  And, like, everyone –

Somebody:  Whoo!

RHG:  – go AHHH!

Elyse:  It was like being at a revival, like –

Carrie:  And there’s, like, a whole special –

Sarah:  Can I get an amen!

[Laughter]

Carrie:  There was, like, good Julia Quinn noise.

Sarah:  Yes.

Carrie:  Somebody brought up Julie Quinn, and there was a little susurrus going across the room – [susurrus] – and I’m like, why are they all talking when she’s trying to talk, and there was, oh, no, it’s okay, it’s cool.  That’s the Julia Quinn noise.

Sarah and RHG:  Yes.

Sarah:  There were, I actually started listing in my head the order of noises?  So there was the, Oh, I love that book! noise, good book noise, and then there was good book gasp, like – [gasp] – oh, my God, I forgot about that book!  Oh, I’m just –

[good book susurrus]

Sarah:  – and then there was the, the very subtle noise of pens clicking –

Carrie:  Yes.

Sarah:  – so that people could write down what –

RHG:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – so, I want to recommend a Cecelia Tan series, which is like a Harry Potter boarding school, only with sex magic?

[swooshing sound effect]

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And you hear this room of click-click-click-click-click, scribble-scribble-scribble, ‘cause people just start writing stuff down.

Carrie:  And I’m, I’m pretty sure that at least three of us were like, well, that ends this panel; we have things to do now.

Sarah:  Well, thanks very much!

RHG:  Thanks, bye!

Carrie:  Bye!

Sarah:  Thanks very much.

RHG:  Here, we’re just going to throw this swag –

Carrie:  Bye!  Right?

Sarah:  Tip your waiters and waitresses on the way out.  We’ve got to go read!

[Laughter]

Carrie:  Yeah, we’re –

Elyse:  I seriously feel like someone at Amazon is like, all our algorithms got really fucked up during this one hour –

[Laughter]

Elyse:  – and we don’t understand what happened!

Sarah:  You want to hear something funny?

Somebody:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Someone told me that after – so, you remember when Harlequin put the list of books on sale that we had all recommended?

Everybody:  Yeah, yes.

Sarah:  Someone told me that they bought one of them, and then the You Would Also Like was every single other book we had suggested.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  That’s awesome!

Sarah:  Like, it was just its own little set.  I was like, we fucked up –

RHG:  Holy shit!

Sarah:  – we fucked up the Amazon algorithm?  Oh, my God!

Carrie:  That’s great.

Sarah:  Yeah, the reader recommendation party is, was fun because I think there are a lot of panels where people talk at the audience –

RHG:  Right.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and the interaction is minimal, and like, okay, (a) I have a ridiculous number of panels, and I’m lucky I still have my voice as of today, but I don’t want to listen to me for an hour.  Like, I don’t want to listen to me talking for an hour.  I want other people –

RHG:  She says, recording a podcast.

Sarah:  Right, well, I keep asking you questions.

RHG:  Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  And I want other people to have a chance to talk, because there’s so much talking at –

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and then if you’re in a party, there’s not enough time to talk, because everyone wants to talk to everybody for a little bit, and I, I suck at crowds and small talk, so that’s not my thing.  When you’re, when you say, oh, I want to hear from you, I want to hear from you, I want to – people are, like, relaxed, plus there’re snacks.  Snacks are important.  So I’m really glad you liked it.  I had a really good time.

Elyse:  How amazing is this?  I had two separate people come up to me afterwards, and they were like, so you were looking for good tentacle porn books.  Here’s the list I have compiled for you.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  Right?  And I’m like, I, I –

Carrie:  So, Elyse, you are sharing that with me, right?

Elyse:  Yeah, obviously.

Carrie:  Oh, yes, obviously.

Elyse:  Yeah, no, no.

Carrie:  Yeah, no, like, we have this –

Sarah:  I’m going to have to write more to keep my crown, huh?

RHG:  Yes.

Elyse:  You, you’re going to have to.

Carrie:  Yeah.  Like –

Sarah:  You know, I wrote that on my birthday.  I have very vivid memories of writing tentacle porn.

[Laughter]

Carrie:  Elyse and I were talking at one point to Joyfully Jay, and we were talking about tentacle porn, and this conversation, like, got more and more detailed and graphic, but we were all talking in, like, completely matter-of-fact, like, clinical terms, like –

Sarah:  Oh, my God.  Please –

Carrie:  – like, you know, every individual tentacle, like, can, can taste and –

Sarah:  Yes.

Elyse:  Right.

Carrie:  – so if it goes up the butt – but we’re saying this in exactly the same tone as if we’d say, you know, the weather is a little bit cooler than I expected –

Elyse:  Right.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Carrie:  – for Las Vegas at this time of year –

Elyse:  So –

Carrie:  – and I just, like, yeah, this is great.

Elyse:  – we’re standing at the Harlequin party, like, holding wine and trays of cheese and dried fruits, talking –

Sarah:  And, and flowers that were made out of meat!

Elyse:  – and –

Sarah:  They had sculpted all the pieces of meat into big –

Carrie:  They sculpted the, yeah.

Sarah:  – flowers of meat, which would be a really good sort of book title for something quite edgy.  Anyway.

Elyse:  Right.  So we’re talking very seriously about the fact that Carrie and I have watched an ocyopus, octopus documentary, and octopuses, -pi, can taste with their –

RHG:  Oc-, octopodes.

Elyse:  – octopodes can taste with their tentacles, and so that really brings the whole tentacle butt sex thing to a very disturbing place –

Carrie:  Right, yeah.

RHG:  [Laughs]

Elyse:  – and as Jay and Carrie and I were all mulling this over at the same time, we’re all like, so, he can taste the inside of your ass –

[Laughter]

Elyse:  – this dude, this dude, like, super buttoned-up dude walks by and looks at us like, what the fuck is going on over here?

[More laughter]

RHG:  And you’re like, sir –

Sarah:  And this is the first day.

RHG:  – sir – [laughs]

Sarah:  This is the first day, it’s, like, Tuesday night, so you were –

Elyse:  Right.

Sarah:  – you – [laughs] – you set the bar really high –

Elyse:  Thank you!

Sarah:  – for every following conversation.

Carrie:  Every following conversation.

Sarah:  Tentacle butt tasting.

Carrie and RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So which panels have you enjoyed, other than the reader party?  Amanda, is there something you were like, this is awesome?

Amanda:  I haven’t really attended any panels, actually.  I’ve been running around.  I went to the Kensington Chapel of Love, which wasn’t really a panel, just –

Elyse:  A party.

Amanda:  – a big free-for-all.

RHG:  It was a party.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Carrie:  Party, yeah.

Amanda:  And then I went to the Bad Boys party thing, which was very uncomfortable.  And the handcuff was very uncomfortable.

Carrie:  Oh-ho-ho!

Elyse:  Wait, they handcuffed you?

Amanda:  Going into the thing –

Sarah:  Kind of disturbing.

Amanda:  So I had, like, a mini freak out, ‘cause I couldn’t get the handcuff off.  So they handcuff you, and it was full of cover models, and the cover model –

Carrie:  And what, they handcuff you to what?

Amanda:  Nothing!

Amanda and Elyse:  They just put a handcuff on you.

Elyse:  Okay.

Amanda:  And they’re like, go on in, bad girl, and I’m like, no.

Amanda and Carrie:  Ohhh, um.

Amanda:  So –

[Laughter]

Amanda:  – I, it was one of those things where you, like, get all these authors’ signatures, enter a drawing once you get all the signatures.  So anyway –

Carrie:  Right.

Amanda:  – I bailed, I left.  And on the way back, I run into two of the Australians that we met at the blogger symposium, and I still have this handcuff on my wrist, and I’m like, shit.  I don’t know how I’m supposed to get this off.  ‘Cause I know, I used to have, like, fake handcuffs or whatever, like, as a child –

Carrie:  Right, of course.

Somebody: Yeah.

Amanda:  – and, like, if you, you, it used to be, like, if you press it in all the way, it’ll pop back out.

Elyse:  Right.

Amanda:  So I pressed it in all the way –

Elyse:  And now it’s just really tight.

Amanda:  – and now it’s just, like –

RHG:  It’s tight.

Amanda:  – cutting off circulation to my wrist.

[Laughter]

Carrie:  Oh, no!

Amanda:  So I’m very tired, I’m standing with these two equally tired Australian women, and they’re like, oh, my God.  Like, what?  Like, I’m freaking out.  It was like, did that help?  Like, no, it’s just tighter now.

Sarah:  Just cut her hand off.  Just –

Amanda:  It’s just tighter now!

[Laughter]

Amanda:  And it just –

Carrie:  I have a pocketknife in my purse.  Just, let’s go.

Amanda:  I had, like, a mini, like, meltdown at, like –

Elyse:  Amanda’s picturing, she’s, like, got a 127 Hours this bitch.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Just cut off her hand.  She’ll be fine.

Amanda:  So I haven’t really attended any panels.  Like, we’ve been doing our own.  So today is my big free day, so I have tons of panels to go to today.  I’m looking forward to the, like, comedy romance panel?  So there’s Alice Clayton and Christina Lauren, so people who write, like, contemporary romances with lots of humor, so I’m looking forward to that?

Sarah:  Contemporary comedy romance is the best!

Amanda:  Yeah, so, but I haven’t really attended anything.  I really loved all the panels we’ve done.  Our reader recommendation party was great.  I had, like, my Goodreads app open on the, my phone the entire time.

[Laughter]

Somebody:  Oh, yeah.

Amanda:  So –

Elyse:  Good, ‘cause I went straight to Amazon.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Carrie:  Oh, yeah.

Amanda:  I was saving it for later.

Sarah:  [Laughs] We were in O Amazon, by the way; our room was O Amazon.

RHG:  Yeah.

Amanda:  [Laughs] I think that was a coincidence.

Elyse:  Or, was it O Amazon, or was it Amazon, oh?

[Laughter]

Sarah and RHG:  Both.

Amanda:  So I would say, I would echo Carrie and say our own panel –

RHG:  Yeah.

Amanda:  – was probably my favorite so far.  It was great!

Elyse:  I think my favorite RT moment so far was, I got a text from one of my coworkers, and of course immediately, like, my blood pressure starts going up.  Like, why are you texting me?  I’m not here; I’m on vacation!  And she –

Sarah:  I know you’re on vacation, but –

Elyse:  But delete.

Carrie:  But –

RHG:  Right.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  So she texts me, hey, I know you’re on vacation, but my, I told my daughter where you are, and her favorite YA author is there, and it’s – I think I’m pronouncing her last name right – Colleen Houck?  And she writes the Tiger Rising series, and she said, if you could get, like, her to sign a bookmark or something, my daughter would be super grateful, so I met with her, and I just said, hey, I’ve got this girl back home who really, really loves your books, and so she signed Tiger Rising for me, and she gave her an ARC of a book coming out this summer and was just, like, super, super –

Carrie:  Ohhh!

Elyse:  – sweet and generous, and I sent pictures, and her mom texted back, like, oh, she’s hyperventilating right now!  So –

[Laughter]

Elyse:  But that’s like, that’s what RT is.  Like, authors are excited to interact with their fans, and they’re super nice, and they want to talk to you, and they want to sign things for your, and they want to sign things for your best friend who’s back home, and they want to sign things for your mom, and they’re excited to engage with the readers.  It’s not – I think, like, approaching authors, the thing I get most often is, like, why, why are you squeeing?  Like, I’m a normal person, don’t – you’re freaking me out a little.  Right?

RHG:  [Laughs] And you’re like, you don’t understand; you saved my sanity that one time.  I said that to Zoe Archer, and she was like, oh, let me give you a hug!  This is my husband Nico, who I’d met at the Harlequin party the night before, and I’m like, no, no, no.  We’re, Nico and I, we’re old, old friends, like, hours.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

RHG:  Hours old, and Nico’s like, yes.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yep, yep.

Carrie:  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Sarah:  Pretty much.  [Laughs]

Elyse:  But everyone is really approachable and really, really, really nice.  Like, no one will be –

Amanda:  Yeah.

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Elyse:  – shitty to you for walking up to ‘em –

Carrie:  No.

Elyse:  – and saying, I love your book or –

Sarah:  No.  That’s why they’re here.

Elyse and RHG:  Yes.

Sarah:  The other thing I’ve noticed is a lot of mother-and-daughters attending together, sisters attending together.

Elyse:  Super sweet.

Amanda:  Yeah, it’s adorable.  I’d never do it personally.

RHG:  Right.

[Laughter]

Amanda:  But it’s adorable.

Sarah:  At the party, there was a, oh, my mom’s here!  We’re like, everybody, it’s a mom!

RHG:  Oh, yeah, it’s hi, Mom!

Everybody:  Hi, mom!

Sarah:  Mom, your seat’s over here, so you’re –

Amanda:  I ran into her in the bathroom.  I was like, hi, Mom!

[Laughter]

RHG:  And she’s like, no, not weird at all.

[More laughter]

Sarah:  And so you have, like, moms and daughters attending together, ‘cause they all read the same books, and you have sisters attending together ‘cause they all –

Somebody:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and I’m like, the fact that people take five or six days off and go to a vacation about books, and then they bring their mom, is just the best thing.

Somebody:  Yeah.

Amanda:  This makes me want to, like, bring my brother.

Sarah:  Oh, my God, please, yes!

RHG:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  It’s not even that he reads romance, but he would, he’s very buttoned up.  He’s a very serious 22-year-old boy, very serious.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  You can’t joke about sex, you can’t –

RHG:  So –

Amanda:  So –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Did he listen to your Tinder podcast?

Amanda:  So, okay, I have totally embarrassed him, because we do have a lot of mutual friends, we grew up in a very small town, and my friends would also kind of be his friends.  Like, they’d hang out with him and stuff like that.

Somebody:  Mm-hmm.

Amanda:  So we have a lot of mutual friends, and –

Sarah:  You’re not that far apart in age, too.

Amanda:  Four to five years.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Amanda:  So, I will promote my stuff that I do on Smart Bitches on my Facebook –

Sarah:  Yes?

Amanda:  – and I did post about my Tinder podcast, and so one of his friends, who’s also his roommate that went to the same high school, like, saw it, and I don’t know if he listened to it, I don’t know if he whatever, so, he, like, I felt bad ‘cause he was teasing my brother relentlessly –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Carrie:  Oh, no!

Amanda:  – had he listened to, like, his sister’s sex podcast?

Carrie:  Ohhh!

Amanda:  And my brother was so embarrassed.  He was so embarrassed.

Sarah:  You should totally bring him to RT and bring him to the party where you get a handcuff.

RHG:  Yes.

Elyse:  Absolutely.

Amanda:  He, oh, my God, he’d be mortified.

[Laughter]

RHG:  It’s like, pumpkin, sex is hilarious.  [Laughs]

Amanda:  Mortified.  He’s just a very serious kid!

Carrie:  We never actually heard how you did get the handcuff off.

Elyse:  Right.

Amanda:  Oh, there’s, like, a teeny tiny latch.  It looks like –

Carrie:  Oh.

Amanda:  – a piece of broken plastic.

RHG:  Oh, uh-huh.

Carrie:  Okay.

Amanda:  So that’s why I didn’t, like –

Sarah:  See it right away?

Somebody:  Yeah.

Amanda:  Yeah, ‘cause the handcuffs come in a pair, and it looks like they just ripped them apart, and they put one –

Sarah:  Okay.

Amanda:  – cuff on each person, so I didn’t know if it was just, like, jagged plastic, is this the latch?

Somebody:  Yeah.

Amanda:  So I, obviously, I did get it off, still have my hand attached, for those listening who can’t see me –

RHG:  The, the handcuff is, yes.

Amanda:  – I still have both hands.

RHG:  And the, the handcuff is currently sitting on the bathroom –

Amanda:  On the sink, yeah.

RHG:  – sink counter in our room.

Amanda:  I just, like, I was, like, tossed it on there.

RHG:  Right.  And I woke up, and I was like, I don’t –

Amanda:  There’s a handcuff here!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

RHG:  What?

Sarah:  Happened?

RHG:  Never mind.

[Laughter]

Amanda:  You, you slept through everything!

RHG:  I did sleep through everything!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s, it’s good that you’re a sound sleeper.

Elyse:  And you’re definitely among your people.  Carrie and I were talking about, we are in the most, like, exciting city possibly in the United States, and one night we’re like, let’s watch this documentary on octopodes!

[Laughter]

Elyse:  Right?

Carrie:  Yeah.

Elyse:  And that’s totally what we do!  So –

Sarah and Carrie:  Yeah.

Elyse:  – you’re among your, you’re among your own kind.

Sarah:  And also, you don’t actually have super amounts of interest in leaving the hotel and going –

Elyse:  No.

Sarah:  – to do Vegas stuff –

Amanda:  No.

Sarah:  – when the book stuff is happening?

Elyse and RHG:  Right.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Elyse:  Right.  This is definitely, this is a vacation with books.  It’s amazing, and it’s totally cool to say with people, like, I need to go read now, and that’s not, like, a social faux pas.  That’s like a, yes, we understand, go do that.

Carrie:  Yes, we know, go, go.

RHG:  Yep.

Sarah:  Oh, no.

RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I am, I am powering through so many books right now.  Like, I am reading so much.  Partially ‘cause I wake up at, like, six in the goddamn morning, ‘cause I’m in the wrong time zone.  My brain’s like, hey, it’s 9 a.m.!  Let’s wake up!

RHG:  It’s time to get up!  Great.

Sarah:  No.  No.  No.

RHG:  [Laughs] It’s two in the morning; it’s time to go to bed.  It’s eleven.  It’s TWO IN THE MORNING!  Go to sleep!

Sarah:  Yep.

Elyse:  I normally get tired, like, start getting sleepy at 8:30, so 6:30 rolls around, and I’m like, I’m just going to lie down next to my dinner and look at it.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  It’s so pretty.

Sarah:  So what, what books have you picked up, or are you looking for?  ‘Cause I noticed – we talked about this – that there are fewer books this year.

Everybody:  There are.

Carrie:  – a lot fewer books.

Elyse:  So I want to clarify, though, that, like, we all get access to a lot of books –

Carrie:  Yeah.

Elyse:  – so we’re not being whiny –

Sarah:  No.

Elyse:  – but if I were,  I, I, if I were a reader and I came here, and, I guess I would have the expectation of, like, not needing to bring a ton of books with me.

Amanda:  Especially if you came here after going to last year’s.  Like, if this was –

Elyse and RHG:  Right.

Carrie:  Yeah.

Amanda:  – like, your second or third, like –

Elyse:  Right.  You don’t want to drag around a trunk full of books, hoping you’ll meet your favorite author and they’ll sign that book.  You kind of hope that they have the book with them –

Everybody:  [Agreeing noises]

Elyse:  – and that’s what they did last year.  Kensington had tons of books at their party; that was really awesome.  Avon always, like, knocks it out of the park.  But there were a couple panels, or a couple parties, where you got to meet authors and have stuff signed that they didn’t have books, which I thought was a little odd?

Sarah:  Different.

RHG:  A little odd.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Carrie:  A little odd.

RHG:  Yeah.

Elyse:  But I’ve also heard, like, multiple freak-out conversations about the shipping and receiving having issues, so I don’t know necessarily, it’s like, I didn’t plan on bringing books, or we don’t know where they went.

Somebody:  Yep.

Sarah:  But there are, I’ve noticed fewer events with lots of books.

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Elyse:  Right.

Sarah:  But I’ve also noticed more pop-up signings.

Elyse and Carrie:  Yes.

Amanda:  Yeah, I feel like that wasn’t a thing last year.

Everybody:  It wasn’t.

Sarah:  No.  Well, I think – this is all, this is all conjecture, but I think that what happens is you have a famous author on a panel, and then they have a couple of books to sign, and then they get a line at the end of the panel, and there’s another panel that needs to start.

RHG and Carrie:  Right.

Elyse:  Sure.

Sarah:  So if they move the signing part off the panel and out into the hallways, where – and the lines are –

Amanda:  Long.

Sarah:  – huuuge!

Carrie:  Huge.

RHG:  Yes.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And usually you see a line at RT, like, oh, what’s this for?  It’s a ticketed pop-up signing, so you can’t just jump into the line –

Amanda:  Yeah.

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – you have to have had a ticket, so on one hand, it’s exclusive and you have to be in the right place to get your ticket, but on the other hand, there are a lot of books at the pop-up signings.

Amanda:  Yes.

Elyse:  And I, like, I don’t follow the pop-up signing on social media, I totally just chanced into two happening near me, and so I got Kresley Cole to sign something –

Amanda:  I owe you some butt touches.

Elyse:  You do owe me some butt touches.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  – and I also got Robin Carr to sign something, and it was, like, totally unplanned, so there are lots of, like, author interactions just – you don’t have to, like, author stalk.  They just kind of happen around you organically.

RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I also wonder if the decreased number of physical books is because so many of us read eBooks.

Elyse:  It could be.

Sarah:  Like, I mean, on one hand, the, the, the physical book is like a, a memento of having met the author, and you know, it makes a great gift for your friend?

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  But I know, for example, at the Avon party, they’re going to turn on a service where people can sign and send an eBook to someone else or to themselves.  I mean, they’d done that in the past; I’m presuming they’re doing it this year.

Amanda:  So, last year at the Avon party, when people ran out of books, they had cards with a digital download, so you still got a copy of the book, but it was digital only, which I thought was a good idea.  However, Kensington, at their thing, plenty of authors ran out of books really quickly, and they didn’t have, like, a substitute.

Sarah:  A backup.

Amanda:  They didn’t have an eBook version –

Carrie:  Yeah, backup, yeah.

Amanda:  – they didn’t have anything.  Like, I approached one table, I think, I was telling you before the podcast.  I was super interested in this book, the cover was cool, it, and the author was gone.  Like, she wasn’t even at the table anymore.  Like –

Sarah:  Yep.

Amanda:  – since the books ran out, she just left, and she just left her, like, promo there.  And so, like, what if I wanted to talk to her?  Like, you know, that sort of thing.  Like, maybe she was in the bathroom, but I was there for, like, fifteen minutes, and –

Sarah:  Nope.

Amanda:  – she never came back, so, like, you know, maybe I’ll email her after, but there wasn’t, like, a plan B.

Somebody:  Right.

Sarah:  Have you guys noticed less promo?

Several Bitches:  No –

Sarah:  You think it’s about the same?

Amanda:  Same level.

RHG:  No, yeah.

Elyse:  So what, so what’s the best swag you’ve gotten?

RHG:  Pens.  [Laughs]

Amanda:  Pair of headphones.

Elyse:  Nice!

Sarah:  Ooh!

Amanda:  I can’t, I think it’s in the swag bag that you get.

RHG:  It’s in the swag bag, yeah.

Elyse:  Like, earbuds?

Amanda:  Yeah, earbuds.  I thought those were good.

Sarah:  I’m glad I didn’t do that this year.  I was thinking about doing that!  Who were they from, do you remember?

RHG:  No.

Amanda:  A publisher.  I thought maybe, like, Swoon or Entangled?

Sarah:  Oh.

RHG:  Yeah, that sounds right.

Amanda:  I think, I think.

Sarah:  That’s a cool promo.

RHG:  Yeah.

Amanda:  I’m not sure.  But I think that’s my favorite.  And I always love bottle openers.  I think Shayla Black and Lexi Blake –

Carrie:  Oh, yeah.

Amanda:  – gave out a little heart bottle opener keychain, and I still have it on my keychain, and I use it all the fucking time.

RHG:  ‘Cause she’s a lush.

Amanda:  ‘Cause I’m, yeah, I drink a lot.

[Laughter]

Amanda:  So –

Sarah:  As you do.

RHG:  Yep.

Amanda:  Yeah!

RHG:  And there’s a bunch of people with hand sanitizer.

Elyse:  Which is great.

Amanda:  Yeah, that’s, that’s also really great.

Sarah:  That’s very smart, ‘cause you know –

Amanda:  I thought it was a tube of bubbles, but –

RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Nope.  Conference crud.

Carrie:  No.  I –

Elyse:  Hand sanitizer and ChapStick, and I didn’t –

Somebody:  Yeah.

Elyse:  – I love ChapStick because I feel like I can have fourteen of them in my purse, and they’ll all be gone by morning.

Everybody:  [General agreement]

Elyse:  And the ChapStick Fairy came and took them, and I’ll never find them again.

[Laughs]

Amanda:  You’ll never finish a tube of ChapStick.

RHG:  Nope.

Elyse:  Never.

Amanda:  Never.  You’ll lose it before then.

Carrie:  Never going to happen.

RHG:  Nope.  I bought a tube two days ago, and I lost it yesterday morning.  I know exactly where I lost it.

Sarah:  It’s gone.

RHG:  It’s gone.

Amanda:  So I have the best tube of ChapStick, and it’s like this Blistex vanilla, like, hydrating thing?  And Eric and I have dubbed it the zoodle, like a zucchini noodle?  I don’t even know how we came up with this name, and I swear, I have had so many close calls where, like, it’s fallen out of my purse or out of my pocket, and I always have, like, a mini heart attack.  I was like, have I lost the zoodle?  I can’t find the zoodle!

[Laughter]

Amanda:  And then, like, I’ll find it under my bed or, like, in my laundry, and I’m like –

Sarah:  I stash lip balms in lots of pockets inside my purse –

Carrie:  Oh, yeah.

Sarah:  – so I always have, like, eight?  But if they don’t make it back to the right pocket, I just assume they’re all gone.  Not just one, all of them.  What about you, Carrie?  What swag have you picked up?

Carrie:  Well, I do rely on this convention for my year’s worth of ballpoint pens, so that’s –

Sarah:  Very important!

Carrie:  – always a classic –

Carrie and Sarah:  – yes.

Carrie:  I would say the most fun, creative swag – well, okay, there’s two:  so the Kensington party had a deck of cards?

Elyse:  Oh, yeah.

Amanda:  Oh, that was cool, yeah.

Carrie:  I don’t know if anybody’s opened their deck of cards –

Somebody:  No.

Carrie:  – ‘cause at first it was like, okay, well, this is cute.  It’s Vegas, it’s a deck of cards, okay, fine.  And that wasn’t, like, super exciting, but who doesn’t need another deck of cards?

Somebody:  Yes.

Carrie:  So yeah. But if you open it, it’s a standard playing deck of cards; you can play a card game with it, but on every card is one or two different, every single one is different, romance novel covers from their line.

RHG:  Nice!

Amanda:  That’s cool!

Carrie:  It is so clever, ‘cause that means with every card, your eyes are on another one of their products.  Plus, it just looks cool.  It’s very bright and colorful and fun and –

Sarah:  Makes counting cards super easy.

RHG:  Hmm.

Amanda:  It’s a hot pink deck of cards.

Carrie:  – ties into Vegas and –

Sarah:  Like, I’m thinking –

Elyse:  Well, it’s on the face of the card.  The back is, the backs of the cards all have the same image.

Amanda:  It’s a hot pink.  Right.

Sarah:  Oh, I was going to say, that’ll make counting cards and –

Elyse:  So, like –

Sarah:  – knowing other people’s hands, but well, I see the man-titty with the sword –

Carrie:  No, the back is, the back is all the same.

RHG:  Yeah.

Amanda:  Right.

Sarah:  – that’s the two of clubs!

Elyse:  Yeah, so, like, the –

Sarah:   Oh, so it’s the front side –

Somebody:  It’s the face.

Carrie:  Right.

Sarah:  – the face.

Elyse:  So, like, the joker, the joker has, like, Sonali Dev’s latest book in the center of the card.

Sarah:  So it’s like the –

Somebody:  Right.

Sarah:  – the, the face of the card has a different book.

Elyse:  Right.  It’s like-

Sarah:  That’s serious swag!

Elyse:  That’s some serious swag.

RHG:  Yep.

Carrie:  That’s some serious swag.  I thought that was so clever and an, a kind of inventive way to take a really simple piece of swag and make a really effective marketing tool?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Carrie:  Also, my friends have their little business card, but it’s attached to a big strip of romance novel magnetic poetry?  You know those little magnets?

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Ahhh.

Carrie:  Which I plan to have a really good time with.

Elyse:  But it’s, like, dirty poetry –

Amanda:  Oh, hell yes!

Elyse:  – which makes it even more fun.  Dirty French poetry.

Carrie:  Oh, it is awesome.

Amanda:  It’ll look great –

RHG:  Yeah.

Amanda:  – next to my dick of magnets that I got last year.

[Laughter]

Amanda:  I got, like, a full, like, sheet of those one thousand and white, One Thousand and One Night magnets?  Like, twenty magnets.

Elyse:  Right.

Amanda:  And so I just made, like, a giant penis out of them on my fridge.

Carrie:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  And it’s still there.

Carrie:  As one does.

Sarah:  I think we all need to go visit Amanda.

RHG:  Yeah.

Carrie:  Absolutely.

Elyse:  I think so too.

Sarah:  I also think there’re two kinds of swag?  So there’s the, the kind of swag that is a status thing while you’re at the conference, like the, the sparkly buttons or the sparkly strip of gems for your name badge –

Somebody:  Mm-hmm.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – or a pin that is really funny or, one year, years and years ago, I think it was Ellora’s Cave, they gave out little digital marquees, and so you could, like, the, the words would scroll by –

Amanda:  That’s –

Carrie:  Oh!

Sarah:  – and so they came programmed with something, but you could, I think you could also set it to say something else?

Carrie:  Oh, how cute!

Sarah:  And so you’d have this, like, scrolling digital marquee on your name badge, which (a) increases the amount of people who are staring at your chest, ‘cause that’s where your name badge is, and (2) it really stands out, ‘cause it’s lights and it’s moving –

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – so there’s, like, the swag that you get at the conference, somebody has something cool that’s a status symbol at the conference, ‘cause you got the cool thing, and then there’s the stuff that’s like, this is fricking useful, and I am never getting rid of this.  And it has a lifespan after the conference.

Elyse:  One of them, one of the parties gave out, it’s shaped like a teapot, which is adorable, but it’s a little pocket tape measure?

RHG:  Yep.

Carrie:  Yes.

Sarah:  Oohhh!

Elyse:  And if you are, like, a knitter or a crafter, then you know that your tape measures disappear to the same, like, fourth dimension where your ChapSticks go –

RHG:  Yep.

Elyse:  – and you never have one –

Carrie:  Right, yeah.

Elyse:  – when you need one.

Carrie:  Yeah.

RHG:  Yep.

Amanda:  I’m surprised by the lack of mugs.

RHG:  I know.

Amanda:  I brought home a lot of mugs and coffee cups.

Carrie:  I love mugs.

RHG:  I brought, yeah.

Sarah:  But mugs are expensive!

RHG and Somebody:  Yeah.

Amanda:  They’re, but they’re, like, good quality mugs

RHG:  Yeah!

Amanda:  Like, I used the crap out of these mugs.

Carrie:  I never took the mugs last year.

RHG:  I know, I got –

Amanda:  I got, like, two or three.

RHG:  – I got two, yeah.

Carrie:  Wow!

Sarah:  Well, it’s a, it’s a good, like, substantial swag item to get instead of a book?

RHG and Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And I don’t know, maybe, maybe because this is so far –

Amanda:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and it’s such an expensive place to be –

Elyse:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and it’s such an expensive conference that the swag is slightly less substantial?  I don’t know –

Somebody and RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – totally guessing.  This is the first year I’ve done swag, so I am, like, super excited.

RHG:  Yeah, I’m bringing swag and books home for the Boston meet-up group, and so I’m, like, grabbing things by the handful.

[Laughter]

RHG:  I’m like, five of the magnetic poetry things, and I grabbed four packs of cards, and you Bitches better take some of it, ‘cause I don’t want it live, have it all live at my house.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, yes.

Elyse:  I’m being a lot more decisive in terms of what books I’m bringing home, so I have –

Amanda:  I’m bring back –

Carrie:  Oh, yeah, same here.

Elyse:  – I have, like, probably ten books that are, I’m going to read, and then I do have some that I’m bringing home for friends or family members or coworkers.

Amanda:  I mean, I feel like the next, like, batch of books I’ll get are the Avon party, which I can pick and choose what I want –

RHG:  Mm-hmm.

Somebody:  Right.

Amanda:  – and then we have, like, that Berkley blogger thing, which’ll probably give out copies of books there, but that’s, like, my last stash of books, and that probably won’t be more than, like, maybe four.

Elyse:  Yeah –

RHG:  Yeah, there’re some people at the Avon book party that I’m getting books for friends.  Like, I have a friend who, she, we did Romance 101 for her last year, and that was Tessa Dare, so now we’re doing 201, so I’m going to grab her some Eva Leigh.

Sarah:  Very smart.

Amanda:  I love not having friends who read romance, ‘cause I don’t have to give them shit.  Like, I don’t –

[Laughter]

RHG:  I’m very discerning about who, it’s like, do I like you enough to actually have to haul my ass to the post office and buy a stamp for you?  If I don’t like you that much, I’m not going to be getting you a book.  So that’s like –

Amanda:  It’s a good barometer.

RHG:  – four people.

Carrie:  Good barometer.

Amanda:  A good friendship barometer.

Sarah:  You know, you can log in and do a postage on a piece of paper and print it at home and then just put it in your mailbox.

RHG:  That’s adorable; that’s –

Sarah:  Still too much ef-

RHG:  – that’s too much fucking effort, Sarah.  Also, my printer –

Amanda:  Why waste valuable printer ink on them?

RHG:  – my printer – [laughs] – that, that –

Amanda:  You want postal service –

RHG:  – and my printer isn’t wireless, and I need to buy paper.

Sarah:  I understand.

RHG:  And my printer isn’t wireless, so I have to haul it out of its cubby and then plug it in.  It’s work.

Elyse:  My eReader chose this conference to start its death rattle?

Carrie:  Oh, no.

RHG:  [Laughs]

Elyse:  Yes, so –

Sarah:  Which is convenient, ‘cause the new Kindle’s been announced, but it’s $300.

Somebody:  What the hell.

Elyse:  Someone fucking explain to me why, not, this is not a tablet, it is their E Ink, most recent Kindle, is $289.  It’s like, I feel like the less it weighs, the more it costs.  Like, we deducted two ounces; therefore, here’s another $189 you have to pay.

Sarah:  Ask Apple.

Elyse:  And I’m afraid to buy a Nook, or I won’t buy a Nook –

Sarah:  Do not.

Everybody:  [Variations on no, don’t do that.]

Elyse:  – because Barnes and Noble is dying.  It’s, sadly –

Sarah:  The Nook stuff is certainly dying.

Elyse:  – Nook stuff is dying, so I bought a Kindle Voyage, and it’s on its way now, but –

Sarah:  Did you have it sent here, or did you have it sent home?

Elyse:  I had it sent home, so I’ve got enough to get me, like, through the flight and home, but –

Amanda:  God speed.

Elyse:  – my eReader’s doing this thing where it’s like, mm, you want a highlight something?

RHG:  No.

Elyse:  No.  You want to change the font type?  Keep pressing that button; nothing will happen.  Now I’m going to restart for no reason whatsoever!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Somebody:  Oh, my gosh.

Elyse:  Right?  Now all of a sudden the screen’s getting really dim, and we don’t know why.  NOW IT’S REALLY BRIGHT!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Elyse:  Right, it’s like there’s, it’s been possessed.  It’s been possessed by the spirit of Guy Fieri since we got here!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  He’s –

Everybody:  – everywhere.

Amanda:  Can I just say, like, I’m dying to eat as his, eat at his restaurant?  None of these ladies will support me –

Sarah:  I’ll go.

Amanda:  – in going –

Carrie:  We always support you.

Amanda:  Yeah, I was –

Sarah:  I, I actually talked to somebody and found out what to order that’s good and what not to order ‘cause it’s terrible.

Amanda:  And I don’t want to be alone eating in a Guy Fieri restaurant.

Sarah:  You don’t want to be alone with Guy?  You know he’s going to be there.

Amanda:  The, the lowest I will have ever been in my life is eating alone at a Guy Fieri restaurant.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  No, Guy Fieri –

Sarah:  Sadness and desperation.

Elyse:  – Guy Fieri has a restaurant in the hotel, and literally, you, like, turn a corner, and there’s a giant picture of Guy Fieri everywhere.

Amanda:  There’s that fucking frosted goatee –

Carrie:  Huge.

RHG:  Frosting goat-

Amanda:  – fucking right in the face.

Sarah:  [Laughs] Not only that, but –

RHG:  – and then a denim chef jacket –

Sarah:  – he’s got a frayed denim chef’s jacket, a frosted goat-, a frosted-tip hair and goatee, but it’s –

Amanda:  Did you see if he has his sunglasses on backwards in the photo?

Sarah:  You know he does.

Amanda:  Does he have the – ?

Sarah:  But the thing is, it’s all this sort of blue wash, so he looks a little hypoxic, like he’s not quite getting enough oxygen?

Somebody:  [Laughs]

Somebody else:  Yeah.

Amanda:  He probably isn’t.

Sarah:  And he’s everywhere.  There’s even one, like, in the little guide signs up above that are, like, this way to the Masquerade elevators, this’ll take you nine years, and here’s Ipanema elevators, your wait for nine years, but then there’s a, instead of saying Guy Fieri, there’s a little cutout of his picture, but it, it looks like bad Photoshop –

Somebody:  Yes!

Sarah:  – ‘cause there’s, like, an inch below his, it cuts off, and he’s just sort of, he’s just floating in mid air!

RHG:  Floating.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s so –

Amanda:  Poor Guy.

Elyse:  I’m concerned that I’m –

Sarah:  I’ve taken a picture of every single Guy I’ve seen.  Like, I’ve got thirty on my phone.

Elyse:  I’m, I’m seriously concerned I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night, and Guy Fieri’s just going to be standing –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Elyse:  – on my bible.

RHG:  Hi, there, Guy!  Let’s go to a diner!

[Laughter]

Amanda:  He’s just there to take you to Flavor town!

[More laughter]

Elyse:  Also, I think Amanda –

RHG:  Come help me destroy Food Network!

Elyse:  – I think Amanda brought it up.  Who the fuck is like, I want you to frost my goatee –

[Laughter]

Amanda:  Yeah.

Elyse:  – but just the middle.

[Laughter]

Amanda:  Just the middle of the goatee, like –

Elyse:  I, basically, I wanted to look like I’m, I’m, like, having a seizure and I’m foaming, and it’s running down my chin.

Amanda:  Right here.

RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Oh, Guy.

Elyse:  And on behalf of all my northern Midwestern peeps, where I know it’s still snowing because fuck you, Wisconsin, it’s only going to be, like, 65 today with fifteen-mile-an-hour winds, and I’m lying by that fucking pool.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Elyse:  I’m just going to lie there and be like, I’m enjoying this sunlight!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  She’s all wrapped up in five blankets –

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – one’s over her head.

Elyse:  Like a hoodie.

RHG:  Right.

Elyse:  So what book did you get that you’re excited about?

Amanda:  I got A Change of Heart, the new Sonali Dev book.

Everybody:  Oohhh!

Amanda:  The cover’s gorgeous!

RHG:  Oh, it’s beautiful!

Carrie:  So beautiful!

Amanda:  And, like, I know I’m going to ugly cry.  I talked to Sonali about it.  She’s like, I know.  I was like, so you enjoy making people cry.

Carrie:  Yeah.

RHG:  And she’s like –

Amanda and RHG:  – yeah –

Amanda:  – I do.

RHG:  [Laughs]

Carrie:  I, I, I’m not even making an effort with that book, but I was tempted to get the book just so I could stare at the cover.  Like, it’s that beautiful –

Amanda:  It’s really gorgeous.

Carrie:  – and, like, I would never open it, because it will kill me, but I’ll just look at the cover.  It’s so pretty.

Elyse:  I got, Rebecca Zanetti has a new series that I didn’t know about, so clearly I’m not doing my job, and it’s, like, a post-apocalyptic –

Amanda:  Yeah!

Elyse:  – L.A. romantic –

Amanda:  Mercury Striking?

Elyse:  Striking or rising?  I don’t know.

Amanda:  Mercury something.  Mercury’s burning.

RHG:  Mercury’s doing a thing.  [Laughs]

Amanda:  Yeah.

Elyse:  Right, but it’s, it’s like a post-apocalyptic, post-plague, Los Angeles, romantic suspense –

Amanda:  Snake Plissken escaping from L.A.

Elyse:  Yes!  [Laughs]  It looks so good!  So good.

RHG:  In the conference swag bag that everyone got is a new reissue of Heyer’s The Grand Sophy.

Amanda:  I love the new cover.

Elyse and Carrie:  Yes.

Amanda:  I love what they’re doing.

RHG:  Yeah.

Carrie:  I still have never read The Grand Sophy, so I am –

Amanda:  Now’s your chance!

Carrie:  – super excited about that one.  Also, I got a copy of Flowers from the Storm; in fact, I got two, because I got one for you, Elyse, which is ridiculous, because at home I have two copies of Flowers from the Storm, one with a nice, tasteful, boring cover, and one with Fabio, who’s, like, walking out of a nuclear wasteland handing you flowers with his hair –

Everybody:  – blowing in the wind.  [More or less]

Carrie:  But I was super excited to get another copy because that’s one of my books that I just, like, throw at people, so I hoard copies –

Somebody:  Mm-hmm.

Carrie:  – of it so I can, like –

Elyse:  Right.

Carrie:  – toss them around like confetti.

Sarah:  I will say The Grand Sophy is my least favorite Heyer?

Carrie:  Oh.

Sarah:  ‘Cause there’s a, well, I wrote, I wrote a review of it and gave it a D.

Carrie:  Is that the anti-Semitic one?

Sarah:  Yep.

Carrie:  Damn it!

Elyse:  Ooh.

Sarah:  So what you want to do is when she goes to the moneylender?  Skip forward.

RHG:  Okay.

Carrie:  Skip.  Skip, skip, skip.

Sarah:  Just skip that whole scene.

Somebody:  Okay.

Sarah:  It’s just going to fuck up the book for you, because it’s such a –

Somebody:  Oh.

Sarah:  – well, the thing that pisses me off, people – [takes a breath] – when I wrote the review people were really, like, oh, my God, how can you give that book a low grade?!  I’m like, ‘cause it’s super fucking offensive, but it’s not even the, oh, she was anti-Semitic, and she was a product of her time, and you should have more leniency.  It’s like, no.  You’re one of the writers who does the most vivid, excellent characters.  Your books are super, super old compared to what’s coming out in romance right now, and yet all of those characters hang up, excuse me, hold up, except that one –

Carrie:  Except that one.

Sarah:  – ‘cause it sucks, ‘cause it’s a caricature based on racism, and you did a shit job writing an offensive character.  Like, that’s extra offensive.

Carrie:  Right.

Sarah:  So you, you don’t get a, I mean, I get, like, you know, people had different points of view.  Totally understand it, but she’s one of the best character writers, and she wrote a stupidly bad character just for the sake of doing it.  It’s like his –

Carrie:  Ahhh.

Sarah:  – it’s like a super offensive version of an extremely obvious Mary Sue.  Like, this is lazy.  Stop.

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  But if you skip the part where she goes to the moneylender, it’s an otherwise pretty fun story.

Carrie:  Okay.

Sarah:  Just that part fucked it up for me.  But hey, everyone’s line is different.  If people love it, that’s fine.  I, I just didn’t.

RHG:  It’s been weird and fun and weird and super weird to have people come up to you and go, oh, God, I know your voice!  Hi!  And I’m like, oh, fuck, people actually listen to the podcast.  Okay.  [Laughs]

Amanda:  I was telling Elyse this, ‘cause I get people who came up to me and really loved my Tinder podcast and really loved the Come as You Are podcast, and that’s great.  Like, I have no problem talking about my sex stuff, and, but it’s another thing to be face-to-face with someone who has heard about your vagina.  Like –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Amanda:  It’s like, oh, they have intimate knowledge about the goings-on here –

Sarah:  Yep.

Amanda:  – but they –

Sarah:  And voice is intimate too.

Couple of Bitches:  Yeah.

Amanda:  – they loved it, and that was really cool.  Like, I, I enjoy that, like, knowing people listen and, like, consume something that we do.

RHG:  Hi, Kat’s kids!

Sarah:  Yes.

Elyse:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Kat’s kids in the back seat.  Kat’s kids gets mad, get mad if she listens to the podcast without them.

Everybody:  Aww!

Sarah:  Like, come on, that’s our podcast too!

Elyse:  I’ve had a couple of people come up to me and say that just from listening to the podcast they feel like we’re all friends?

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Elyse:  Like, us, but, like, the listeners too.

RHG:  With, like, with them.

Elyse:  We’re totally your friends!

Sarah:  Absolutely.

RHG:  Yes, we are!

Sarah:  Well, see, I think people underestimate how intimate voice is?

RHG and Elyse:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  And I, and I agree, getting recognized by your voice is very strange, but you kind of get used to it, because you think, you know, your voice is, like, straight into someone’s eardrums –

RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – once a week –

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and voice is still incredibly intimate, which is why I think in some cases audiobooks are awesome, and then for me, personally, I struggle with sex scenes on audiobook, ‘cause I’m just like, oh –

Carrie:  Ohhh.

Sarah:  – somebody’s, somebody’s telling me about – forward, forward, forward, okay.

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Like, I have a really hard time listening to sex scenes on audiobook, and it doesn’t matter if the narrator is male or female or awesome or terrible.  It’s just that’s, that’s an intimacy that I’m not super adjusted to yet?

Elyse:  Yeah.  I listened to the Christina Lauren books on audio, and their narrator is phenomenal, but as I was getting to this –

Amanda:  Don’t they, like, do the accents, too, like –

Elyse:  Yeah.

Amanda:  – whoever the hero is that has the accent?

Elyse:  Yeah, and I’m listening to it, and when we get to the sex scenes I’m like, I need to go home now.

[Laughter]

Elyse:  Right, like, I can’t, I can’t do this at work.  I feel real uncomfortable.

[More laughter]

Elyse:  And then there was a Christina, or sorry, Stephanie Laurens that I listened to on audio, and it was, like, a, a really old dude-sounding reading it, and I had to stop because it was like I don’t –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

RHG:  No.  Nope!

Elyse:  No.  It was like –

RHG:  [Laughs] Nope!  Tapping out.  [Slapping sounds]

Elyse:  – it was like my grandfather reading, like –

Sarah:  [Deep voice, English accent] Harry Potter got an enormous boner.

Elyse:  Exactly!

[Laughter]

Elyse:  And I was like, nope!

Sarah:  [Same voice] On Privet Drive –

[More laughter]

Elyse:  Nope.

Sarah:  There was an owl; it was most unfortunate, and then Dursley said, “What are you doing?  Put that away!”  [Laughs] 

RHG:  Rowling can have fun with that one!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  [Regular voice] Are you all super impressed with my Jim Dale?  [Laughs]

Elyse:  Oh, my gosh. You’re going to get requests for you to read Harry Potter erotic fanfiction.

RHG:  Yes, you are!  Yes, you are!

Amanda:   Now that’s going to be a future podcast.

Sarah:  [Jim Dale impression] Harry said, “Draco, your wand is much too small.”

[Laughter]

Amanda:  You’re going to have to read it like –

RHG:  Make that, make that a Patreon reward.

[More laughter]

Amanda:  But you have to read, like, Harry Potter mpreg stuff.

RHG:  Yep.

Sarah:  Mpreg?

Amanda and RHG:  Male pregnancy.

Sarah:  [as Jim Dale] Oh, no.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Oh, I seem to be lactating.  [Laughs]

Elyse:  I had to explain to Richard recently what a Mary Sue was, ‘cause apparently he didn’t know?

Sarah:  Oh, my God!

[Laughter]

Elyse:  And I’m like, Richard –

RHG:  Oh, the sweet summer child!

Elyse:  I know.  I’m like, you read The Mary Sue, and he goes, but I thought that was just the name.

Sarah:  No!

[Laughter]

Elyse:  So then I told –

Amanda:  Everyone on staff is named Mary Sue.

Elyse:  – Sue, right –

Elyse and RHG:  – everyone.

Sarah:  It’s, like, a requirement.  You can’t –

Elyse and RHG:  Right.

Sarah:  – you can’t work there.

Elyse:  And so then I told him, and now he sees Mary Sues everywhere?  Like, he’s like, but, but, but, but Daredevil’s a Mary Sue!

Amanda:  He can’t go back now.

Elyse:  But – like, every time we watch a show, he’s like, but that guy’s a Mary Sue!  That guy’s a Mary Sue!

Sarah:  Yep.

Elyse:  Like, yes.

Somebody:  Oh, no!

Elyse:  He’s just, he’s very traumatized by the – it’s like when I told him about the Sad Puppy brigade.  Like, I feel like I’m destroying his childhood!

Sarah:  Once you see it, it’s everywhere.

Carrie:  Ohhh!

RHG:  Yep.

Sarah:  Yeah.  All right.  I’ve got to change and go to a panel at 10, and because the hotel and the conference center are miles apart –

Everybody:  [Agreement]

RHG:  Yeah, but we’re all getting our steps in.

Amanda:  I hope everyone who attended –

Sarah:  Holy shit, I get 200%!  My, my step goal is 8,000, ‘cause ten’s a little much.  Ten makes me feel like I’m the, the mail carrier.  Like, it just –

RHG:  Mm.

Sarah:  Eight is a good goal.  It means I’m taking the dogs for at least a half hour walk.  Here, I am 200%, 210%.  I walked eight miles two days ago, six and a half yesterday, and I’m just like, well, I guess that means I can eat whatever the fuck I want.

Everybody:  Hell yeah!  [More or less]

Sarah:  I think for every blister you get, that’s an extra 500 calories a day.

Carrie:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Right?

Carrie:  Absolutely!

Elyse:  I cannot –

Sarah:  That’s legit math!  Somewhere a nutritionist is crying and doesn’t know why.  [Laughs]

RHG:  It’s my mom.

Elyse:  I brought, I brought comf-

[Laughter]

Elyse:  I brought comfortable flats, and my feet are so swollen I cannot wear my flats.

Everybody:  Aww!

Elyse:  Like, I had to flip-flop it.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, I’m flip-flopping in and carrying my shoes if I have to, like, you know, be 5’5” for some reason.

Carrie:  No, I’m just in my hiking boots.  That’s what, I’m just sticking with them.

Sarah:  But that’s the thing, though:  this is a conference where you can be casual and comfortable –

Carrie and RHG:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and it’s totally fine.

Carrie:  And I would have to say, last year I was super, super uptight, so I’m like, okay, so this is kind of dressy, so we’ll, like, dress when and yada, yada, yada, and wear the nice clothes, and na-na-na-na, and I went to every single professional panel, and this year I’m so much more chill, and it’s so much better.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Carrie:  So, like, I’m going to things that I want to go to, and if I don’t want to go to something, then I don’t, and I don’t feel bad about it, and I’m wearing my geeky T-shirts, and it turns out that because I’m wearing my geeky T-shirts, or maybe just ‘cause I’m, like, more chill in general, so I’m more approachable, I’m making all these friends who are into sci-fi too.

Sarah:  Yep.  If you’re less stressed, just, people are approachable.

Carrie:  So I would say just, like, be who you are.  Don’t worry about impressing anybody.  Your people are there, and the more that you are who you are?  The more your people can find you.

Sarah:  Carrie’s comments are brought to you by Kesha.

[Laughter]

Sarah:   Who actually gave an interview once that I cut out and put in a file.  Her advice was be yourself fucking unapologetically, and I was like, okay!

Amanda:  Hell to the yeah!

Sarah:  I’m here for that!

RHG:  Free Kesha!

Sarah:  Free Kesha.

Carrie and Somebody:  Free Kesha!

Sarah:  I love Kesha.  She was my ringtone for a while.  I love her.  But you know, every morning, I, I wake up feeling very similar to P. Diddy.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Very similar, adjacent.  I, I wake up to a, sort of a P. Diddy-adjacent state.

[More laughter]

RHG:  Now, do you brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack?

Sarah:  Fuck, yeah!  It is Vegas, right?

Somebody:  Vegas, baby!

Amanda:  That’s what, they stock Jack in bathrooms.

Sarah:  Yes –

RHG:  Yeah, it’s true.

Sarah:  – you thought it was mouthwash, but it wasn’t.

Amanda:  But it’s Jack, no.

RHG:  But it’s Jack.  Of course –

Sarah:  It’s in the secret hidden fridge that no one can find.

RHG:  – this is not the Bellagio, so it’s, like, knock-off Jack.  If it, we were in the Bellagio –

Sarah:  It’s Jacqueline.

Amanda:  Jacqueline.

RHG:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s Joe Daniels.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Jack’s really annoying younger brother.

[More laughter]

RHG:  Yeah.

[music]

Sarah:  So that is all for this week’s episode.  I want to thank Amanda and Elyse and RedHeadedGirl and Carrie for getting up early and hanging out in my room, although I did provide pastries.  You probably heard the bags rustling; sorry about that.  We will be at RT next year in Atlanta!  It’s in May, and we will all be there.  So we hope you’ll be there too, and if you’re thinking about going and you’re concerned about being a first-time RT person, always feel free to email us or ask us questions, ‘cause we love seeing and meeting readers at RT.  It’s so much fun.

This podcast was brought to you by J. Kenner’s Dirtiest Secret, published by Bantam Books, available in paperback and eBook.

The memory of Dallas Sykes burns.  Even though everyone knows him as a notorious playboy, to me he is the one man I desperately crave, and the one man I can never have.  We’ve tried not letting ourselves give in to desire, and for so long we’ve said no, but now it’s finally time to say yes.

You can find out what their Dirtiest Secret is with J. Kenner’s new SIN series, on sale April 19th wherever books are sold.

The music you’re listening to, as always, is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is Sketch.  This is from their album Shed Life.  This track is called “Puirt,” and I had to go to Forvo.com to figure out how to pronounce that because it’s actually spelled P-U-I-R-T, so if you’re reading it and you’re thinking English pronunciation, then it would be Pweert, but according to Forvo, who knows all the things, the song is called “Puirt” [Pwish].  You can find it on Amazon, on iTunes, and wherever you buy excellent music.

As I mentioned during the intro, the podcast has a Patreon campaign.  If you’d like to set up a monthly pledge to support the podcast and help me create transcripts for all the episodes that are lacking one at present, you can have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches – that’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N – and have a look at the rewards and the pledge levels.  It begins at $1 a month.  Thank you to everyone who has already supported the show.  You are fantastic individuals.

Future podcasts will include talking about romance novels.  Despite the name change, the podcast subscription should be unaltered.  You’ll probably just see a new logo and a new title, since this is Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.

In the meantime, on behalf of all of us, Elyse, RedHeadedGirl, Carrie, Amanda, and me, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend, and we hope to see you at RT next year.

[really good music]