360. The First Draft Has Bad Breath and Bedhead: An Interview Jeaniene Frost

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 360 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and today I am talking with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jeaniene Frost. I love interviews like this one; these are so much fun. I’ve known Jeaniene for a long while, since her first book Halfway to the Grave came out in 2007. So in this interview, we are going to talk about her career as a paranormal romance author spanning sixteen years and more than twenty books! We talk about vampires, the draw of paranormal romance, and some skills she’s learned in the past ten-plus years. We also end with several TV series recommendations, including some that were canceled far too soon.

Now, I want to thank Ann from the podcast Patreon community for some really thoughtful questions – thank you, Ann – and I want to give you a heads-up: there is a violent recap and some spoilers for season three of Santa Clarita Diet at the end of the episode when we talk about some of Jeaniene’s favorite shows, so it’s going to be at about minute 55, you’re going to skip about a minute and a half. If you don’t want to hear any spoilers, skip over the whole part about Santa Clarita Diet.

Now, do you want to email us? Do you have suggestions, questions, want to tell me a bad joke? [email protected], or leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. I love hearing from you, and it’s most awesome when you contact us.

This podcast episode is brought to you by Dearly Beloved by Mary Jo Putney. Dearly Beloved, Mary Jo Putney’s award-winning, standalone romance, has fallen out of print since it was first published in 1990, but now it is back on shelves in a beautifully repackaged edition, and her classic tale of forbidden love, courtesans, and dangerous secrets is as enthralling as it has ever been. When the most in-demand courtesan in London meets a viscount and undercover spy harboring a dangerous secret, their clash of passion unleashes an adventure that threatens to upend their lives forever. Dearly Beloved by Mary Jo Putney is available now wherever books are sold. For more information, visit kensingtonbooks.com.

Now, if you’re attending RWA in New York next week or you’re just hanging out in the New York area, next week, Thursday, July 25th, at 7 p.m. at the Strand Book Store, I am hosting a romance game night with Helena Hunting, Sonali Dev, Melonie Johnson, Lauren Layne, and Alisha Rai. These are some very funny people. There is a link in the show notes and at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/events to sign up. Admission is ten dollars and conveniently includes a ten-dollar Strand Book Store credit at the event. There’s going to be games, there’s going to be a book signing, and the first fifty people to arrive get a tote bag! Doors open at 6:30, so please don’t miss the fun. There’s a link in the show notes and at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/events.

Every episode receives a transcript from garlicknitter, and this week the transcript is made possible by the support from our Patreon community. If you have supported the show with a pledge of any amount, thank you. You help me make sure that every episode is transcribed and accessible to everyone. If you would like to join the Patreon community, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Any pledge of any amount shows that the show that we produce – well, that I produce – has value to you, and that means a lot, and it helps me keep going! So thank you in advance, and thank you to the Patreon community for helping me underwrite each transcript.

I have a compliment! This is so fun!

For Mary B.: Scholars and archaeologists have discovered an ancient goddess who was worshipped for being pretty much exactly like you. Pretty great! Your awesomeness spans thousands of years! Well done!

Now, I also want to tell you one more thing before we get to the show. I have a new pair of Bluetooth headphones from Sudio that they sent me to test drive. This time, everyone in my family has been trying to steal them from me, so that’s kind of an endorsement of how great they are. They are small, white, wireless Bluetooth earbuds; they have a little pod carrying case like that round lip balm that comes in a sphere, but it’s a little bit larger than that; and the carrying case is a battery which recharges the headphones while they’re hanging out in there. They weigh four and a half grams each, they have seven hours of battery life, and the charge case will keep them going for another four charges, so it can last days without having to recharge that case battery. You get fifteen percent off with code SMARTBITCHES – all one word – at sudio.com, and you get free worldwide shipping. I will link to the newest model in the show notes, but I have now tried three pair from Sudio, and they’re great. And this particular model, I looked it up and how to pronounce it. It is the Tolv. Now, Swedish folks, if I got that wrong, ‘cause it’s T-O-L-V, if I got that wrong, please feel free to email me and correct me, ‘cause sometimes I’m not so good at that. If you go to sudio.com and use discount code SMARTBITCHES, you get fifteen percent off and free shipping. Sounds good, right? Yeah. It’s a good deal.

I’ll have information at the end of the show about the music and what’s coming up on Smart Bitches this week, but for now, let’s get ready for this interview. On with Jeaniene Frost and all things paranormal romance.

[music]

Jeaniene Frost: I am Jeaniene Frost, and I’m the author of the Night Huntress series, which most people refer to as the Cat and Bones books; the Night Prince series, or the Vlad and Leila books; the Broken Destiny series, which I’ve heard, mostly heard of, “Those aren’t vampires!” – that description –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – and, and the new Night Rebel series, which is back to vampires, and also most commonly referred to as, “Oh my God, Ian finally got a book!” So that’s pretty much what I write, and I’ve been lucky enough to have my books appear on the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and other bestseller lists. So those are my credet-, professional credentials, and the personal me, of course, though, is the woman who will bore you to death showing you pictures of my dogs if you’re in my company for longer than sixty seconds, and you know, also if you’re around me longer than sixty seconds, I’m going to complain that Netflix canceled Santa Clarita Diet, ‘cause that was my favorite show, and I cannot believe they canceled it.

Oh, and warning, I’m going to try not to curse, but I have a potty mouth, so if an f-bomb flies out, I’m so sorry, and if there are any children listening, have them leave the room just as a precaution. [Laughs]

Sarah: I think anyone who listens to my podcast on the regular knows that we’ll drop an f-bomb here and there. I need to tell you, the minute you said the, the Night Huntress series, but most people call it Cat and Bones, several years ago, I think this might have been 2014 or 2015, I was in Australia, and there was a romance trivia night, and it was like pub trivia, only we were in a, a room in a, in a university; we had snacks – I ate my body weight in gummy worms –

Jeaniene: Oh, that sounds so much fun!

Sarah: – and – it was great; I would love to recreate it someday – and it was a, Jodi McAlister – all right, good job, Brain, and thank you, Google – Jodi McAlister and Gabby, who I don’t know if she wants her last name on the whole wide internet, made this whole evening up, along with Rudi Bremer, and one of the questions was the name of the series written by Jeaniene Frost! And you know I was like, Cat and Bones –

Jeaniene: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and they were like, no! That’s not the right answer! And I’m like, no! It’s Cat and Bones! That, I, I remembered their names! That never happens, and they’re like, no, it’s the Night Huntress series, and I was like, the fuck it is!

Jeaniene: I, you’re right! You know what? Yeah!

Sarah: No it’s not! No! It is. I was wrong. [Laughs]

Jeaniene: No, but it can’t – technically it’s the Night Huntress series, but almost no one calls it that. It’s the Cat and Bones books or the Grave books, ‘cause the word Grave was in, you know, every title of the books, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: – hardly anyone calls it the Night Huntress series, so – [laughs] –

Sarah: Nope.

Jeaniene: – I would have thought that answer should have been accepted!

Sarah: Nope. Nope. Didn’t work. Not a chance. I was wrong on that round, but I think we did pretty well in the, in the overall pub trivia in an academic setting, and I mean, really, romance trivia night should definitely be more of a thing, right?

Jeaniene: I think that Avon did something like that in their most – yeah, I think, or they did a Family Feud thing. They did the KissCon Weekend Affair –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: – last April, and they’re going to do it again this, this April –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – and they did a Family Feud thing like that, only, you know, like Family Feud, they have a question, and they know most –

Sarah: Ohhh.

Jeaniene: – common answers, and I didn’t go to that, which I’m kicking myself, and I heard about it afterwards from so many readers, and it sounded like so much fun! I think I was on a panel, and we were in, of course, the room next to it, so you could just hear, just the roar of laughter through the walls. [Laughs]

Sarah: Isn’t that the worst, when you’re in a panel and next door is laughing? You’re kind of like, listen, I know I’m here to talk to you, but let’s all go next door –

Jeaniene: I know! It’s like a –

Sarah: – because that sounds fun.

Jeaniene: [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, you have been, I am guessing, on a lot of panels, because I think you and I have been corresponding since you started writing full time. How long have you been writing and publishing Cats and Bones and books and vampires?

Jeaniene: You –

Sarah: And not-vampires?

Jeaniene: You and I have been corresponding since before I wrote full-time. I remember you were the first review I ever got, back in, let’s see, it must have been early 2007, ‘cause my first book came out –

Sarah: Wow!

Jeaniene: – November 2007, and I think you reviewed it in June. So, so I was so excited because someone read my book, and oh my God, they didn’t hate it! So yeah, so that’s when I started, I think I emailed you to thank you for the review, or I don’t even remember what the heck I said. I was so excited; I’m like, someone read my book! I want to talk to them! You know, it’s, it’s still –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – of course, but you know. [Laughs] So I’ve been published since 2007, but I started seriously writing in 2003, and I say that because, yes, as a teen and whatnot, I would start to write, but I would never finish. I would write a couple chapters, get bored, never, never touch that story again, and that – I mean, well, it’s a, it’s an important learning process? I don’t consider it real writing ‘cause I had never actually finished a story. I finished a story in 2003 –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jeaniene: – so for me, that was when I be-, was a, a “real writer,” to actually finish something. So it’s been, yeah, sixteen years, and I just can’t even believe saying that, because it’s like –

Sarah: Holy cow!

Jeaniene: – yeah, holy cow! How did it, how? How has that much time passed? [Laughs]

Sarah: Does it feel like a really long time, or does it feel like, oh wait, no, my first book just came out like two years ago?

Jeaniene: I mean, most of the time it feels like it can’t be that long, you know?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: Like, I literally have to look at the calendar to double-check that, yes, it has been that long. And of course some days, I’m sure like anything else, you feel like you’ve been doing this for a hundred years or more. But most of the time –

Sarah: Right, of course.

Jeaniene: – it doesn’t feel half that long. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow.

Jeaniene: Yeah, but then again, most of the time I’m like, I’m forty-six? How the hell did that happen? [Laughs] 

Sarah: Oh, once you get the four in the front? I’m, I’m forty-four, I’m right behind you, and I really think once you get the four in the front you’re kind of like –

Jeaniene: Yeah!

Sarah: – wait a minute! Hold up! First of all, how did the four get there? Second of all, look at all the things I no longer give a shit about!

Jeaniene: That is – I’ve got to tell you, that is one of the best things about getting older, and it’s not, it’s not that I don’t care about things anymore? It’s great. I care about things, but what I don’t give a shit about as much anymore is what people think I should care about. The social pressure, you know what I mean?

Sarah: Yes!

Jeaniene: Like, oh, well, you should, you should care about this or that –

Sarah: Yes!

Jeaniene: – or you should care about – you know, aren’t you dieting more? Aren’t you like, oh, isn’t your hair, you know, you’ve got some grays. Yeah, I do! Ah – [snorts].

Sarah: Those are natural silver highlights from God, I will have you know.

Jeaniene: [Laughs] Yeah, Sarah! But yeah, so I care less about the stuff that doesn’t matter, and that has been a gift of growing older. It’s worth the wrinkles and the grays.

Sarah: It’s so true! I, I, I like to joke that when you gain another age number after you hit the four in the front, every year your give-a-fuck card gets renewed at a much lower rate, and I have like two for the whole year. And I’m very sparse with my fucks. Like, I just don’t care!

Jeaniene: [Laughs] And thank you for dropping the f-bomb first. I feel so much better now!

Sarah: Oh, have you seen the name of the website? Really do not worry. And the nice thing about podcasts? The FTC cannot do anything to me as a podcaster. If I was on the radio I’d be in deep shit, but oh well, I’m not!

Jeaniene: I was at a Bible study group the other week, and I dropped the f-bomb, and I was like, oh, I did not just do that in church at a Bible study group, but thankfully, they’re very, they’re very chill, and the pastor said, oh honey, I do that more than I should too.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I like your pastor!

Jeaniene: Yeah, she was great; she is great. [Laughs] Anyway.

Sarah: So you started writing paranormal romance when it was The Thing; like, everything –

Jeaniene: Yep.

Sarah: – was paranormal. It was black lace and blood-red corsets for days.

Jeaniene: Oh yeah!

Sarah: And its pop-, popularity has changed and evolved. I have this theory that genres don’t ever really die – trends do, but genres don’t – and here we are, it’s 2019; paranormal is starting to come back in a little bit of a different way. What draws you to paranormal stories, and what do you see as the, the strengths of the genre that keep it going?

Jeaniene: Well, the, I’m going to answer that like it’s two different questions. 

Sarah: That is two questions, so blather as long as you want.

Jeaniene: Yeah, yeah, and –

Sarah: Totally unfair of me; I apologize.

Jeaniene: No, that’s fine, and I apologize in advance, because I will ramble. There’s a reason why I don’t do public speaking as my job, and I write where I can go back and edit.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: I mean, one, yes, paranormal was the thing back when I published, and it was so funny, ‘cause people were like, oh, you were smart! You, you jumped on this, you know, you picked this genre ‘cause it’s successful, and I was like, no? I, this is what I, this is what I love! I don’t know how to write a story that isn’t paranormal. I’ve tried. It, it doesn’t work. At least not yet. So, and yeah, yeah, it’s gone through a lot. It went through a big contraction, what was that, in, like, geeze, I don’t know, ’16, ’17? You know, whatever? And now I hear that it’s coming back, and it’s like, okay, maybe? But it, so market-wise, there are ebbs and flows, but you’re right. I don’t think it’ll ever go away, because –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: – I mean, paranormal has been around since people, you know, our ancestors were, worked around a campfire saying, what if, what if? And writing, you know, funky-looking, not-real creatures on the cave walls. I mean –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – I don’t – paranormal has been around. It is not going to go away, because it’s always been there. So, so what changes is, you know, the markets in that regard. So what –

Sarah: And the monsters, too.

Jeaniene: Yeah! And, and that’s, that’s also true, you know. So, so the para-, so paranormal answers the question, what if? I think is at its most basic core. What if, what if such-and-such creature were real? Or what if, you know, magic were real? Or what if, you know, what if people had superpowers, or what if, what if, what if? And it answers that question –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: – and because the question is so open – I mean, what if? can have just endless possibilities too – its popularity, I think, will never totally fade, because people love to wonder and imagine and make believe. I mean, I think it’s in us, and if we don’t love to do it, then we love to see the results of what someone else has done with it. So –

Sarah: Totally.

Jeaniene: – yeah, so in that regard, yes, I agree with you: paranormal will never totally go away. For me, what drew it to me is I’ve always loved vampires. I, I literally do not remember what started it, but you know, again, a story that I was told, I mean, good God, decades before I ever started writing about them, was that my first day of Sunday School, you know, the pastor asked me if I knew what the cross on the wall stood for, and I said, yes, it keeps the vampires away! And I don’t even –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: But you know, he – which, my mother was mortified. She was very easily mortified, and I was too young to enjoy mortifying her at that point, so I missed out on that. But you know, but, so that’s how long I’ve been into vampires. [Laughs] Since before I even remember, and then, you know, even, like, as a tween, I guess you would say, I was rooting for Dracula instead of Van Helsing, and I would hear, you know, but Dracula’s the bad guy! And I didn’t understand why. I’m like, he just wants to be with his girl, and he has got to eat! Look at, Van Helsing is trying to kill him for no reason! And that’s how I saw it. So, so when I wrote –

Sarah: [Laughs] He’s just hungry! Come on.

Jeaniene: – he’s just hungry and wants to be with his girl! Really! Van Helsing’s the one just walking around killing people! But anyway.

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: So, so I’ve loved vampires since that long, and apparently with a lot of, you know, devotion that I’m sure a psychologist would love to dive into. But anyway. [Laughs] But it’s, it’s been so much fun to read it, and the genre, I think, you know, is so everlasting, because again, you can answer that question with anything: werewolves, zombies, magic, you know, mermen, mermaids. Oh gosh, yeah, the mermaid thing now. You know, it’s, it’s just fun, and it’s escapism, and I don’t know about you, but especially in today’s world, when the news makes me –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jeaniene: – regret that I don’t drink? I need some escapism.

Sarah: Oh yes. Absolutely, I agree with you there. I also think, now that I’ve been listening to you and, and how you sort of recast the proposed villain of a vam-, of, of Dracula, I also wonder if the popularity also has to do with basic emotions: lust and fear and desire and terror? Like, we love scaring the crap out of each other as humans, right?

Jeaniene: Yeah!

Sarah: About as much as we like chasing each other sexually –

Jeaniene: [Laughs]

Sarah: – so with paranormal romance, you’re combining both!

Jeaniene: It, I mean, yes, it is! And, and it’s fun, and while, you know, listen, I’m not one for abusive storylines, don’t get me wrong – any-, anyone reading my –

Sarah: Nah.

Jeaniene: – would, would know that’s not the position I follow on, but you know, the element of fun danger, that, that I’m all for in escapism. Not in real life. You know, in real life, I, you know, they’d be like, ooh! I heard a scream! You know, let’s go investigate! That might be dangerous! And I’ll be like, I’ll stand back and call 9-1-1. That’s me in real life.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: But you know, again, you can, you can, paranormal stories especially allow you to explore all sorts of fun different things that you don’t get to do in our everyday normal life, and you know, there is the bad boy element in paranormal that also you could never get away with in a regular relationship. Like, I remember my –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: – Night Prince series, which features Vlad, you know, also, yeah, Dracula, although I, I, when I wrote him, he absolutely hated being called that. But, you know, I drew a lot from his historical background of not – now, he wasn’t particularly vicious; he was just really, really clever with, with his viciousness for the time. He was very, he was very fervent about protecting his people, so that’s what I drew on when I wrote him, but I mean, my God! In one scene the her-, the heroine’s father shows up, and he’s like, there are corpses stuck on poles in the lawn! And she’s like, ugh, he needs to take those down. But it’s Dracula! Yeah, if you go to a normal house and there, your, your guy has corpses on the lawn, you run! But when you write about Dracula, you can put that in there. [Laughs]

Sarah: Right! Like, oh fine, corpse as décor. I am sure this makes sense to you! We’ll just –

Jeaniene: Yes.

Sarah: – have to deal with it. It’s not like –

Jeaniene: Yes, so –

Sarah: – okay, time to go.

Jeaniene: – so there is the fun element of danger that, that doesn’t have the, the, you know, the, the actual, like, you’re really in danger threat with it. You can have, you can laugh at, you can laugh while you scream –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jeaniene: – I guess.

Sarah: Now, one of the things I did – and I apologize for going off of the questions that I sent you – is I asked my Patreon group who support the show if they had –

Jeaniene: Oh, okay!

Sarah:- any questions for you, and I have a question, I have a question from Ann, who says:

Oh my gosh, I’m so excited you’re interviewing Jeaniene Frost. I went completely fangirl on her when I went to a signing with her –

Jeaniene: Aw!

Sarah: – a few years back, so Ann is a super fan. She wants to, she has a couple questions.

Did you always know that you wanted to tell stories after Bones and Cat, and do you have a favorite couple, since you’ve expanded the Night Huntress series?

Jeaniene: Yes, I always knew I wanted to tell stories after Bones and Cat, and a matter of fact, I think in one of you and I’s early email correspondences, back when my first book came out, I think you had asked me –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jeaniene: – like, like, what, like, what you – you had asked me something like, do you want to just write about them, or do you have other characters? And I remember I wrote something to you to the effect of, I want to ‘bout, write about them and then some of the side characters and then something else, and oh my gosh, I just, I, I think I could write fifteen or twenty books if they would let me, but I know that that’s just, you know, a pipe dream. And I’ve actually gotten to write – [laughs]

Sarah: How many books have you written now?

Jeaniene: I mean, if you count the novellas it’s over twenty. If you just count the novels, I think we’re at seventeen or eighteen? Something, I, I –

Sarah: That is astonishingly good. Like, wow.

Jeaniene: I think it’s –

Sarah: Like, if you think about the number of people who are riding public transportation right now who are thinking, I’m going to write a novel some day, and here you are with twenty-plus books? Damn, girl! Nice!

Jeaniene: Listen, there are still –

Sarah: Like, go!

Jeaniene:  – there are still many if not most days that if I woke up and someone told me, you know, like Bobby didn’t really die in Dynasty or whatever, it was all a dream, that this was all a dream, I would believe it. So – [laughs] – so yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah, I, I have that, I’ve had that feeling too. So do you have a favorite couple since you’ve expanded the series?

Jeaniene: Oh yeah, sorry, back to – see, see how easily I get distracted? Thank you for reminding me.

Sarah: That’s why I have notes. [Laughs]

Jeaniene: I mean, I, yeah, I, listen, I’m fickle. I’ve called myself a literary slut because I love whoever I am writing at the moment, and that’s who I love the most, so I have no favorites in that regard.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: But that being said, I think Cat and Bones will always have a special place in my heart because they were the first!

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: I mean, you know, you always, you always love your first a little – or remember your first or whatnot, you know? So yeah. So, but yeah, right now I love Ian and Veritas, ‘cause that’s who I’m writing about, and before that I just could not picture not writing about Vlad and Leila, so yeah. So again, and, and if I write about a new set of characters I will, I will be, you know, yes, cheating rampantly on all the above with these new people –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – and that’s how I am.

Sarah: Cheating rampantly! It also sounds like you sort of solved the problem of your, of your younger self writing vampire stories and then getting bored and stopping the process because you were bored with the story. If you’re that in love with the character that you’re writing about you’re never going to get bored, because they’re going to endlessly fascinate you! So you’ve kind of solved your own problem!

Jeaniene: It, it makes a – I mean, I haven’t figured out how to not be emotionally invested in a story and just write it, you know? I mean – and I know others can, and by no means do I imply that they can’t write better than me. I mean, Nora Roberts, while I’m sure she’s emotionally invested, I think she jokingly said that she calls each, each new novel her POS –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – piece of shit? Yeah! And you know, and she’s just like, you sit down in the chair and you, and you put words on the page, ‘cause that’s your job, and while that is true, I mean, I, I can’t put – I don’t have the work ethic, let’s just say that –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – of her and other writers to do that without loving the characters. I mean, I have got to, I have got to be emotionally invested in who I’m writing about to drag my ass into my office and sit in a chair for eight hours. You know, so, so yeah, I have to be really connected to the characters, so yes, it’s – and it’s less like I get bored with the characters and more just like other characters start to, the, the more I write about the side characters, the more I wonder about them and think about them until in my head I’ve got enough to make a story about them, and then I want to tell their story. So it’s less getting bored and more like, ooh, shiny! and, and moving on to something else. But I mean, even right now, if I had more time, I would write a Cat and Bones short story or novella, because I know what they’re doing right now, and I want to write about it! So I’m not even done with them.

Sarah: What are they doing?

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: Well, the way Up from the Grave ended – and SPOILER ALERT: you know, plug your ears if you haven’t gotten to that point yet, but you know, they, they’re, they’re kind of off in hiding with Cat’s daughter, and they pop, Cat and Bones pop up as side characters in the series I’m writing because Bones and Ian were, you know, very good friends, and sometimes frenemies, but at the end of the day, you know, almost like brothers –

Sarah: Right.

Jeaniene: – through the other series, so with the stuff that’s happening to Ian, of course Bones is going to pop up. And where Bones is, Cat usually isn’t far behind, so you see them. So you get glimpses into what they’re doing while they’re hiding –

Sarah: Right.

Jeaniene: – because vampire world thinks their daughter is dead for various reasons, and they need to keep it that way.

Sarah: Right.

Jeaniene: But I wanted to, you know, kind of little bit shine a spotlight by that, and I’ve been wanting to for a while, write, like, a girls’ night out story with Cat and Denise, and Denise was the heroine in my book First Drop of Crimson. You know, like, what would they do if they just tried to go out for fun like normal people? And of course they couldn’t just go out for fun like normal people because paranormal hijinks would have to follow, and –

Sarah: Of course!

Jeaniene: – so yeah. So anyway, so yeah. So while I’m fickle and I will cheat on my characters, I will still want to circle back around, I guess.

Sarah: And you –

Jeaniene: So – [laughs]

Sarah: They’re a part of the world that you’ve created anyway, so you’re still hanging out with them.

Jeaniene: Exactly!

Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah! Ann also wants to know if, if Ian and Veritas’s story is a trilogy, or does it, does it end with Wicked Bite?

Jeaniene: It does not end with Wicked Bite.

Sarah: Yay!

Jeaniene: I can say that with confidence. [Laughs]

Sarah: You have, you have made Ann very happy.

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: Oh, yay! I don’t know if this next book, the third book, I don’t know if that will be the last yet. And I’ve told readers, I’m just going to stop telling them in advance how long a series will be, because I have never gotten it right, not once.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: And when I started Halfway to the Grave, which is my first Night Huntress novel, I thought it was going to be one book with Cat and Bones –

Sarah: Right.

Jeaniene: – but ha-ha-ha!

Sarah: No!

Jeaniene: Yes, seven and, seven and a half books and a short story, or one or two short stories later, yeah, I was wrong. And then I was like, okay, it’ll be three books; okay, five books; okay, eight books. Actually, not eight books; it’ll be seven books; and then – so I just could not, just couldn’t guess, ‘cause I know generally what I want to write, but because I’m more a pantser than a, than a serious, you know, detailed, organized plotter, I don’t know –

Sarah: Right.

Jeaniene: – how long it will take for me to write that.

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: So same with Vlad: I thought it was going to be two books, and then I was like, nope! It’s a trilogy! I, I told everyone it’s a trilogy. Then I, then I was halfway through the third book and I was like, oh shit! There is no way I can wrap this up in the next half a book! Then I was like, okay, it’s going to be a fourth book, and even then I hesitated, ‘cause I thought, what if I – it turned out to be four books, but –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: So I try to guess again, ‘cause readers, understandably, get upset! They’re like, you – make up your mind! It’s like, I can’t!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh my gosh, make up your mind! I’m sorry, I am not in control of this train. It is on its on.

Jeaniene: Yeah, I’m not driving this bus!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So Ann also wants to know, what’s the difference for you writing YA as opposed to adult paranormal?

Jeaniene: Huh! Well, the difference is, tee-hee, I have never written a YA! Everyone thinks I did because my other not-vampire series, the Broken Destiny series, was New Adult. It was not YA, but the first cover looked very YA, and a lot of –

Sarah: It did! I can understand why people got that impression.

Jeaniene: Yeah. [Laughs] Will not talk about cover discussion, will not talk about cover discussion. Yeah, the fir-, the first book looked really YA, and New Adult was kind of a new genre, and a lot of people didn’t understand that it wasn’t the same as Young Adult, so –

Sarah: Right.

Jeaniene: – the vast majority of my readers assumed it was a New Adult. Ann, you are not alone! You are, you are among the vast majority. Which is why my –

Sarah: Right, right, right.

Jeaniene: – that publisher redid the covers twice. I think now it’s just a bare-chested guy on the cover, you know, that, that just pretty much screams not Y-, you know, not YA. Just, you know, adult content.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: So, so yeah! So I’ve never written a YA. I, I tried once, many years ago, and the feedback I got was that – I mean, honestly, the feedback I got from editors was, oh, you sweet thing, we can tell you’re in your late thirties. Just, just give it up.

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: They said it so much more politely, but that really was the end result. Like, you do not sound like a teenager at all. Just save yourself. [Laughs]

Sarah: And you have had a lot of covers for the, The Beautiful Ashes. I just realized that I hadn’t seen the, the third one –

Jeaniene: Yeah, yeah, third. It’s, it’s the blond, bare-chested guy, though, right?

Sarah: It is a blond, bare-chested guy! Nice man-chest, by the way.

Jeaniene: Yeah.

Sarah: I, I, I do remember very clearly when I was still just a brand-new blogger and I didn’t understand that, like, books would just show up to the house? Like, publishers would send them to you? I didn’t know that was a thing, and I got a copy of Halfway to the Grave, which is some of the best cover art –

Jeaniene: Isn’t it?

Sarah: – I’ve ever seen.

Jeaniene: Oh!

Sarah: Not just the model’s expression? Like, (a) she’s going to kill you, but (b) she’s sitting to the side, her arm is behind her, the knife is in front of the boot, she’s got legs for days –

Jeaniene: Yep.

Sarah: – my God.

Jeaniene: And a pretty dress!

Sarah: That cover is exquisite –

Jeaniene: Not leather pants or, or, you know, or like the, like you said, but she, no, or like the red, you know, bright red bustier, she’s wearing just a regular pretty dress! [Laughs]

Sarah: And she looks so fierce. I mean, that cover is stunning.

Jeaniene: It really, it really was. I mean, I have to tell you, I could not have asked for a better cover, and especially on a debut novel, because we all, you know, we all know better than to judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it, that’s the first thing you see on a book is it’s cover!

Sarah: Oh, of course.

Jeaniene: Yeah, so that cover was, I, I just, I loved it. I loved it, I loved it, could not, could not love it more, and, and I love how they did mix the, I’m going to kill you, with, oh, look, if you don’t notice the knife, you know, I’m just, oh, look at me! I’m just a girl in a dress – in a cemetery with a big-ass knife, staring right at you. Come and, you know –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – come and try something. [Laughs] So it’s –

Sarah: And every, every pose that she’s been in, even with the change of model, the physical poses are so powerful! Like, she is not here to fuck around.

Jeaniene: Yeah!

Sarah: I love that about the, the physical positioning of her body on covers.

Jeaniene: Yeah, they did, I, they did such a great job with that. I mean, not that I don’t love my other covers too; I don’t want to imply, you know, that I, that, but they really, I think, they just, they did something special with that series, with the covers. And I loved how, in paranormal romance, it was a chick on a cover who looked like, like you said, like she was going to kill you! And that –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – that was not the most common look in PNR. So I loved it because at a glance, it kind of let readers know this is, this is, has a lot of urban fantasy elements in it, and I’ve heard readers say, you know, oh, you’re urban fantasy; oh, you’re paranormal romance; and I just, I mean, I’m, I’m not going to tell a reader they’re wrong, ‘cause, you know –

Sarah: Of course!

Jeaniene: Yeah, but it’s, but it’s like, I, I am in the romance section. I am in, I am, that is where I am published. That is why every book I write, every series, I guarantee, you know, will have a Happily Ever After. Now, the big controversy when I was first published is that Cat and Bones’s, their first book didn’t, but I said, listen, I, I know what genre I’m in; I respect it. As a series –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – I promise you, if you continue, Cat and Bones will have their Happily Ever After, and I was just, you know, beyond fortunate that so many readers took the ride with me.

Sarah: And they are going to have so much sex, you have no idea!

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: You know, she kills a lot more people than she has sex. It’s a lot more – [laughs]

Sarah: There’s a higher body count than a banging count? I agree –

Jeaniene: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: – but they have a lot of sex too.

Jeaniene: There’s a higher body than ba- – the bodies per banging count is very much in the bodies category! [Laughs]

Sarah: Please take that and run with it, ‘cause it’s awesome!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So we’ve talked a little about paranormal romance, urban fantasy; there’s sort of an overlap there. What are some of the changes you’ve seen in paranormal romance over the years that you’ve been working in it? How has it, how has it evolved?

Jeaniene: One of the biggest changes I’ve seen is tied to industry, because one of the biggest things that has changed since 2007 when I first came out and now has been the emergence of the self-publishing market and of Kindle Unlimited.

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: I mean, in any genre, but especially romance, where romance is the biggest seller in fiction – I mean, it is; it is –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – you know, and, and it is especially so for the digital market. I mean, the emergence of indie publishing as not just, you know, something that vanity presses were doing, which is what the market was back in 2007, but with Kindle and with the emergence, you know, the, well, the domination, not just the emergence, the domination of that as the market, it changed, I mean, it changed the entire industry, and –

Sarah: It really did.

Jeaniene: Yes, and especially romance, so you really, I mean, to me, I really couldn’t talk about what has changed in the subgenre of paranormal romance without talking about the change of the indie market. It’s, it’s been huge, and I think it’s, it’s, it has pros and cons, shall I say. One of –

Sarah: Yeah! Definitely true.

Jeaniene: Yeah, one of the things that I think is a big pro is that reader, or writers and readers could get all different types of stories. I mean, when you have a market where you can get any type of story, people that wanted a specific type of story that maybe traditional publishing wasn’t doing a lot of, all of a sudden they don’t have to only read those stories. They can go right online and they can see it, like there’s a lot of shifter, shifters in, I’ve seen indie PNR. Like, bear shifters is a big thing. Apparently there’s a market for that! I didn’t know, but hey! More power to the bear shifters! [Laughs] You know, there’s more, there’s a lot of multiculturalism in the online indie market that for a while traditional publishing was not serving well at all! So, you know, and LGBTQ. There was a lot more of that in indie than traditional; there may still be. So there’s a lot more variety in indie, and that’s been a great thing.

What hasn’t been a great thing is the scams in indie. You know, we’ve heard about that, where, you know, sometimes you’re reading a book, and the author’s name on it is absolutely not who wrote it, because they have a stable of ghostwriters, and, you know.

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: So, so that, as an author, is really frustrating, because, I mean, there’s so little you can control in publishing, and by so little I mean almost nothing? But the –

Sarah: So true.

Jeaniene: – but the one thing you can control is doing your best writing a book. Like, I’ve told readers, I can never guarantee that you’ll like my book, but I can guarantee you I gave my best effort writing that book. And it just, so it feels to me like cheating that authors put their name on a book that they didn’t even write! And then they pump out twelve and fifteen of them a year, and they make other authors look like slackers when we’re the ones actually sitting with our asses in the chair writing our own books! So as an author, the scamming makes me so angry. [Laughs]

Sarah: I can understand that, plus it, it means that it’s one more thing for you to have to defend about your own work when there’s already so much crap that gets handed to you as a writer of romance, as a writer of vampires, as a writer of paranormal. There’s already this, you know, layer of, of silliness that gets directed at you from general media, to have to defend the fact that you actually wrote it seems – like, if you would go back in time and tell yourself in 2007, so listen, in the future you’re going to have to defend the idea that you actually wrote these books yourself –

Jeaniene: Right?

Sarah: – you probably would have been like, you would have been laughing, you’re so silly!

Jeaniene: Right. I’d be like, what do you mean? Like, I didn’t even, honest to God, I didn’t even know that’s what was going on until a year ago, and that’s how, I mean, that’s how much I just couldn’t believe other people, other authors would do that! It just, I had heard it, but I thought, nuh-uh! [Laughs] So the huge change that I’ve seen is that, you know, now paranormal is – I mean, the readers haven’t gone away, but a lot of them did, did wander from traditional to indie, and you can tell this.

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: You can see the sales rankings on the indie books, you know, and you can see, again, the –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – the sales ranking and the quantity versus traditional publishing. The readers did not leave; they changed lanes, you know, at least a significant amount of them.

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: And I can understand that as a reader. It’s like, hey, if I can find stories I love cheaper, why wouldn’t I? I don’t begrudge readers doing that all. But it is a different reality in the genre, and it’s something that, you know, if you’re writing in it and if you’re reading in it, you, you know, it’s too obvious –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: – not to mention.

Sarah: How do you think your stories have changed as you’ve grown as a writer?

Jeaniene: Hmm. Content-wise, content, story content, I don’t think there’s that much difference?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jeaniene: I mean, at the end of the day, you could, you could do Cliff Notes of my stories and say that they were romance set against a backdrop of the struggle against good versus evil, because that is pretty much the essence of what I write. And that has not changed from, two, you know, from 2007 to today. One, I love romance. You know, pretty much, to explain my books, okay, I grew up reading romance novels, watching soap operas, and watching Tales from the Crypt, and that pretty much could give you motivation for a lot of my writing.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: Because I loved all those things! And so you will see romance and soap, some soap-opera-like situations and then, you know, the creatures and the twistedness of, you know, the Tales from the Crypt thing in there too, and yeah, that’s my work. [Laughs] Take a bow. So I’m that’s what I, it’s what I love, so it’s what I do. You know, I would hope quality-wise the writing has gotten better; I mean, I would hope. I look back, I read my first novel, and I’m like, good God, were you playing a drinking game with your exclamation points and your adverbs? Because, you know, if someone took a shot at each one of those, they would need a liver transplant by the end of the novel.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: So yeah, and I was apparently afraid to start the sentences with the word I? I was apparently thinking that I did that too much, so I would start them with, you know, like, leaving the table, I went to the blah – I wouldn’t just say, I left the table. I mean, it, it just – again, reading it now, I cringe and want to red pen correct everything. But not the story! The story I would keep, but I, you know, the writing. So yeah, so again, I would hope I’ve gotten better and hope I’ve learned and, you know, grown in my craft and all that crap that you’re supposed to do when you’re doing this for your job? [Laughs] But the essence of the story is the same. I love romance, I want to have a good versus evil struggle, and at the end I want good to win, because I, you know, I, they need to have some hope in this life. Even if it’s just between the pages, right?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely! One of the questions that I love to ask writers and people who’ve been doing what they do for a long time is to sort of think about what would you go back and say to yourself, or to someone who’s starting a book right now? What advice would you have for them, or for your early self?

Jeaniene: Hmm. Well, let me just speak to general writers, and, and, and break it down to two things. I mean, if someone is thinking of writing a book but they haven’t actually written a book yet, then I mean I would say, start writing and see if you like it. Because, you know, this is a tough business, and if you don’t like it, good God, don’t do it! You know, why would you torture yourself?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jeaniene: So yeah. So actually, take it seriously. I mean, it’s fine if, you know, if you haven’t yet, because again, I didn’t seriously start to write until I was thirty, so I’m the last person to say if you don’t do it by X young age, don’t bother. And there, you hear stories of people saying they didn’t start until they were fifty, so, you know, it’s never too late to start taking it seriously; I firmly believe that. But take it seriously! Actually finish a book. See if it made you happy to finish it, you know, or, and, and then, you know, once you’ve done that, then go back and revise your book, ‘cause if you can’t bring yourself to change a word of your precious baby, this is not the business for you. It’s just not.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: And hey, there’s nothing wrong with writing stories just for yourself that you don’t want to change a part of, you know, so –

Sarah: Absolutely!

Jeaniene: – so yeah, but if you can’t face, if you can, if you can bring yourself to finish it but you can’t bring yourself to revise it, don’t do this. But if you can bring yourself to finish it and you can, you know, get out that, that emotional and mental scalpel and hack away at it, then yes. Then, then sure, try, then try writing another book, and then I would still say try to go the literary agent route first, and the reason why I would say this, even though I have talked about obviously how big the indie market is and what a huge force that is now, but still, it is because it’s big. I mean, I did some Googling real quick before this interview, and there’s over a million self-published books now, and that’s as of when they counted in 2017. I’ve got to believe that number’s bigger, and I think they said Kindle has over four million books between traditional and self. If you just think, oh, I’ll just write a book and upload it to Amazon and then, you know, the money’ll roll in, no, you won’t. [Laughs] No, you won’t!

Sarah: No. [Laughs]

Jeaniene: And yes, sometimes you do hear about lightning striking and you hear some, you know, author saying, oh, I just, I wrote, you know, ten books and I put them online, and look now, and then I quit my day job – yes, lightning does strike. It’s just like people winning the lottery! You will hear about someone winning, you know, a, a ten, a million-dollar ticket, but the bottom line is, that is, that is a lightning strike. That is the rare, rare exception; it’s not the rule; and I see sometimes online, you know, writers be so excited, and they’re like, oh, I finished a book for NaNo, and now I’m going to, I’m just going to put it online, and it’s like, please don’t! Please don’t! You know? Your book – one, your first draft is, is not what you want someone to read publicly for consumption. It would be like me telling you, I’m going to go to a convention. I’m just going to roll out of bed, not brush my teeth, not wash my face, and show up in my pajamas, and that’s how I’m going to present myself. No! No. No. No one wants to see that. [Laughs] That’s like, that’s like a first draft! Its teeth aren’t brushed, its face isn’t washed, it probably still smells, and it has horrible bed head! That is not what you want to show to people, you know? You’ve got, you’ve got to clean it up!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: So, so yeah. So I would really say, try the literary agent, because number one, they will help you clean your book up, and they will help you get a, get a leg up above the four million other people who already have books out on the market, because if you do get a traditional publisher, one, they talk on all the expenses, which that is big, okay, and two, they will, they have ave-, they have channels and avenues already to give you promotion that you won’t have just, just hitting Publish on a book to KDP, you know, that’s, that’s a needle in the haystack with everyone else. And they will help you make the book beditor, better – beditor, oh my God, beditor, ugh, geeze. I swear to God, I’m not drinking and doing this interview – anyway, they, an editor will make your book better. That’s what beditor means, the new phrase I’ve coined. So it’ll, your, what you will be showing people will be so much better than your initial first effort the first time you type The End. So I do still really, you know, tell people I think that is, that is the way to go first.

If for whatever reason, you’ve already done all the research and, you know, and for whatever, and you’ve polished your book and you’ve, you know, you’ve had professional, someone read it, freelance editor, and you’re like, I want to do self-publishing because of these researched, very logical reasons, then sure, go ahead! But I just so try and, unfortunately, burst people’s bubble against thinking self-publishing is the quick, easy way. It’s not. It really, really isn’t. None of this will be quick and easy. If you’re looking for quick and easy, buy a Lotto ticket; you’ll have better odds. But if you’re serious about wanting to share your story with people, yes. You still can have it happen, you know, the, the traditional way, or you still can have it happen the indie way, but just know.

Sarah: I love the idea that your first draft has bad breath.

Jeaniene: Yeah, oh, so much, right? Oh. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yeah. Do you have an edit-, you, do you have the same editor after all these years?

Jeaniene: Mm, I actually do! Yes, the first editor who bought my first book is the editor I still have now, and I, I, I’m so happy to still have her, and I, you know, and I trust her feedback on the books, and that doesn’t mean that, you know, she and I won’t disagree sometimes, but I know she’s not trying to change the story to make it what she thinks it should be or, or, you know, or make it try and fit some trend or something. She genuinely is trying to help take my book and make it the best it can be, and that’s, that’s what you dream for, about in an editor.

Sarah: That’s what you’re going for.

Jeaniene: Yeah.

Sarah: What are, what are some of the things you’ve learned from your editor?

Jeaniene: Staying on plot.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Wait, you have to have a plot? Shit!

Jeaniene: It sounds so –

Sarah: Damn!

Jeaniene: – basic, doesn’t it? But you’ve got to realize, the first book I wrote is the first book that I published, okay, which isn’t normal. You know, that’s not, that’s, that is a bit unusual. Most, most people, you know, write, wrote a few books before they got published. My first published book is the first book I ever finished, and I wrote that just for me, you know. Wrote it, and then I wrote the second book, again just for me, and wrote the third book, and by the time I started the fourth book, my husband said, do you want to see if anyone wants to buy ‘em before you just keep writing books in the same series? So that’s why I started shopping. Mostly to shut him up so he’d leave me alone and let me write in peace.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: And, and, you know, I ended up revising the book, but it got, it did get, that first book got published, bought! And when my editor gave me notes on it, and I, you know, it had been in better shape, ‘cause agents had helped me clean it up, but my second book was the original second book, and oh dear God, I can still – for fun, I ought to publish the edit notes on it? You know, the margin comments? Because they were like, why is this scene here?

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: You didn’t –

Sarah: What is happening?

Jeaniene: Like, my – yeah, like, you did the exact same type of scene three times in a row. This is literally the fourth version of the same type of scene. Why is this scene here? It has nothing to do with the plot! Why is this scene here? Like, who are these people? They show up, they do nothing, they go away, you don’t see ‘em again for the rest of the book, ‘cause that’s how I wrote! I literally –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – did not understand I had to stay on main plot and every scene should have a point! I wrote thinking, this is a fun brain tease idea! I’m just going to include it in the book! Because I, like, I didn’t know the most basic things of when you write your, every, every chapter in your book should be related to the main plot and going toward the eventual resolution of the book. I didn’t even know that. [Laughs] I learned.

Sarah: Well, I mean, it, it, it can be fun to meander through a world, especially one that you made; I can understand that. I mean, why else would fanfiction exist in such high quantities if people didn’t want to hang out in worlds that, you know, didn’t really have to go anywhere, just hanging out. Like, maybe that’s, maybe that’s the name of the, of the subgenre of fanfic, like, common-room fanfic: we’re all just hanging out here.

Jeaniene: I had so much of off-plot side stories, I, I combined them into an anthology that was, I think, like a hundred and thirty thousand words –

Sarah: Nice!

Jeaniene: – called Outtakes from the Grave, and that was like a book and a quarter length just of my meandering off-plot others, other and/or alternate version scenes, just from my first four books.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: That’s how much I had to cut. I had to cut oh, like a novel and a quarter, a novel and a third out of my first four books, because I did not grasp that you, yes, your, your story should have, you know, a lean, mean plot, basically. So yeah. So I act-, I eventually ended up self-publishing it for, you know, readers who wanted to see more of Cat and Bones and, like, well, what if this would have happened? Okay. Kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure: what if this would have happened? Well, here you go! I wrote it!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So you must really like hanging out in the world that you created, yeah?

Jeaniene: Yeah! I, I loved hanging out with the characters, and especially starting out, when I didn’t have the pressure, I’ve got to tell you, there is something glorious about writing just for you, not thinking about –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jeaniene: – making, you know, making it make sense, or did you break a worldbuilding rule, or are you on plot, or is your pacing good enough, or have you, you know, blah-blah-blah? All the things that are, listen, they’re critical to, to putting a book out that you want people to buy, because when someone buys it, that’s, that’s a product, you know. That’s, that’s not your, that’s not your imagination, baby; that’s a product. That’s what you’re asking them to buy, and the product should be as good as it could be, but before that, when you’re doing it for yourself, I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s taking a walk down Imagination Avenue. It’s, there’s, there’s so much fun about that. And you don’t have the pressure of product.

Sarah: Yeah! That’s absolutely true. And it can be a really difficult transition to make, that the thing that you’ve written that was your imagination and your playground is now a product.

Jeaniene: It’s a shock! I mean, I’ve got to tell you, the biggest shock wasn’t that? The, the biggest shock was – gosh, and I don’t know how to say this without sounding pretentious, but you’ll, you’ll know what I mean, Sarah, because I’m sure it happened to you too – is how you are no longer, you’re no longer a person. You are a representation of a product. Like, people know you as Sarah –

Sarah: Oh yeah, absolutely!

Jeaniene: – from Smart Bitches, not just Sarah, you know what I mean?

Sarah: Yeah. Yep.

Jeaniene: And I genuinely did not expect that. It was probably ‘cause I didn’t have any online presence before my first publishing contract, and so the only interactions I had with people like that was as Jeaniene the author, but to me I was just, you know, I’m Jeaniene! I’m, I’m the person I’ve always been! And I didn’t realize that people didn’t look at me. You know, people only knew me through my books, so whenever I spoke, it’s almost like a book cover with a mouth! [Laughs] You know, everything you say –

Sarah: Yep.

Jeaniene: – is tied back to, to that, and it was like, even when I was talking about other books as an author who had a contract but who didn’t have a book on the shelves yet, and I remember some, some group was talking about, and I’m not going to say which author, but an author’s books, and they were saying something, you know, they were saying something a bit critical, and it was a popular author, and I said, oh, you know, that really bothers me too about this, this thing, and, and a couple readers were like, oh, you think your books are better? Wow, you’re arrogant! Oh my God, I’m never even, I’m not even going to buy – and I was like, oh my God! I, it didn’t occur to me that I was no longer Jeaniene, a reader! I was Jeaniene, an author, because to me, I hadn’t changed! I was just talking about books the way I had my whole life, you know? And you, and again, like you, Sarah, if you say something, you know, you’re, you’re saying it as Sarah from the Smart Bitches blog, not just –

Sarah: Yes. Your, your name becomes a brand.

Jeaniene: Yes, and I, and there is a – [sighs] – what do you call it? A deconstructing of you as a person that kind of happens, that –

Sarah: Yeah, you have to, you have to separate the two, even if the person you’re speaking to does not. Yeah, I totally know what you mean.

Jeaniene: So that was, that was really hard. [Laughs] It really was!

Sarah: Yeah. Oh yeah. I can understand that totally, especially because, you know, this is, this is my real name, you know? I wasn’t smart enough to pick a penname. Oops!

Jeaniene: Oh, you and me both, sister. This is my real name. If I had to go back, I wouldn’t have done it. First of all, look – people have said, is this a penname? I’m like, do you see how that’s spelled? Would I have picked a penname that had that many vowels?

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s one of my favorite things about emailing you: we just keep adding more vowels to your name. I think the last time I wrote you it was Jeanieneineineine.

Jeaniene: It’s like talking to a dog or a baby. You know how you talk to a dog or a baby and be like, ooh, it’s a wittle, wittle woo-woo, and it’s all vowels? Yeah, that’s my, that’s pretty much how my name reads.

[Laughter]

Sarah: However, Frost is an outstanding surname for a paranormal author.

Jeaniene: It is kind of, that is kind of neat, I’ve got to tell you, yeah. I, I married the, I, I, yeah. That was a good business decision when I was nineteen. [Laughs]

Sarah: It was a very, very good branding strategy. That whole wedding was excellent branding strategy: A+.

Jeaniene: That’s how far ahead you plan.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So what are you working on now?

Jeaniene: I just finished revisions on Wicked Bite, which is the second Ian and Veritas novel, also known as the Night Rebel series. [Laughs] So literally just turned those in yesterday. So right at this exact moment I am gleefully working on nothing. I think I’m going to take a week to read and watch TV and try and get caught up on my inbox, ‘cause my inbox is just, it, I mean, it’s going to grow arms and legs and come after me.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: But anyway. So after I do that, then I will be starting the third Ian and Veritas novel. No title yet at this point. It’ll probably have the word Wicked in it because, you know, we’ll probably continue with that theme. And, as discussed, I don’t know if this is going to be the last book? It could be, or who knows? Maybe not. I’ll, I’ll tell you when I’m done. [Laughs]

Sarah: One other question from Ann: have you ever had a fangirl moment while meeting an author?

Jeaniene: Yes. Yes! I’ve had two that stick out that are really embarrassing.

Sarah: Oh! Those are the best kind!

Jeaniene: Yes. I had just sold a book, and I went to my first RWA, and I was in a business meeting where they were, I don’t even remember what the hell they were talking about, but they were talking about something business. Okay, so this is the first time I’m, like, in person meeting my publishers, okay? So you know, you’re supposed to be professional, and you’re supposed to not act like an ass, okay? And so at the business meeting I was doing a good job, and then Kim Harrison walked in and sat down and, you know, you know, whatever, talked with the meeting, and then she got up to leave early, and I jumped up in the middle of the meeting, ran over and said, I just have to tell you I love your books! Which startled her –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – and everyone else from my publisher at the table, but I physically could not control myself! And then I sat back down like, oh my God, what did I do? Because they were all looking at me like, oh my God, what did you do? Which I deserved, but I had, again, I could not stop myself from leaping up to say that, because there was the author who wrote the Hollows series! I couldn’t! I couldn’t control it! So there was that, and I’m, I’m amazed that wasn’t just, and that was the end of Jeaniene’s career, you know, ‘cause that, that could have been a logical conclusion to that story.

And then there was, I was on, leaving a panel at some convention – I don’t know what it was; RT or RWA, one of them – and the next, you know, set of author panelists came up, and one of ‘em was Diana Gabaldon, and I saw her and just, like, like, paused, stared, and then ran over and said – so I don’t even know what; some ramble: oh my God I love your books Claire and Jamie oh my God – [gabbles] – you know, some, some sort of –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: – just unintelligible, gasping thing like that, and then ran away before I said anything else embarrassing, and the funny part is, here’s how you know when you, when you’ve really shamed yourself: on a panel later that day I said, oh, I just embarrassed myself in front of, you know, an author I love, Diana Gabaldon. I ran up to her and I just babbled like a crazy person and ran away, and someone from the audience yelled, oh my God, she mentioned that at her panel! That was you?! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh God, no! No, no, no, no!

Jeaniene: So yes, so, so if anyone thinks they have fangirled in a way that’s embarrassing, I, yeah, don’t worry! I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve shamed myself so much more!

[Laughter]

Sarah: See, I don’t know if there’s anything better than someone just coming up to me and saying, oh my God, I love your website; I love the podcast; I love what you do? Because you know, it can be like working in a vacuum, and I love being on the receiving end of that. I have never had any chill when I do it myself.

Jeaniene: Yes. Same! I love when people tell me that! It’s so nice to hear, ‘cause, like you say, you work most of the time and you’re by yourself, and you do your best, and you hope it doesn’t suck, and you know, you don’t know!

Sarah: Yeah.

Jeaniene: [Laughs]

Sarah: Nope. But then when you become a, a proud fangirling member of Team No Chill, like, I look back on that and I’m like, wow, Sarah, you just, you just really went there, didn’t you? Wow. Okay! Good job. Just, your, my inner thirteen-year-old just comes out sometimes, and it’s not good!

Jeaniene: Yep.

[Laughter]

Jeaniene: Yes, I hear you. Mine apparently can’t be trusted even in a professional setting.

Sarah: Nope! Nope, nope, nope. Thirteen-year-old girls inside, we just, they’ve just got to come out!

Now you mentioned that you’re about to take time to watch TV and tackle your inbox. Are there TV shows that you absolutely adore that you want to recommend? Aside from Santa Clarita Diet, which should not have been canceled.

Jeaniene: Yes, and I’m, I’m just so angry. [Laughs] It was great! It featured a married couple, and it was funny and witty and, and, and it had a paranormal element! It was everything I love! Oh! Anyway, it was great, and I would honestly recommend watching it if for nothing else than in season three where Drew Barrymore, ‘cause she, she accidentally becomes a zombie – that’s not a spoiler. You know, that’s the point of the series.

Sarah: Right, of course.

Jeaniene: And, but she only wants to eat bad people, because she’s a good person, you know. So –

Sarah: Of course, yeah.

Jeaniene: So, and she basically ran out of Nazis to eat, you know, neo-Nazis, and so she’s branching out, and they find this violent misogynist that’s not, that’s not too far from the neighborhood, and they lure him there by saying that he’s going to attend a men’s rights meeting, and he’s bitching about things left and right, and she just, oh, she just eats him and rips his arm off, and it hits the wall, and it sounds really gross, but it was actually hilarious!

Sarah: [Laughs] This actually sounds really satisfying?

Jeaniene: It really, it, it fulfills an emotional need I didn’t know I had! [Laughs]

Sarah: You know, you, you see something like that, and all of a sudden you’re like, I didn’t know how, how, how gratifying it would be to see somebody rip the arms off of a guy like that, but yeah, let me rewind that, watch it again! That sounds great!

Jeaniene: I did watch it twice. [Laughs] Anyway. And they’re like, how’re we going to lure him here? And she says, we’re going to tell him a woman’s expressing her opinions online on the internet; that’s how we’ll get him here.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jeaniene: Anyway, so it was, it was really, it was really witty. So yeah, still grieving. Still grieving that. Another show that I had really liked that also only had two seasons was People of Earth, and that was, it was about people who, at first it’s this reporter investigating people that thought they had been kidnapped by aliens, and he’s completely skeptical and kind of mocking of them, only to find out he had been, he had been kidnapped too, and it was funny, though. It – you know, I guess I like shows that have light, light, quirky, interesting characters that are real and flawed and yet also, again, witty and fun with a little bit of, you know, light paranormal elements. I, you know, I –

And then I’ll also like other shows like Stranger Things. I loved season one or two. Just saw season three, thought it was the weakest of them, but, you know, if you saw the first two you’ve got to watch season three.

Oh, I went through all twelve seasons of Bones in like the past four months, ‘cause it was what I was watching –

Sarah: That seems appropriate.

Jeaniene: You know, isn’t it funny? And when it first came out I didn’t watch it because of the name Bones. I couldn’t, I couldn’t separate my main character named Bones from the nickname of the forensic pathologist, so I didn’t watch it when it came out. I only started watching it like in January, and it was free on Crime, so I would watch it at night, and I loved it, and it was so great because it, again, it had basically good versus evil. You know, at the beginning there’s a crime; by the end they’ve solved it and they’ve gotten the bad guy. It has, it has, you know, an equal number of strong female characters to strong male characters. And honestly, that’s not as common as it should be on TV, you know? On TV, let’s face it, as women we’re happy if we get one or two strong female characters usually. This had several, and so I loved that too. So recommend that show.

And now I’m watching The Mentalist, which is about a guy who used to be a psychic but then, whatever, started admitting that that was all fake, he’s just really good at reading people, so he helps the police solve crimes.

And, geeze, just too many other things to list probably. [Laughs]

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you to Jeaniene Frost for hanging out with me, and if you would like to find her on the internet, I have links in the show notes, but her website is jeanienefrost.com. She’s on Twitter @Jeaniene_Frost and on Facebook at JeanieneFrost. And if you’re curious, it’s J-E-A-N-I-E-N-E. Lots of vowels, like she said.

This episode was brought to you by Dearly Beloved by Mary Jo Putney. Dearly Beloved, Mary Jo Putney’s award-winning, standalone romance, had fallen out of print since it was first published in 1990, but now it is back on shelves in a beautifully repackaged edition, and her classic tale of forbidden love, courtesans, and dangerous secrets is as enthralling as it has ever been. When the most in-demand courtesan in London meets a viscount and undercover spy harboring a dangerous secret, their clash of passion unleashes an adventure that threatens to upend their lives forever. Dearly Beloved by Mary Jo Putney is available now wherever you find your books, and for more information, visit kensingtonbooks.com.

Every episode receives a transcript from garlicknitter – thank you, garlicknitter! – and this week the transcript is brought to you by our Patreon community. Thank you, Patreon community! [Thanks from me too! – gk] You are all fabulous! If you would like to have a look and join, please do! Patreon.com/SmartBitches: monthly pledges start at one dollar per month, and every pledge makes a deeply appreciated difference.

Now, before I get to terrible jokes and previews of what’s coming up, I have two things to tell you about:

First, Sudio has sent me a new pair of headphones to test out, and they’re fabulous to the point where my children are trying to steal them from me. I hid them before they went to camp so that they wouldn’t go to camp, because I was pretty sure someone was going to try to take ‘em with them. They are small, white earbuds. The brand name, well, the brand name is Sudio, but the device name is Tolv. Swedish folks, if I’m saying that wrong, please feel free to correct me. They are wireless Bluetooth earbuds. They weigh four and a half grams each, and the case is a little bit larger than that round lip balm that comes in a sphere that I always lose, but it’s slightly larger than that, so I don’t lose this. I’m also really good at hiding it. Each time you put the headphones in the case, they start recharging, ‘cause there’s a battery in there. Each time you charge them, the battery in the, in the earbuds lasts seven hours, and the charge case has another four charges, so that’s a couple of days of a lot of Bluetooth wireless activity. I wear them to walk the dog; I wear them to work out. They are awesome. So if you’re thinking, I could really use a pair of wireless earbuds, you can get fifteen percent off your purchase at Sudio, S-U-D-I-O, dot com [sudio.com]. Discount code SMARTBITCHES: fifteen percent off and free worldwide shipping. Quite awesome! And thank you to Sudio for the coupon!

It is over a hundred degrees this weekend, and as a result I’m using Christmas music. This is Adeste Fiddles, it’s Deviations Project, and this is “Three Ships,” one of my very favorite songs from this album. Because it is so hot, I had to think of things that were cool, so I hope you enjoy the Christmas music beneath – did you know that’s called the bed? I think I’ve told you that before.

Now, one last thing: if you are going to be in RWA or in New York next week, Thursday, July 25th, seven o’clock at the Strand Book Store, I am hosting a romance game night with Helena Hunting, Sonali Dev, Melonie Johnson, Lauren Layne, and Alisha Rai. Admission is ten dollars, and it comes with a ten-dollar gift card to the Strand Book Store. There’s going to be a book signing, there’s going to be games, it’s going to be mayhem, and the first fifty people to arrive win a tote bag! It’s going to have stuff in it, too. Doors open at 6:30. You can register online. I have a link in the show notes and at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/events. I hope you can join us!

Coming up on the site this week, today, July 19, we have a very cool guest post from Emma Barry about the romance of outer space for the anniversary of the moon landing fifty years ago. Her essay is really cool; I really enjoyed it. This weekend, we also have bonus Help a Bitch Out and Hide Your Wallet, Part Two, where we talk about books we’ve heard about, deals we’ve learned of, and things that we think you might want to know. Then next week, we have new reviews of new books, and we have a new post from Poppy, who reads books and then illustrates scenes featuring her cats? She did a guest post last month, and she’s back with a new one, and it is exquisite! Plus we’ll have Help a Bitch Out and Books on Sale and more!

I will have links to everything we talked about, all of the books we mentioned, in the show notes, but you knew that.

So before we go, it’s time for a terrible joke.

How do you feed a thousand people with one loaf of bread?

Don’t know? How do you feed a thousand people with one loaf of bread?

Well, you cut the ends off, because then you’ll have endless bread.

It’s endless bread! [Laughs] That is from a Reddit user named /houseme’s daughter. So, /houseme, your daughter? Super awesome! Endless bread. [Laughs more]

And if you are going to be at RWA next week, Amanda will be there; I will be there; Aarya will be there! If you see one of us, grab us and say hi! I love meeting folks who listen to the show, so if you see me I would very much like to meet you, so please don’t be afraid. Unless I’m, like, speaking or something, and then, you know, I’ll definitely drink, take a break for water. But either way, if you’re around and you see one of us, please stop and introduce yourself. I would be delighted to meet you.

On behalf of Jeaniene Frost and everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend.

[frosty music]

Sarah: Hello there, and welcome to episode number I-forgot-to-write-the-number-down. That’s not going to help me do this intro, is it? Oh boy.