508. Celebrating 100 Books with Jess Michaels!

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Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 508 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Jess Michaels! Jess is celebrating the release of her one hundredth book – wow! – 100 Nights with the Duke! That is a lot of books, and she has had a long career of close to twenty years, so we are going to talk about how she’s celebrating this milestone, and we’re going to take a look back at how her experience of the romance industry has evolved over nearly two decades.

I do want to let you know that close to the end of the episode we talk a little bit about her father, who passed away earlier this year.

I will have links to all of the books that we talk about, and I will have links to a list of all one hundred of her releases as well, in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And speaking of the podcast, hello and thank you to the podcast Patreon community. I really appreciate the fact that all of you have pledged to keep the show going each week, make sure every episode has a transcript – thank you, garlicknitter. If you would like to join our Patreon, it would be fabulous to have you! Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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Are you ready to do this episode? Let’s take a look back over one hundred books and close to twenty years in publishing with Jess Michaels.

[music]

Jess Michaels: I am Jess Michaels. I write mostly historical romance set in the Regency period. Super, super, super sexy, and that’s, that’s pretty much, that’s pretty much the whole of it! [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s a lot of books.

Jess: It is. Although it’s three names, technically, that they were under, although the bulk of it is, is Jess, is Jess Michaels now, but Jenna Petersen was the first, like, it’s like ten or eleven of them, twelve of them maybe, and then I did the urban fantasy as Jesse Petersen, which was six, six books.

Sarah: Right.

Jess: So, so, so, like, a portion of it, what, twenty, twenty-five or thirty books, were under different names, but the majority of it is the Jess Michaels brand.

Sarah: And you are celebrating one hundred books.

Jess: Yeah. When you say it out loud, it’s, kind of freaks me out. [Laughs]

Sarah: Holy crap!

Jess: I know.

Sarah: Congratulations!

Jess: Thanks!

Sarah: Okay –

Jess: I know; it’s pretty exciting.

Sarah: So tell me all of the ways in which you’ve been celebrating this massive achievement.

Jess: So I decided to do this Hundred Days to the Hundredth Book countdown, which is a great idea, and then you have to create a hundred days’ worth of content for that –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: – which isn’t, it’s, it’s not the worst, but, but it’s – so I’ve been, it’s actually been really fun ‘cause it allows me to kind of reflect back on – so I have, like, I have, you know, you do, like, consistent posts just to make it easier, so it’s like writer memories, and then that makes me kind of think about like, well, what were some of my favorite moments over the last twenty-plus years or the last hundred books that, that I’ve – so I get to pull that out. I’ve been doing, like, a Trope Tuesday, so I’ve been trying to figure out, you know, what are my favorite tropes, and which of my books fits into that?

Sarah: Right.

Jess: So that’s been really fun, just kind of reading what – although what’s really funny is sometimes I’m like, I don’t remember what this book was about!

[Laughter]

Jess: So I said, like, oh, I only have one book that’s fake date, and somebody’s like, what about this book? I’m like, I on-, I only have two books that are fake date!

Sarah: Yeah!

[Laughter]

Jess: So, so that’s, I mean, it’s, when you’ve written that much, though, I guess it’s easy to sort of – like, it’s, the past is kind of not my wheelhouse? The future is more my wheelhouse, so –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Jess: – it’s been kind of fun to reflect, and reflection time is fun.

So enjoying that. Lots of giveaways; lots, just lots of fun stuff to lead up to the release on the 10th of May.

Sarah: What are you doing for yourself to celebrate?

Jess: I don’t know! This has been, this has been this big bone of contention, right? Because normally we might go on a big trip, but –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: – it’s still weird? Like –

Sarah: Yeah, it’s –

Jess: – it’s still weird? So –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: – it, it makes it more complicated, you know, and I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know! I, I need to do something to commemorate? Maybe I’ll get a tattoo again. I’ll get another tattoo.

Sarah: Oooh!

Jess: I mean, honestly, that would be the best way to do it, ‘cause then it’s something big and something permanent and something to remind myself, so.

Sarah: Or, I mean, you could, theoretically, do both a tattoo –

Jess: Yes!

Sarah: – and a trip.

Jess: Yeah! [Laughs] I could get a tattoo on a trip!

Sarah: You could get a tattoo of your trip! You could get a postcard –

Jess: [Gasps]

Sarah: – of your trip on –

Jess: Yes!

Sarah: – as a tattoo.

Jess: Yeah. I could get every single book just down the arm, all the pain, a hundred – [laughs] –

Sarah: You’re going to – it’s a hundred books, though.

Jess: Too – maybe not that; that’s too many.

Sarah: You might –

Jess: So yeah, I –

Sarah: – you might run out –

Jess: – I need to think of something.

Sarah: – of room.

Jess: Yeah, I know; I’ve run out of space; I need longer arms. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow! So –

Jess: I know.

Sarah: – how many tattoos do you have? And, and do they all commemorate books?

Jess: So I have one, two, three, four – is it four or five? I think there’s just four. [Laughs] I don’t even know!

So my first tattoo was to commemorate my first published book, so it’s a, it was a historical romance set in – it’s, like, kind of – the in-, influence was The Mummy?

Sarah: Right.

Jess: So it’s an Egyptian ankh with a rose because I was very basic, and it’s a basic tattoo, but it’s –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jess: – you know, whatever, it’s fine. I have a butterfly on the back of my neck –

Sarah: Ouch!

Jess: – which commemorates my first book. That one was fun. On my arm I have My Religion Is Kindness, just to remind myself.

Sarah: Yeah?

Jess: And then I have a big old phoenix on my calf –

Sarah: Ooh!

Jess: – which is my favorite.

Sarah: So for this book, for your one hundredth book, what kind of tattoos could we, could you do? I’m, I’m investing myself in your tat; like, what can we do?

Jess: I know! Like, the –

Sarah: Like I’m even, like I’m involved in this at all. Like, I’m just telling you what to do. What can we tattoo?

Jess: I know! Like, I mean, I, I think in this case, like, it has to be something bookish, like specifically bookish, right?

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: Like a stack of books or a typewriter. I don’t know; I have to think about it, but there’s a really great tattoo shop that is woman-owned and, like, everyone in the shop is, it’s very LGBTQ-friendly, and I really want to get a tattoo from them, so – they do beautiful work, so I, I know where I want to go! I just don’t know, I have to think on what I want to get.

Sarah: You could get, like, a stack of books, and on each spine have your different pen names, and then on the top have the one hundred.

Jess: That.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: Yeah, maybe! ‘Kay, we’ve come up with, I’m writing it down.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’m all up in your business!

A hundred books represents a really long time in this industry, is a really long time.

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: And I just hit five hundred episodes of my podcast, and that, and I, and the site is, as of January, the site is seventeen years old –

Jess: I know!

Sarah: – which is a really long time on the internet, so I feel like you and I – we were talking about this – I feel like you and I are, like, on rocking chairs on a big porch –

Jess: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – just –

Jess: In the old days! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah! Get off my lawn! So what are –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen over a hundred books in your career? I mean, [sarcasm font needed here] not a lot has changed in the industry, really; it’s all exactly the same. (Not at all.)

Jess: [Laughs] I mean, the biggest, the biggest sea shift is definitely indie publishing.

Sarah: For sure!

Jess: You know what I, you know what I mean? I mean, that, that’s, that’s the, the biggest shift for me, is that, and that’s been the best shift for me personally as well. I mean, going from when, when you and I first met, when we first talked, 8,565,000 years ago –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – I mean, all there was was traditional publishing really. I mean, you, you could independently publish, but there was no distribution; you, you certainly would never hit a list. You know, you would be selling books mostly out of your car, you know, or, or trying –

Sarah: People called it vanity.

Jess: Yeah, yeah! There were more vanity versus, like, indie presses –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – although there were more small presses that were legitimate, there were more choices amongst the large presses, because they hadn’t all eaten each other yet.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah.

Jess: But that moment where we could gain that control and just take, take it in our own direction was, like, really the biggest sea shift, I think. And, I mean, you know, in good ways and in negative ways, I think we’ve seen that ripple throughout the whole industry, and, I mean, I’m, I’m happy about it, but that, I mean, to me, that’s the biggest change for sure.

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: When I, when I started, my first three books with Avon didn’t even an e-book.

Sarah: Wooow! That is a long time ago!

Jess: Yeah. ‘Cause I, I realized, I’d put my books in order just on Amazon, and I was looking for something, and I realized that Scandalous was like, was, like, later than other books; that was my first book with Avon. And I was like, wait, why? And then I realized it’s because the e-book came out in 2008, three years after the, the paperback book came, and that was the, the, the date that they had pulled ‘cause it was the latest date.

Sarah: Exactly.

Jess: So it, it made it look like it was a, like, much younger book, and I –

Sarah: Wow!

Jess: – oh, right! And, and then I kind of remembered having to sign an addendum that it was, like, fine for them to do an e-book, and I mean it’s, it’s crazy! It’s crazy to think that.

Sarah: I remember the, the debate from publishers – and I think there might still have been six or more publishers at that time – that there was a discussion of when the e-book, when it was appropriate to release the e-book of a new book. Like –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – well, we think it should be a year after the hardcover, or a year after the paperback. Like, there was this whole argument about when the e-book would be released, and it was a big deal!

Jess: Or, I remember at the time being like, well, I mean, are we going to do e-books? Like, no, no, don’t worry your pretty little head; ebooks, that’s not really a thing that’s going to – that’s a passing fad! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. And the whole idea that – and, and this is, okay, so this is still a little bit true, but it’s much less true? That whatever choice you make in your career, you have to fall on your sword for that choice and defend it until you are completely exhausted, because –

Jess: Yep!

Sarah: – if somebody chooses something different, then that invalidates your choice.

Jess: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: I don’t miss that. I mean, there is some of it –

Jess: No.

Sarah: – but I do not miss it.

Jess: Right, but at the beginning it was like if you were, you know, independently published or you were with something like when Ellora’s Cave was, was huge, you know, there were, there was this whole, I mean, within – not that RWA should be held up as a structure of anything, but, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jess: – well, those aren’t real books! Those aren’t real books! Those books are – you can’t be a published author in RWA because that’s not a real book! And it’s like, but it felt like the money was pretty real for those people!

Sarah: Yeah, listen, the bank accepted my money. [Laughs]

Jess: Yeah, I’m, I’m going to take my, you’re, you’re taking my, my bad money and you’re letting me pay for my, you know, my membership with it, but sure, it’s fine! But, I mean, it’s, I, I have to tell you, I have been on the “ruining romance” side of publishing for like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jess: – ‘cause I, like, sexy romances are ruining romance! And I’m like, look, that’s me! [Laughs] Like, e-books, independent publishing, like, all that, I do think – and then there was a big swing the other way where it was like, why would anyone traditionally publish? That’s a bad choice! And now it feels like that’s kind of all sort of settled back into the middle where, like, having all the options is, is okay? But it’s just like, don’t, don’t people understand that, like, all of our paths are different, and so it’s like none of it is wrong and none of it is right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: Everything is just, this is what works for me, and this is what I’m doing.

Sarah: Right. What if your choices are actually neutral for everyone else except you, because they’re – if, if the choice is –

Jess: Right!

Sarah: – only relevant to yourself –

Jess: Right!

Sarah: Right? And I have existed as a, as a business, I have existed, I like to think of myself like out in a field with a scythe, and I’m like, oh, that looks good! Let’s go that way! And I start cutting the grass –

Jess: Yeah!

Sarah: – and going that way, because there aren’t a lot of models for me to follow. There aren’t a lot of people who started –

Jess: No.

Sarah: – weblogs and then a podcast and then made that their job? There are some, but they don’t, they don’t have everything in common with the way that my business is structured, so I really have to, and had to, develop confidence in the decisions that I make, that I was doing the right thing for my business, even though I have exactly zero business degree, and I had to figure it out without listening too much to the, oh, well, if you do it this way you’re bad! I’m like –

Jess: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – my goal is to make money and sustain my business, so that’s, that’s, that’s my judgment right there: like, can I –

Jess: Yeah!

Sarah: – do those things? And I imagine after a hundred books and after so many models of publishing, you also had to say, okay, I’m doing this, and –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s my decision. You had to have, develop a similar sort of internal compass of how you were going to make decisions, right?

Jess: Yeah, and I think that finding success in the path is really helpful, because then it is sort of like, well, I don’t really care what you think ‘cause I’m paying my bills, so I guess I’m doing okay, and I don’t really care what you think.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: Do you know what I mean? I mean, like, that’s –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – that’s ultimately, I think, helped me, like, have more self-confidence in that?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: But at the same time, you’re public enough that everyone thinks that they have an ownership of what you’re doing or an understanding of what you’re doing, because they see it from the outside.

Sarah: Yep!

Jess: And that’s both the positive and the negative, because we all put this, like, positive face forward, and so sometimes people think that you’re just doing great and everything is fine; they have no idea what’s going on in the background.

Sarah: No.

Jess: You know, and they don’t, or they, all they see is the success; like, there’s this great meme which is like, it’s the, the meme of my heart, and it’s like, one of the feet is in the ballet slipper up en pointe, and the other one is the bare foot just completely ravaged.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: And it’s like, everybody wants that until they see what, what goes into it –

Sarah: What’s inside.

Jess: – right. My, my life is the broken foot, and my career is the toe, the pointe shoe, you know. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: And again, after such a long time, like, I feel enough confidence in what I do and how I do it, because it’s working, that I don’t, I guess I don’t, most of the time, care?

Sarah: I also think that one thing that has changed is the degree to which, now, authors arrive into the marketplace understanding that they have to build their brand under their own names, because –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – you know, seventeen years ago there was a lot of identification of your career by publisher. Well, I am a Pocket author; I am –

Jess: Yes!

Sarah: – an Avon author. Now people realize, okay, if I am going to be successful I need to establish my brand, and publishing is a way for me to do that. My brand is –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – not my publisher.

Jess: Yeah. You know, I mean, I think about when I started, like, I, I didn’t build my newsletter because they told me not to worry about it!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: So I, I do love – again, like, I think author agency is a big shift.

Sarah: Yeah. It can be very hard to relinquish control, can’t it? Once you’ve had it, it’s really hard to give it back! [Laughs]

Jess: Yeah. Yeah. Again, I don’t think I could relinquish it now?

Sarah: No.

Jess: Like, but the act of shifting from, I had no control –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – under a, a, under a major press, right. I had moderate, low-to-moderate control under Samhain, which was a, like a mid-size press, and now like a hundred percent control except for, like, once the book is out you never have control of that, but like –

Sarah: No, that’s, that’s when the control ends.

Jess: – all of the, all of the decisions going into that moment –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – was really scary, ‘cause that is like, oh shit! It’s just me now! [Laughs] It’s just us! But, you know, my, my husband, so, he manages all of the publishing and production stuff, and that lets me be the creative person and the person that –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – kind of leads the marketing and the brand stuff. So, I mean, he, he, he really makes the ship go; he’s the engine of the whole entire thing. And he said to me, we’re going to screw up.

Sarah: Yep.

Jess: Don’t think that we’re not going to screw up, but the difference is that we’re going to care that we’re screwing up, and we’re going to fix it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: You know, versus, like, I mean, I remember a book getting mis-, it had just accidentally, ‘cause it happens? Mis-, like, -placed in the system, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t put under historical romance. And it just vanished! And I said, you realize that there’s, that’s, that is, it’s just how it’s labeled, so it’s not being, it’s not pushing onto those lists; it’s not getting visibility; it’s not gaining momentum. They’re like, oh no, that’s, that’s very terrible! We’ll fix it! And six weeks later they did, and then they were like, well, your last book didn’t do very well, and I’m like, hi! I’d like to introduce You Mislabeled It! [Laughs] You know!

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Jess: And so the difference is, maybe we would do that, although he’s Mr. Like Check Everything Fifty Thousand Times –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – but it might happen, but he would instantaneously be like, I’ve got to fix that.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: You know what I mean? Like, it would be an immediate fix and not something that got put on a list with five thousand other things.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: So I mean that, you know, it’s never that you’re not going to make mistakes or learn, but it’s that, like, no one cares about my career, and no one ever has – and no one ever should! – as much as I do or he does –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – because it’s the method of our – I mean, we, this is one hundred percent how we fund –

Sarah: Your life.

Jess: – our family’s lifestyle –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – so I can’t, you know, I have, I have to keep pushing, and you know, I mean, that’s – and again, it’s not a valid expectation that my editor, my publisher, my agent are going to care as much ‘cause I’m, again, I’m a cog in a wheel!

Sarah: You’re one of several, and also, just looking at the changes and the way people are talking about their work in publishing and how much it sucks, have you seen all of these Twitter threads from these editors who are like, I’m out of here; I am burnt out; I can’t –

Jess: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – do this? Have you, have you seen the @xoxopublishinggg Instagram?

Jess: Yes! I was just going to say, have you seen the @xoxopublishinggg? And I know she hasn’t been doing as many stories, but I was like –

Sarah: Oh my God.

Jess: – [laughs] – oh God!

Sarah: Oh my God. I was, I went down a rabbit hole on the whole thing.

Jess: Uh-huh!

Sarah: For like an hour.

Jess: It’s like a five-episode, like, podcast series –

Sarah: Yes!

Jess: – all on its own.

Sarah: Yes!

Jess: But again, that toxicity has existed –

Sarah: Always.

Jess: – within the system for so long, and it’s just that – I love this generation; they’re literally the best; they’re my favorite – they’re just like, oh, you’re treating me like shit? I’ve got to go, and I’m going to tell everybody about it, and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – [laughs] – no one knows how to handle that?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jess: So that’s what they’re, that’s what we’re seeing is, it’s a real sea shift, and it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens long term?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: And now it’s just all com-, it’s all just dumping out onto the internet –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: – and it’s kind of a – I mean it’s, it sucks! But –

Sarah: Yeah, and I, and I was thinking, when you said six weeks later I’m like, you know that there was probably one person –

Jess: Uh-huh!

Sarah: – who could make that change who had a to-do list of five thousand items –

Jess: That was five thousands things, yep!

Sarah: – and then every other day someone was coming up to their desk and saying, no, this is the emergency. You must drop everything and fix this –

Jess: Yep.

Sarah: – and as we’ve seen with a lot of discussion in the sort of growing work reform movement in many industries, young people who are technologically fluent are expected to shoulder the technological lack of fluency of, or of senior executives; they’re expected to just manage all the technology because, oh, you’re a young person; you know how to do this natively; it’s easy. It still takes time and energy!

Jess: Yep.

Sarah: It’s really interesting to me because, you know, over your career, the way in which you run a business as an author has changed significantly, and I feel like right now, the way that publishing runs as a business is about to change dramatically. Or it should –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – and it, and it, and it’s due, and we’re, ‘cause it’s a corporate thing, it’s like pivoting a cruise ship: it doesn’t happen very easily.

Jess: It’s hard. I’ll be very interested to see if this, this industry that, that seems to have just decided to mire itself –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – in a very traditional and very conservative, and not in a positive way –

Sarah: No.

Jess: – like, kind of mindset will every change or, you know, what, what will it take for that to happen?

Sarah: Yeah! For sure! And one thing I think that has changed a lot is romance readership.

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: I mean, for example, one thing I’ve noticed is that readers are very specifically siloed, and once they learn the language of what it is that they like, they know how to go and find the communities that focus on that thing. They’re going to be able to find a very specified, for example, very specific Facebook group for dark mafia romance with heroes who wear gray suits and purple ties –

Jess: Right.

Sarah: – that take place in this country. Like, there’s going to be an audience of people who are like, that’s us! Come over here; hang out!

Jess: Yeah, it’s got like eight thousand people that are members! [Laughs]

Sarah: Right, yeah!

Jess: They’re like, oh! Wow, that is a very specific and very large niche! You could make a really good living off of it! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, exactly! And the way in which readers are connecting to each other and the language that develops around that is, is really interesting to me, but what are some of the things you’ve noticed about readers changing from the beginning of your career till now?

Jess: I mean, I think they were, it’s not like they weren’t – like, you’d have, like, you know Avon readers and Pocket readers and – you know what I mean? And –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – and I think that that’s kind of gone away. I mean, that’s, they, they seem like they’re so much more interested, like you said, in, they want a specific feeling; a specific, you know, tone; a specific author. They want, you know, they want to feel – and, and I also think, and I hope that this continues, that, like, more readers are being more vocal – I think they always wanted this, but they’re being more vocal about wanting a greater span of diversity, wanting less toxicity, you know, and, and being more verbal about that and vocal? I don’t, you know, mean – our, our genre is intensely problematic; my particular corner of the genre is intensely problematic just by its nature; but I do think that seeing that begin to change and that ship turning is really positive?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: You know –

Sarah: And that also goes back to what you were saying about how the, the younger generation behind us? They grew up with fanfic and tagging and specificity of what they wanted, and I like this trope –

Jess: Yeah!

Sarah: – in this flavor and this style!

Jess: If we, if we just keep – especially, again, coming from a historical romance for the most part corner – if we don’t figure out how to be more diverse and be more inclusive and be more welcoming and, and the things that we all say we want to be but then we don’t do, those readers are not going to come to us ‘cause they don’t want –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – Romance So White. They want diversity, and they’re not going to come to this corner, and you can see that readership getting smaller as, as, you know, they fall away. Well, our older readers are kind of dying out, and younger readers aren’t coming in as much. Like, if you want to re-, have a resurgence of historical romance, you can’t just have diversity when it gets produced into a television show, but there’s not any diversity on the page. Like, that’s, that’s a step, but it also has to be on the page, and that’s something that we have to reckon with. As, as a white author, it’s always something you’re reckoning with of, like, how do I bring that in without co-opting somebody else’s story?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: And, and nobody’s saying it’s not, it’s an easy answer!

Sarah: No.

Jess: There’s no easy answer, but at the same time there has to be an answer, and we have to be trying to reach for it.

Sarah: Yes, absolutely.

Now, if you could tell your just-starting, your, your just-starting-out self –

Jess: [Laughs]

Sarah: – all of those years ago, what would you, what would you want her to know?

Jess: Oh, that’s a really good question. I mean, so much has happened and so much has changed, and I wouldn’t want to tell her anything about what that would be because I think she kind of had to go through all that stuff to get to where I am now? I was always very hard on myself about failure – and I still am; that’s how I’m built – [laughs] – but that, all of that failure tends to, like, I get back up and then pull up, and there’s a reason that the tattoo on the leg is a phoenix. Like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – I’m burned down to the ground, and then I go, okay, I’m going to get back up and do it again, and that that, that part of me is the best part of me and to not, you know, not be so hard on – and that, that part’s always going to come out, you know? It’s like, well, this was a, this was a failure; nobody wants to buy me; la-da-da-da-da, and then the next thing you know, like, you’re phoenix-ing back up, and something better comes out of that every single time.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: So I should tell myself that for now too. [Laughs] I’ll watch this back later; it’ll be fun.

Sarah: Yeah! And also when you’re looking at something that you try and didn’t work? Eventually, I have found there’s always a piece of it that’s applicable later.

Jess: Yeah!

Sarah: You know, even if the whole of it –

Jess: Yeah.

Sarah: – didn’t work, there’s always a piece of it, I’m like, oh, I already have this skill; I know what to do.

Jess: Yes. Yeah. That’s really true. There’s no wasted – and you know, I see this a lot with people that aren’t yet published that it’s like, well, I wrote a book and I want it to be out, and it’s a wasted book. It’s like, no, it’s not, because you learned so much from writing it –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jess: – you learned so much from pitching it; you learned so much from having that realization that this book is not ready is really powerful and something that, you know, you can really grow from as a, as an artist, as a person, as a writer. You know, I mean, I learn from failures so much more than I learn from success.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: I mean, like, I would love everything to be a success, but that’s not how life works, so –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – [laughs] – I can, I can learn or I can win: those are my two options.

Sarah: And you also have a career where you have tried some things that at the time were out there, and you made them work? Like, I don’t remember anyone writing zombie fighters when you came out with –

Jess: And zombie comedy, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: And that should have worked, and it, I mean, it worked as far as, like, it sold, it sold at auction. That was really fun; I got to have that experience. And then the whole thing just pbbbt!

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: Big, giant, huge failure. Like, never has earned through at all. I’ve never made a dime beyond what they paid me up front. In fact, I think they’re giving those, those rights back. But, like – ‘cause it makes zero money. That was a crushing, crushing failure; crushing because they were, they thought it was going to do really well. You know, so it was a really good lesson that, because I was coming out of a situation where I didn’t have any publisher support really, and had, and that had become increasingly worse, and coming in here, the, I had huge publisher support, huge editorial support, and when it failed everybody was like, somehow we screwed up; you didn’t screw up; which is, again, very opposite. But that was the thing is, like, I had told myself this story: I’m like, if I had the publisher support, then it would be okay. Well, I know it’s a good book – that’s the thing: like, I, I never believed I wasn’t writing good books. I write good books, and I had publisher support, and sometimes things just doesn’t work. Who knows why? I don’t know why.

Sarah: Sometimes the timing is wrong.

Jess: Yeah! Timing was wrong!

Sarah: Yeah. But now there’s –

Jess: – wrong, maybe; the, the, the release dates were wrong. Who knows why?

Sarah: There’s too many variables.

Jess: There’s too many variables.

Sarah: Yeah. But the nice thing about – and I say this a lot, especially for authors who have control over their backlist – a book that someone hasn’t read is a new book to them?

Jess: Yep.

Sarah: I wish – I understand why it is the way it is – I wish publishing didn’t focus so hard on the release week? Because it’s very limiting, considering the amount of effort and work that goes into the book, to only focus on it for seven days seems very shortsighted?

Jess: Yep.

Sarah: And there’s just not enough human beings inside publishing to really amplify backlist?

Jess: And that’s a really hard shift as an author too, that, like, coming from a traditional background, even though I’ve been independently published exclusively for the last seven years, I still have such a hard time breaking that mindset, right?

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: And, and so that’s one of the things that I’m working on, because we’re going to be changing the, the, the schedule of how I publish, so it’s going to leave me larger gaps in between where I can start working on backlist, because, I mean, I probably am not going to be able to write at this rate and publish at this rate forever, and I probably don’t want to write at this rate.

Sarah: No!

Jess: I would like to have a retirement. In part that will be, like, really, like, utilizing that backlist, because a huge portion of my income comes from that backlist! Like, it is –

Sarah: Of course!

Jess: – half the income that I’m bringing, that brings in money every single month, so not leveraging it – because I actually have the capacity to do so, and the, and the desire to do so –

Sarah: For sure!

Jess: – is foolish, is foolish! So, I mean, when it, and you see it like, you know, we’re doing translations now in German and Italian. Those are all backlist books, and they’re bringing in all kinds of new frontlist money, you know, or audiobooks. You know, you, you introduce that to a new market, it’s a new book!

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely!

Jess: [Laughs] It’s a whole new world!

Sarah: Absolutely!

Jess: You know, one of the promos that I did for this countdown was talking about which books were free, and I saw this huge uptick. This, this was a few days ago and, like, all the, like, the free books that got downloaded, and then in this last couple days I’ve seen the second books –

Sarah: Yep!

Jess: – in those series all go up, ‘cause it’s like, oh, right! [Laughs] That’s why I write series!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: So that’s why we do that! But yeah, there’s no, there’s no just, like, well, it didn’t work, so it’s over.

Sarah: Nope.

Jess: You know, I mean, there’s, there’s always a new way to refresh it, whether that’s –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – you put a new cover on it; you, you know, promote it in something; you put it in a, you know, collection; you – I mean, there’s always a thousand ways to make something new again and, and remind people. And when people come and they buy book seventy-eight –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – right, and they like it, then what they do is they go back and they buy book fifty, or they buy –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – book ninety-seven. And so the best thing I can ever do, always, every single time, is write a good book.

Sarah: Yep!

Jess: And that’s my number one –

Sarah: Priority.

Jess: – priority –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – is to write a good product and package it the best way that I like.

Sarah: I’m fascinated by something you mentioned when we were emailing about protecting your creativity, and it sounds like part of giving yourself a greater space between books is about also protecting your creativity. What does that mean, and how do you approach that?

Jess: So I actually have a lot of really driving strengths, and so writing quickly and, and putting out books quickly is actually super, super healthy for me, but what, what I used to do before the, the pandemic was I would write, write, write, write, write, write, write, write, write, and I would start to come down and start to crash from just being such a heavy producer, and then we would go on vacation, so we’d go to Scotland for ten days and hike the Hebrides, and I would turn everything off and just have a great time, and that would be this big refresh – or go to Disneyland or –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – you know, I don’t know, go to Vermont. I don’t know; wherever we were going! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: And just, just be separate from it, and that would allow my well to fill back up, and then by the time I came back I’d be excited to get back to work, because work is a super-positive place for me. I love creating. Publishing I don’t always love, but creating I always love, and, you know, that, that feeds me.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: I’ve also really begun protecting my creativity by not being on social media so much, but right now I’m on pretty intensely because we’re doing this countdown, and all of that is through social media. I took a long break in December and just didn’t, I wasn’t on in December at all, and I didn’t see it affect at all the sales for that month, and I was just like, this is, this is more healthy for me, ‘cause it’s so easy to compare, get frustrated about what’s being promoted, believing that this, this narrow window of what you see is the reality of what is. And also just writing things that make me excited! Like, that just –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: – make me happy and make me excited, because ultimately I have to live with it for the, you know, six or seven weeks that I’m writing it, and I want to be excited by it and not be trying to live up to anybody else’s expectation.

Sarah: Yeah! So what are you working on now?

Jess: So now that the hundredth book is up for preorder and all that is working, I am, I’m going to be starting a new series. So I would have started it last month, but my, my father passed away in February, so everything just kind of went off the – but in April I will be starting the next series, which will be out in – [sighs] – assuming the world will just calm down for like five minutes so I don’t have to keep – I, I have learned enough from trauma in the last two years; I’m good.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jess: But assuming that no one else, like, dies randomly, knock on wood – [tap, tap] – but –

Sarah: Oh gosh.

Jess: – I don’t fall and hurt myself again, then those books’ll be out in August, September, October? So we’re going to be doing back-to-back. And then I’ll also be part of a collection with a bunch of other historical authors called Duke in a Box, like the Saturday Night Live skit “Dick in a Box.”

Sarah: Duke in a Box, yeah.

Jess: Yeah, so I’m, I’m going to be writing the, the piece that’s going to be in that as well –

Sarah: Oooh!

Jess: – so that’s kind of the next planning. And I haven’t written anything new, which is very weird for me, since January, when I finished the hundredth book.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: And, and so it’s been a really big gap for me as far as work, and so I’m excited about remembering how to be a writer. [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m sorry about your dad.

Jess: Thank you, I appreciate it. He had been sick for a while; we were expecting it. You never expect it, but you expect it.

Sarah: It’s a weird space to be waiting for something you don’t want to happen.

Jess: Yes, yeah! Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s very hard.

So I always ask this question: what books are you reading that you want to tell people about?

Jess: Oh God.

Sarah: And you can also mention your own. That is fine.

Jess: [Laughs] Because of all of the chaos going on in my life recently, I have not been reading as much as I wanted to?

Sarah: Yeah?

Jess: And I, and I very, it’s really weird: I don’t read as, like, I get onto kicks, right? So, like, I read twenty-three Katee Robert books.

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: She was my, that’s my candy right now is Katee Robert?

Sarah: Yep!

Jess: Oh my God! Everything about her is magic? [Laughs] Like, I especially love her super short, super nerdy novellas, because super short, super nerdy novellas are all my jam right now, ‘cause it’s like, that’s as much as I can focus on.

Sarah: Yep!

Jess: And then, like, you know, I get on these, like, mindfulness, like, self-help kicks as well –

Sarah: Yep.

Jess: – so then I, then I’m alternating; I’m, like, super porn-y, everybody fucks –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jess: – and then, like, let’s look inside of ourselves and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jess: – you know –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jess: – learn how to be a better person!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: And then super sexy, everybody fucks! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: So – I don’t think this is a bad – I think it’s a good balance! I do think that reading is a really fundamental part to writing, but also, like, if I have to pick between writing and reading, I will almost always pick writing, ‘cause that is more, like, nurturing to me for some reason?

Sarah: Oh no, I get it!

Jess: ‘Cause I, I tend to take in content when I’ve been sitting, staring at a page with words, right, for –

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jess: – six hours. Then I want to go watch The Mandalorian, you know, or –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jess: You know what I mean? Like, I, I don’t, it isn’t always the first thing is grabbing a book, and then when I read I’m like, oh shit, I really like reading books! Right, I’m a reader! [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, thank you so much for doing this interview, and congratulations again on a hundred books. Fuck yeah!

Jess: Ha, fuck yeah! Yeah, I’m very excited. I’m, I’m like, I’m thrilled about it, and it’s been really nice to see people be excited about it.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Jess Michaels, and congratulations again on a hundred books. That is astonishing and very, very cool! Thank you for coming over to celebrate with us.

I will have links, do not worry, to all of the books we talked about and the list of all one hundred of her books in the show notes, and you know where that is, right? Smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast

Do you have questions or ideas or suggestions? Is there a book recommendation you’d like us to make? Would you like to tell me a joke? I would love to hear from you! You can email me at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can leave a message at 201-371-3272. I love hearing from you, and I love hearing about what you’re reading and what you’re crafting and what you’re doing while you listen. All of that is fabulous, so please don’t stop telling me; it makes me so happy to hear from you!

Speaking of happy, I have a bad joke, which also makes me happy! This joke is from a wonderful person’s child who came up with this joke, and I am extremely proud of this person’s offspring. Are you ready?

What is the most reliable part of the human body?

Give up? What is the most reliable part of the human body?

Your fingers! You can always count on them.

[Laughs] That is from u/gallifreyfalls55 on Reddit and their offspring, and I am very impressed! I love it! You can always count on them!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you a wonderful weekend with the very best of reading, and we will see you back here next week.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[Laughs] Count on them!

[dramatic end to music]