642. Books Journalism and Social Media with Sophie Vershbow

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there and welcome to episode number 642 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Sophie Vershbow. Sophie is a freelance journalist who writes a lot about books and reading and the publishing industry. You might have seen her article about celebrity book ghostwriters and about DNFing without guilt. We’re going to talk about social media strategy for authors and publishers and how book publishing, and especially book publicity on, in social media has changed. Then, naturally, we talk about reality TV and shopping.

I have a compliment this week. I am very excited.

To Sanketh: There are life forms in other galaxies who study you because you are generous and kind and you have the finest dance moves on Earth.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, you know what to do! Go to patreon.com/SmartBitches. You like the show and you like what we do, you can support us and make sure that every episode has a transcript hand-compiled by garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! – [hey, boss! – gk] – and you keep the show going, and you get really cool benefits! Like extra episodes and a lovely Discord and the full PDF of these lovely magazines. It would be wonderful to have you. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

One of the benefits of podcasting is that sometimes I reach out to someone I don’t know, or I see them on social media, and I ask if they’d like to talk about their work, and then I end up meeting someone who is really fun to talk to and extremely insightful, and I love when that happens. I hope you enjoy this conversation. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sophie Vershbow: Hi, my name is Sophie Vershbow. I’m a freelance writer living in New York City, and I also have a full-time job as the head of social media and influencer marketing at Eventbrite.

Sarah: So many questions. I have so many questions! So, first, I wanted to talk to you because you do what I think of as books journalism, which is a very specific field. Like, there’s a very specific group of topics that you write about, but it’s not as if you see a lot of outlets saying, We’re hiring our books editor and our books jour- – but there is a books journalism –

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – beat. Like, that’s a real thing, and you’ve been doing that for a really long time now. Like, I just quoted your article about DNFing in The Atlantic in a discussion we’re having on Smart Bitches about when do you DNF and why, and do you feel pressure? That kind of thing. So what led you into this field? ‘Cause you, I know in your bio it says you were in publishing.

Sophie: Yeah. So I, almost all of my career has been in book publishing? I’ve only been in tech for about two and a half years, working at Eventbrite, and so before this I started out of college as a publicity assistant at Simon & Schuster, at Scribner, and then Touchstone – RIP to that imprint – doing like a very –

Sarah: I was a Touchstone author!

Sophie: Oh my God!

Sarah: My first book, yep.

Sophie: Oh my God! Touchstone is very special to my heart. That was, like, a really fun job for me, working with a lot of authors who were sort of punching above my weight at that age of twenty-three, twenty-four? ‘Cause it was a very small team, but I really started in book publishing, and I, I left very briefly to go work at a digital marketing agency, but then ran social media and influencer at Random House for about six and a half years.

Sarah: Ooh!

Sophie: So –

Sarah: That’s a long time!

Sophie: – yeah. Most of my career really has been in book publishing, and at Random House where I ran social media and influencer, that was, you know, the, the job I would consider the bulk of my career, and as I was doing that, simultaneously I was starting to write more on the side and publish and freelance and sort of get my journalism, like, 101 skills down. And the whole time, I wanted to be writing about books and publishing so badly, and that was definitely not allowed while I was at Random House –

Sarah: No.

Sophie: – like, very explicitly –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: – and I understood that, and so when I made the decision to leave publishing, which was definitely not the easiest decision I’ve ever made, and I still have a lot of complicated feelings about the thing that I most wanted from that career switch was that I would then be able to write about books. And so being able to do that and really sort of get in with different books editors at places so I can do what you, I think rightly, called books journalism has just been, like, beyond my wildest dreams of what I hoped would happen while I was at Random House wanting to do that. ‘Cause I always just had so many questions that I wanted to ask, and what’s really fun now is that I get to ask all the questions I had while I worked there.

Sarah: There are a lot of questions when you look at books as, as a, as an industry, starting with What the hell is going on?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Why does this whole industry –

Sophie: All the time.

Sarah: – work on consignment? What the hell is this? [Laughs]

Sophie: You know, it’s really interesting, ‘cause I, I obviously only saw the perspective I saw –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – at a publishing house, and now getting to really talk to authors, agents, everyone across every part of the process has just been really eye-opening! And it’s not like that often I’m, I’m, as someone who worked in the industry like, Oh, I can’t believe this was happening! But it’s really a lot more impactful when you hear authors telling you about how difficult something is or editors confirming that, like, something really is a big problem!

Sarah: Yep. It’s very interesting to see, ‘cause I’ve been running Smart Bitches for almost twenty years, and I joke all the time that I am sitting on, like, the porch of the Romance Old Folks Home in my rocking chair going, Oh, are we talking about social media expectations…We did that five years ago and ten years ago! Let’s do it again! I’ve been here for this conversation before. The same things keep coming up, and I think part of that is that turnover is such at publishers that the same problems don’t get solved because it’s just new people being introduced to the problem that still exists, and also they don’t pay very well.

Sophie: Absolutely. I mean, I will be upfront to anyone who asks about that is, the main reason I left book publishing was pay-related. I mean, it was a lot cuter being broke at twenty-two than it was at thirty-two, and I just –

Sarah: Yeah!

Sophie: – was kind of done with that. [Laughs]

Sarah: And I’ve also noticed, there’s a number of people who I’ve known who worked in publishing who have moved into tech, and when I talk to them –

Sophie: Mm.

Sarah: – the two things I hear are, Wow, the pay is very different, and the number of times they have to explain how absolutely bonkers the publishing industry is on the inside to tech, which is bonkers but in a completely different way. Is that your experience too?

Sophie: They are such different experiences. My social media team, like, would always laugh at me when I told my little publishing stories. I mean, I, I sounded like a grandparent in the Great Depression. I’m like, I had to pay for my own Canva subscription! Like, it’s just wild to talk to people who have only worked in the tech industry and explain to them not only how little we’re being paid, but how small budgets are –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: – and just sort of how different this industry works. I mean, a really clear, easy divide is, I worked in influencer marketing in book publishing, and I work in influencer marketing in tech, but it’s not even about tech, it’s just not book publishing, and budgets, how we pay influencers, how we think about compensation, not as a gifting program where you should be happy to have a galley, is just a fully different world.

Sarah: Oh yes! I have not ever once paid my mortgage with galleys. Would that I could! Oh my God!

Sophie: [Laughs] Put that, get that as a tattoo. I’m sure there’s a lot of book influencers who would like that as a tattoo.

Sarah: I also just want to say one thing that I am so amused by; I was talking to somebody in publishing. So lately there’s a lot of sprayed endpapers, especially in romance? And I look at this, and I’m like, Is this, is this the artifact of influencer marketing? Like, you’re trying to make this more attractive to hold up on camera? Because I don’t want to be reading that. It’s going to come off on my hands, and I don’t like that.

Sophie: Book influencer marketing I’d say is the thing I’m the most interested in, and probably the thing I haven’t gotten to write about yet that I am the most eager to do, like, extreme deep dives on? Just ‘cause I think I understand the influencer side –

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: – by nature of any influencer, but also the book world, and it is a, a wild and wacky influencer world; that is all I can say. And I, I really, like, I started the influencer program at Random House in 2016, maybe?

Sarah: Wow!

Sophie: And then it grew into this – it was so early! I mean, I came on board, and I saw people posting from these cute little accounts about our books, and I thought, What if we send them books intentionally? Big whoa! Which I’m sure was no big deal to, like, tech people at the time, but in publishing was, like, revolutionary! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yeah. So –

Sophie: Yeah?

Sarah: – meatiest question I have so far: I really would love to know how you see the difference in strategy for social media between publishing and the companies that you have worked with outside of publishing, because I, I’m fascinated by how readers use social media; how authors are, are taught to use social media; how publishers have this expectation of author promotion; and how –

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – publishers themselves use social media, because they all seem to be doing it very differently, and it really does seem to be based on which employee did they happen to discover has the skill to do this and maybe also owns a ring light already? Good thing; we don’t have to buy one. Versus tech, which is a whole strategy with a budget and a vertical that you’ve mentioned. I’m really curious what you see as the major differences in strategy between tech and, and, and publishing.

Sophie: Yeah, that’s such a great question, and I, I’ve done a, a lot of consulting. When I worked in publishing, I consulted quite a bit on the side doing social media to, you know, pay my rent, and, you know, it’s not that I would even the say the strategy is different. Like, any industry, any niche community has a million bits of strategy that are specific to that niche community, and that’s really about figuring out, like, personas and who you’re speaking to and how they want to be spoken to. I think what’s so interesting to me – and this isn’t specific to tech, but just in a job like I have now – is it’s much more, it’s much less trying to be part of a really engaged community and act like I’m part of it, and much more from the position of, like, a brand –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: – talking. So when I ran social at Random House, our whole strategy was to try to be a Bookstagrammer girlie. Like, we wanted to fit in! We were, you know, my apartment was a Bookstagram studio, essentially, and –

Sarah: Did they help pay your rent? I hope they helped pay your rent. (I know they didn’t help pay your rent.)

Sophie: Oh, certainly not!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: I think I made a big argument to get paid back like forty dollars for the light I bought during the pandemic. My favorite day was when I got told that the photos were too repetitive like two weeks into quarantine, and I was like, I am in a one-bedroom apartment in New York City! We’re not allowed to leave.

Sarah: What, what, what did you expect?

Sophie: [Laughs] I was like, I don’t know what you want from me. I’m afraid to leave the house. There’s refrigerator trucks. Like, we can’t do this right now. But in public, I mean, that has been the biggest difference for me is just, like, learning how to use resourcing? I think it’s really around, like, creative resourcing and learning how to express ideas for other people to execute versus executing everything myself. But that’s not a difference between publishing strategy and tech strategy. That’s just the difference between working on a team with resourcing –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – and a team without one, and so professionally, that’s been, like, my biggest learning curve between jobs has been, at Random House, like, cannot express enough how much the account was just the inside of my brain. Like, of course, a million strategy things, a million priorities and projects I need to do, but it was my brain generating content –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: – and when you work at a company that is set up in a different way, you are really using external partners and agencies and design studios and able to, you know, get content from influencers for your accounts, and so it’s, to me, not so different in terms of strategy, ‘cause to me it’s like all social media strategy has the same best practices in so many cases, and – spoiler alert – you can apply a lot of the same strategy across places. I think the biggest difference is I don’t spend all day trying to understand a niche community that I’m, like, kind of afraid of in a sane way. Like, not wanting to anger the Bookstagrammers –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – not wanting to anger the romance community or the sci-fi community or whoever we’re posting about. When you’re at a book publisher running a, a brand account, you are talking in so many voices, putting your brain into so many niche –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – communities? Especially at a place like Random House group, where you post across every genre. And so if I’m speaking to the romance community today, you all have a million specifics, and – [laughs] – eccentricities makes it sound bad, but I actually mean that as a compliment. I think it’s cool –

Sarah: Oh no, I completely agree. We do, yes.

Sophie: Yeah! I, I think these eccentricities between communities is interesting and what makes social media an interesting place to be involved in strategy work, but I don’t find my brain doing that in the same way really around, like, niche book communities of How do I speak their specific language, ‘cause they’re so passionate about this?

Sarah: So it sounds like part of the difference is that you are speaking to a community; you’re not trying to be part of that community for this campaign. Like, you, you are able to engage with them from some separation, whereas from publishing, you were trying to be within that community for that campaign or for that particular book or that particular subgenre.

Sophie: So I was one of the first full-time social media hires at Penguin Random House, and I remember it being considered, like, a big deal when I would chat with my peers at other divisions of the company, that they were envious that I was being given the opportunity to just focus on social, because a lot of them were marketing managers with title responsibilities, and that’s so unfair to them. That shift happened a lot, of publishers understanding that they needed to invest in those roles.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: Now, I, I do not want to, I don’t want to stutter here: these people are overworked, underpaid, under-resourced in so many cases, but I do think in a lot of ways we have moved away from the idea that this is not a job. With the rise of Bookstagram and BookTok, publishers had to pay attention to this, and I do think that there’s a fundamental understanding. I’ve only worked within the big five, so I can only speak to that. I know resourcing is more challenging anywhere outside of that, let alone outside of Penguin Random House itself –

Sarah: For sure.

Sophie: – but I do think the big publishers, even just knowing my peers in the industry who have these roles are, are being hired for that. Now, it’s a lot of, like, you ran your college account; you know, they’re hiring a twenty-two-year-old at the lowest pay level, but also as, you know, the years go on, I’m a middle millennial, I just turned thirty-five, and so, like, I learned social media. Like, kid, like, people coming into the workforce now do not learn social media; they know social media. When I used to inter- – I have told a lot of people this – I, the biggest difference for me interviewing five years ago versus now is I used to say, like, Do you know how to use Instagram? And I would need people to prove to me that they know how to use social profiles and, and platforms, and now it’s an assumption to me. If you are applying for this job, I’m not teaching you how to post on Instagram. You’re twenty-two; don’t be ridiculous.

Sarah: It’s very funny, because I am a young Gen X – I’m forty-nine – and all of this came after, like, I had dial-up for God’s sake. Like, having a blog was cutting-fucking-edge technology, and you, you could have any color you wanted on the internet, as long as it was black on gray, ‘cause that was all there was, right? Then, so all of this social media stuff has come up. Like, okay, I learned how to use Twitter; I get it. Verbal, written, great. I, I’m – this is, this is the most Boomer thing, but, like, I need apps to stop making noise at me. Like, I’m so –

Sophie: I feel the same way.

Sarah: I’m so mad, by the way? We, we had this whole discussion about DNFing, and – inspired by your article, again, so thank you –

Sophie: Yep.

Sarah: – and one of my writers on my team linked to a TikTok that was a, a young creator basically saying, I am too queer to read these popular series. These series are great, but I am too gay for them. And it was a very interesting angle, and I wanted to embed the video, and it autoplays, and there’s no way to turn it off, and I’m like, TikTok, there are many problems with you, and this is one of them! You cannot make things autoplay! That’s not fair! And I was like, I’m just linking to this, people; I’m not making you autoplay anything. You guys are at work! I don’t want to, like, spoil you. Come on! [Laughs] I don’t want you to get in trouble!

All of this, all of the developments that have happened since I started the site are things that I have had to learn, and there are some things –

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – where I’m just like, I look at TikTok or YouTube, and I’m like, I don’t want to talk to camera. I don’t wanna. Don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna! And, and I feel that, Oh, this is passing me by, so I, I am fascinated, like you said, the idea, the idea that is just an organic part of somebody growing up? Versus me, and it’s like, I’ve got to learn another one? Damn it! Stop it! [Laughs]

Sophie: Well, I think, too, when you think about the author’s side, the asks –

Sarah: Oh!

Sophie: – have gotten increasingly larger –

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: – when you think about it.

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: So we went from asking someone to send a tweet – which, okay, they’re already a writer! Maybe not the biggest deal in the world – to, We need you to take a picture for Instagram, to, We need you to record a video for Reels and TikTok, and that ask, I will say, I recently wrote an Esquire article about celebrity book clubs, and then they asked me to record a TikTok about it, and I think the TikTok took me longer than that article.

[Laughter]

Sophie: Because it was so hard!

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: I, it is so hard to record a video like that, and I’m thirty-five, and I, my dog has a TikTok account, and I don’t want to film myself, and so what are we doing asking, you know, a sixty-year-old author like, Please film a TikTok for us. They might not want to do that, and the fact that that’s a large step of book promotion now is just such a hurdle for a lot of people, rightfully, to get past!

Sarah: Yeah. And I also think it’s, it’s, the degree to which, that I’ve seen in the past twenty years, the degree to which the promotion and the publicity has fallen on the author, to the point where authors who already have a following have an advantage being bought –

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – over an author who doesn’t have a following, and I’m like, What is, what is the point here? Is the point to write a book, or is the point to sell the book? Because I thought the selling part was, like, that was your job. What are we doing here? But this actually leads to my next question:

What are some things that you see in book publicity and social media that work and don’t work? Like, what are your ideal best practices, and what are some things that you’d like, Wow, I wish we could stop? [Laughs] Starting with asking –

Sophie: Wow!

Sarah: Starting with asking people who don’t want to be on camera to just be on camera like it’s no big thing. That’s terrifying to some people!

Sophie: Yeah. When I talk to authors and give them advice, I always say, Please do not set yourself up for a situation you cannot sustain.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Sophie: And there is absolutely no point in taking your time and energy to start a TikTok account or a new Instagram account if you’re not going to be updating it, if you’re not going to be doing that. Our glory days of social media, where you could start a new account, post consistently, and get followers, is over. Starting new accounts is very challenging. It’s so much more about individual engaging pieces of content, so TikTok and Instagram, so much work is search algorithms now, and so thinking about how you get your book to show up in certain buckets – I mean, there’s a reason any publisher will take an opportunity to connect a book to Taylor Swift, and it’s because they want, when people are posting about Taylor and when the algorithm is serving that, for their content to show up.

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: I had a really interesting talk with someone at an independent publicity agency, partially about why it often feels as if authors have to sort of do more on their own, or why outside publicists are so much more common and needed now, and yes, so much of this has to do with title publicists being overworked, underpaid –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – truly not having enough hours in the day to do everything they want for their authors, and I will tell any author that that is likely the case!

Sarah: Oh yes. I will –

Sophie: Oh –

Sarah: I am ride or die for everybody inside a publishing house who either has to have a Sharpie or a box cutter. If your tools –

Sophie: Oh –

Sarah: – of your job are Sharpies and box cutters, I am on your team. ‘Cause that – here are thirty-five books that are releasing on Tuesday; here’s a dollar; make ‘em all bestsellers – is just bonkers. [Laughs]

Sophie: Well, publicists could honestly run the world. Like, get them in government? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, they could! I am, I am team book publicists all the way.

Sophie: Oh yeah! And so much of what they said is, Everything is so much more niche now. Like, it’s both a positive and a negative. So when I started in publishing in 2011, I like to say it’s the end of the glory days, when an NPR national interview or one morning show or a rave New York Times book review could really sell your book.

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: And that is just not the world we live in anymore, and so that fact is very hard for a lot of people to get. On the flip side, we have so many more places to promote your book now. Even take social media out of it. Think about every podcast, every niche online publication. There are so many more places where lots of little bits over time may stack up. Pitching one editor at NPR or, of course, ten editors at NPR or The New York Times, who you all know to pitch and are in your publicity database, is a lot less work than figuring out the niche podcasts –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – and bloggers and stuff for this person’s book.

Sarah: Yep!

Sophie: And that is not something that can be done at scale inside publishing houses in the same way that you used to just be able to send all your books to The New York Times, and so I think that’s where a lot of the disconnect is happening, and when you ask about successful books, book campaigns, I think the ones that do succeed, and I’m, I’m leaving out like big books that were going to succeed anyway, but I think the books that really crawl their way to the middle or the upper middle are the ones that hit four great podcasts, get posted by four relevant influencers. It’s lots of drops into the bucket, but that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of pitching across everything from BookTokers to these podcasts hosts to, I don’t know, some, like, I think I’m a good example. Not to center myself, but I get a lot of really random book pitches since I started writing about publishing –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Sophie: – and sometime, you know, I am not on staff anywhere; I’m not, like, easily findable as some obvious person to pitch. To find me, a person who really might be an amazing fit for your author’s book on a topic I cover, takes more work than if you were just pitching me at a, a place, because books media, as you’ve mentioned, has declined. Books editors are being fired, media sources are closing, and so there’s fewer books editors to pitch, whether you are a books publicist or a freelance journalist writing about books.

Sarah: Yeah. And the fact that you don’t even, as a publicist in a house, you do not have the time and resources to build that database even once where you could be like, All right, the romance people are going to go to these people, and the mystery people are going to go to these people, and these are going to be my, my targets. That, those targets, like you just said, they change so fast? You can’t keep up with who got laid off, who switched houses, who left, who isn’t doing it anymore, whose podcast stopped. It’s, it’s – and we’re all, I mean, actually from, speaking from the blogger and podcaster arena, if it’s just – like, I do all my own production. It’s just me. I need to schedule out way in advance, just for my own sanity, and it’s very hard for me to be like, Oh my gosh, I have this opportunity to interview this author whose book’s coming out next week. All right, that’s like nine hours of work for me to schedule, record, edit, produce, post produce, promotion, and that’s – and I’ve got a limited time on top of everything else. Like, it’s just not feasible. And yet everything comes in very last-minute as well. And I understand the why – I don’t blame anybody for this – but on my end I’m like, Wow, this is not efficient. [Laughs]

Sophie: Yeah. It’s just, it’s so interesting. It’s just all changed so –

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: – quickly.

Sarah: And so fa- – and yeah!

Sophie: And as you said, you know, with how quickly the names change. Like, when I started it was like, of course, this is the books person at this place. This is the books person here. Like, these are names I remember a decade later ‘cause it just was that person!

Sarah: Yeah!

Sophie: And that kind of model, except for at really specific places, is just not there anymore!

Sarah: Yeah. It’s just not! And you don’t know what kind of resources that person is working with in terms of their own book’s coverage!

Sophie: They’re, none. They’re working with no resources on their end as well, and –

Sarah: [Indistinct]

Sophie: – all of these books editors, yeah, all of these books editors too have gone through a million round of lay-, rounds of layoffs; so much of the time it’s like one person –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: – running the vertical, and God, I’m barely in books media. I’m a couple years in, and my pitch inbox is a slush pile, so I can’t even imagine being a listed books editor at a national publication. I mean, I don’t know how they get, I truly don’t know how they find anything.

Sarah: Yeah. And I know also, one thing that I noticed that has changed, which is, was not surprising to me, but also surprising? I recently did a read-alikes list for It Ends with Us for The New York Times, and – the irony being that It Ends with Us is not actually a romance – [laughs] – but I found a bunch of books that were, and I told everybody about ‘em.

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So I, you know, submit the article. I have an editor; she’s fantastic. I love being edited, because I’m usually the one doing the editing, so it’s like, Ooh! Here’s how to improve my writing? Yes! So I get edited, and then there’s this wait, because they have to have the SEO editor go through the article, and then they have the SEO editor looking at the, the headline, and I’m like, That’s a whole step that was not even there the last time I wrote for the Times five years ago. That’s a whole other job, and I’m like, Wow! That sucks! That sucks!

Sophie: I used to date a magazine editor before the pandemic, and watching him do SEO stuff and write up little articles, you know, to get SEO hits was depressing and kind of impressive and fascinating? I think, too, that’s a, a part I left out of the successful publicity campaigns and why these teams are, these outside teams – another point the outside publicist made was that because the news moves so fast and so much is people only want breaking news, you need to have someone who’s able to pitch, like, in the moment. Like, this just broke, this book release –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – I’m pitching it right now; the story is dead tomorrow. Okay, again, that publicist has like eight of those books and is probably in meetings all day. Like, when are they doing this?

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: And so it’s less of, Oh, I just have a book out, and more of, How does this book relate to what’s happening right now in a way that anyone might pay attention in the next forty-eight hours before it’s over?

Sarah: Yeah. And it’s a book! Like, it’s not, it’s, it takes more than forty-eight hours just to fully synthesize having read the book. Reading the book takes time! [Laughs] You can’t just shove it into your brain!

Sophie: I do think we, as, like, a media world, and just in general, I would love to see us move away from this idea that, like, a book is stale two –

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: – weeks in. This is ridiculous.

Sarah: I have said this a thousand times: a book that you have not read is a new book, full stop. I don’t care if it came out in 1982; if you haven’t read it, it’s new. Surprise!

Sophie: I can’t take this. I mean, the idea that it’s like, Oh, that came out a few months ago. It’s like, It’s a brand-new book! Do you know how long this book took to come into the world? We can give it a few months to, like, get publicity.

Sarah: It’s not lettuce!

Sophie: Yeah!

Sarah: It’s, it’s not, it’s not in the crisper drawer. It’s not –

Sophie: [Indistinct]

Sarah: – it’s not a perishable good. It’s a book, for goodness’ sake!

So I want to ask you about your writing, because I am fascinated.

Sophie: Yeah!

Sarah: So I follow you on Twitter and I see you, like, making pitches like, I want to write about this; who’s going to let me write about Kamala and Walz’s strategy with influencers? And I was like, I want to read that! Somebody, somebody hire Sophie, ‘cause I want to read that right now! What are some of your favorite things that you’ve, that you’ve written about? And what are you dying to write about next?

Sophie: Ooh. Some of my favorite things I’ve gotten to write about: so my favorite ones for Esquire I’ve done, I really loved investigating The New York Times bestseller list for them? I –

Sarah: That was so juicy.

Sophie: I – that was probably the one the most where I had, like, anonymous sources, like, sending me messages! I really felt like an investigative reporter on that one.

Sarah: That is so cool!

Sophie: And it’s – the thing that I most, when, you know, you’re at a publisher, and everyone fricking cares about this list, and you’re just sitting there being like, This is such bullshit. I don’t know if we’re allowed to curse on this podcast.

Sarah: It’s literally called Smart Bitches, so yes, curse as much as you…

Sophie: Okay, well –

Sarah: I have no FCC oversight –

Sophie: So true.

Sarah: – I can say whatever the hell I want.

Sophie: We love that so much. Yeah, it’s like, What the fuck is happening on this list?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: And so I loved investigating that one. I just had the best time. Even, the book club one I don’t think is nearly as, like, juicy, just because celebrity book clubs are not evil, and I never expected them to be evil, kind of like – [laughs] – the New York Times bestseller list is.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: But I just had a great time investigating that one, because I got to talk to Jenna Bush Hager, I got to talk to Lee at Oprah’s book club, I got to talk to the president at Hello Sunshine. I really got to hear from people about why they do this. Karah Preiss at Belletriste, and it ended up being, in my opinion, weirdly heartwarming to just have these celebrities be like, I fricking love to read. Can you stop thinking I’m evil? And it, I actually love when my assumption going into a piece is really challenged, and I find one of the hardest things to do as a journalist is a piece like the book club one, or I think even more the Barack Obama book reading list one, where there wasn’t really a story there. Barack Obama picks his own books –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – and it was a challenge, but a really fun challenge, to figure out, like, how to make that an interesting article when it wasn’t something salacious, and that’s something I’m always trying to do in these pieces is, Yeah, I’m investigating, and I’m often pointing out things people don’t know about or might think are weird, but I’m never trying to overly sensationalize anything. You know, so many things we all think are sketchy are just, like, people doing their jobs.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes!

Sophie: [Laughs] I would say the article that probably meant the most to me which has nothing to do with books is, I published an article earlier this year about my mom’s cousin Jeffrey and his history in the AIDS movement in New York and New Jersey in the late 1980s and…

Sarah: That was incredible.

Sophie: Thank you! That story, like, truly meant the world to me, and I did like eight months of archival research, and honestly, I have like fifty thousand words of notes in a document somewhere. Like, there’s still so much material. It just, it was a gift to work on.

Sarah: Have you floated that as a book?

Sophie: In my brain! [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, well, let me, let me just give you a little push: yes, make that a book. Especially because I think, having lived through the AIDS crisis as a young person – I was born in ’75, so I saw the AIDS crisis –

Sophie: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the ‘80s as a young person – just when I was starting to get sex ed was when…

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Okay, let’s talk about condoms, which was the weirdest word I’d ever heard at the time.

Sophie: [Laughs]

Sarah: I think that there is now a lot of looking at the COVID response and looking at the AIDS response and seeing these as comparative events and…

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – more interest in that period of time because we’re forty-five, fifty years on. We have to – yeah, absolutely. Book the shit out of that, please. [Laughs]

Sophie: Yeah, I think in my mind, my great-aunt, his mother, is a hundred, and I’m sort of like, When she’s no longer with us, I think that –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – you know, that might be a different kind of discussion for me.

Sarah: Abs-, oh, I completely understand.

I also want to ask you about shopping, because this is something I’m not good at, and you are very good at it. You remember, like, you’ll be on Twitter and be like, I want to make recommendations; give me ideas. And you remember products, and you make great recommendations. Like, how? Seriously, I just, that’s my whole, my whole question: how? How? How? How do you do this?

Sophie: I think I’m really good at Google searching? Like, I truly just go on sites and start combing through things. So I find online shopping to be – or just online browsing –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – more than anything – to just be really cathartic?

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: I have a really hard time shutting my brain off, and I should be, like, embroidering while I watch TV or something, but instead I just want to search for things on the internet for people instead of spending my own money. So –

Sarah: It’s dopamine! It’s a hundred percent dopamine.

Sophie: Yeah! It’s just dopamine, and I also love when people, like, buy the stuff and then show me, like, a picture; it makes me so happy? But yeah, I truly just use a lot of keyword searching. I mean I have the places that I like to shop at generally, and, you know, there’s only so many places, like, at a certain budget point that isn’t like the absolute crap or giving people the craziest recommendations, ‘cause I feel really weird about giving, like, really high-priced recommendations unless someone says they have a high budget?

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: And so I just do like a lot of online searching and just look for, like, vibes. I obviously recommend things that I like or brands I like.

Sarah: Right.

Sophie: I have a very obvious style, so any time I do, like, a thread instead of a recommendation, I, in my opinion, I laugh. I’m like, These look like the same item.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: But I just think it’s, like, really fun. It kind of feels like when I used to use Pinterest, but I’m just doing it in a more interactive way.

Sarah: Especially ‘cause Pinterest has become, like, AI on top of AI on top of weird marketing.

Sophie: It’s really interesting; Pinterest is huge among Gen Z. They see it as, like, a real serotonin platform to use in a positive way against other social? But I often get frustrated by the platform because it has so many things that I can’t actually buy or, like, see? And so then I’m like –

Sarah: And you can’t get a link to the thing. You can, here’s a –

Sophie: Right!

Sarah: – thousand pictures of the thing, but we’re not going to show you the thing-thing.

Sophie: Right! Or it doesn’t exist anymore! And so when I’m searching for, like, the perfect rug or the perfect something it’s like, I don’t want to use Pinterest.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: I also in general, like, I am a discount shopper at heart. Like, getting deals and telling people about getting deals, literally such a parody of myself and my family right now? But, like, it gives me joy on a level I cannot even express. That’s why I’m always posting about Rakuten! Like, these people – I’m not, like, a paid Rakuten ambassador, but it’s just, like, free cash back online, and I’m like, Why wouldn’t you get free cash back?

Sarah: No!

Sophie: I mean, you can, like, take that out. Like, this – ‘cause I’m not like a sponsor of yours, but I just always am, Why wouldn’t people post – like, anyway. But I love looking for the best deals and also, like, searching through, like, Nordstrom Rack or, like, Off Saks [Saks OFF 5TH] or any of those for people, especially when they want wedding looks. I love when someone says, I have a wedding. Here’s the theme; here’s my budget; here’s my size. I’m like, Oh, put me in, Coach! I am going to get you something great at your budget point. So that’s my favorite kind of challenge; it’s like a sport.

Sarah: So your stores, you’ve got Off, Off Rack; you’ve got Nordstrom Rack; you’ve got OFF 5TH, rather. What are some other –

Sophie: Yeah.

Sarah: – stores that you really like that are a midrange price point, that are good, but aren’t like, And this is a nine-thousand pair of, dollar pair of socks?

Sophie: No. I’d say Sezane is one of my favorite stores in terms of like –

Sarah: Oh, I love their stuff!

Sophie: Their stuff is so beautiful, and I think it’s a really nice, like, midlevel price point where, yeah! Like, you’re probably paying between like $170 and $240 for a dress, but it’s like the quality is a little higher. The stuff I’ve had from there – I also say, like, I cannot, I do not spend money on basics. I shop at Old Navy, I shop on sale from, like, Gap or Target. Like, you’re never going to catch me spending more than, like, twenty bucks for an Everlane T-shirt.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: A lot of my basics, actually, I get at Everlane. I think they have really nice quality and price. Like, my favorite white T there, it’s like three for $60. Like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: – that’s what I want to pay for a T-shirt.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: But for more special pieces, I’m grateful to now be more open to spending in like the $150 to $250 range? Or even more like $100 to $250 with sales? And I feel like Sezane is a store. I like Cos a lot, and especially for more of, like, work wear and business wear. When I needed, like, a conference outfit last year, they had really interesting shapes.

Sarah: I have two to recommend for you, if you haven’t tried them.

Sophie: Ooh, please!

Sarah: Okay, so Marine Layer is a –

Sophie: Oh, I love Marine Layer!

Sarah: Their T-shirt, they have a boyfriend T-shirt, and I buy it at their, I have an, a, an, what’s it called? An extension on my browser –

Sophie: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: – called Beni? Where it searches ThredUp, Mercari, Poshmark – it searches all the secondhand stuff for my size, but if I pull up a piece of clothing, Beni will –

Sophie: It’s called Beni?

Sarah: B-E-N-I. It’s a Chrome extension, and it’s just a little tab that appears on the right, and if I click it, it will load a window and be like, Here’s this thing that you’re looking at; here it is at Poshmark; here it is ThredUp; here it is on this place. It’s so great. So I’ve bought, like, I think I have every color of the Marine Layer boyfriend T, which is a V-neck, straight, like straight cut, ‘cause I’m gifted in the chest-ular area, so a lot of T-shirts are not going to work for me. Like, seriously, my whole vibe is Pajamas, But It Looks Like I Tried?

Sophie: I work from home five days a week now, so it’s all comfy. But yeah, I do a ton of secondhand shopping. I’d say all, I love, like, a little dress for summer. My favorite brands right now, I think, are, like, Staud, Alice and Olivia; I do love, like, a Reformation dress? And let me tell you, I am not buying any of those things at retail prices –

Sarah: Hell no!

Sophie: – ever.

Sarah: Hell no!

Sophie: All of those are from RealReal, because you can return items if they don’t fit.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: And so I got so many – I think I got three or four of the dresses of those brands for like $120 –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – at the beginning of the summer, and they’re what I’ve worn the whole time.

Sarah: Another thing that’s helped me a lot is shopping secondhand when you can tell that the secondhand shoppers have gone to a seconds sale for a big brand, and it’s like this one –

Sophie: Oh.

Sarah: – has a mismatched seam, or this one has something wrong with the hem, and I look at it, and I’m like, I can fix that. I can fix that –

Sophie: Yeah!

Sarah: – you’ll never know it was, it was, it was weird. The other brand that I love following on Instagram is Marcella New York?

Sophie: What’s that?

Sarah: Yeah, Marcella NYC is a lot of, it’s very New York, but it’s all very interesting. Like, they’ll have a top that’s like a basic top, but the, the neckline is entirely –

Sophie: Oooh!

Sarah: – asymmetrical. They do a lot of minimalist, but it’s all very, it’s, it’s, it’s edgy and minimalist, but interesting and very, like, adjustable. Like, it’s, I just love looking at their clothes and thinking, That’s so fucking cool! I don’t know if that fits on me –

Sophie: I love that!

Sarah: – but it’s very cool.

Sophie: That’s great! I also do, I’m an intense Poshmarker specifically, so –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – I, I really struggle with places where you can’t return. It’s like, I’m not buying a dress from Poshmark unless I know it, like, it fits me; I’m just not doing it? But I buy –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: – all my cashmere sweaters, like, all my work-from-home winter wear, one million percent from Poshmark. I’m like, Poshmarking in meetings. I am accepting deals at all times of day.

Sarah: Oh yeah. And the nice thing about Poshmark is if you know the thing works, like the Marine Layer T-shirt, I know exactly what size is mine; I, I know which colors I have and I don’t; and, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, done. I know this works, and now I just, like, if it’s forty-five dollars on this site and I’ve gotten three for $35, I win, I win, I win! [Laughs]

Sophie: Oh, it, it feels like winning. I mean, I grew up in New York City going to sample sales, like going to the Barneys sale with my mom  when I was a little kid and getting, like, shoved out of place, so, like –

Sarah: Oh!

Sophie: – I’m such a sample sale, Loehmann’s going, like, that is how I was raised was, like, we find the best deal, and you just feel good about it. I, I can’t imagine ever not being that person, regardless of where my personal finances take me?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: Like, the idea of going into Staud and paying like five hundred dollars for a dress, but if I wait six months I can get from, like, RealReal or from Nordstrom Rack even for half the price, I’m like, Who wouldn’t, who wouldn’t do that? It’s crazy clothes, get stained clothes, get ruined – like, I’m not – you know, it’s just –

Sarah: Oh, I’m…

Sophie: – it’s crazy! It’s not investment. Like, it’s not a piece of jewelry you’re going to have forever. Like –

Sarah: No. It’s going to wear out!

Sophie: – things get messy!

Sarah: And it’s that same instant demand. Like when you were talking about This book is new, and it’s valuable when it’s new, and if it’s not new I don’t want to read it. The same thing with clothes! Like, both of these things have longevity, and you could get use out of them, and chances are the book will last longer! [Laughs] I don’t much…

Sophie: This is actually a long game.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: This is a long game I want to get better at, because so many sample sales have gone online, but I never want to shop them because they’re final sale, so even –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: I’m just obsessed with Staud right now. It’s like a place I wish I could do Supermarket Sweep at, and they’ve been having this crazy end-of-season sale twice a year, but it’s final sale, and I’m like, I need to get better about going into the store –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – trying things on, writing it down?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: At, like, my favorite places so that I can do that, or, I don’t know if people know it; it’s called 260 Fifth? It’s a big sample sale place in New York, but they also do online sample sales, and that’s another place I’m always like, If I had just paid attention ahead of time, I could have bought this.

Sarah: Yes. Yes, it is a long game.

I have one other question –

Sophie: Oh yeah.

Sarah: – completely unrelated to anything else that we’ve been talking about, but this is very important: I need to know your take on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

Sophie: Thank you so much for this question. I can’t tell you –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: – how happy I am to have a person to discuss this with, because I swear my friend staying with me and my coworkers are like, If you mention this show one more time, we’re going to kill you. I’m obsessed with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. It is all of my interests in one place. Like, extreme religion, influencer culture, swingers, people who have, like, weird repressed things.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: Learning about the soda has really surprised me and upset me.

Sarah: Isn’t that something? Mm-hmm.

Sophie: Truly, the hypocrisy on display on this show is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. The way they, like, make rules for themselves or think, like, I’m still being a good Mormon in X way, so I can do Y; it’s just like, Oh! So you think that! Okay. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: Is this the, is this the mental gymnastics? I think it’s called high-demand religions when they demand an awful lot of you within the context of that religion; I think that’s the term for it: high-demand religions? I think that –

Sophie: Mmm.

Sarah: – that right. So if you’re inside a high-demand religion community, is that the mental gymnastics you’re doing constantly to do the things you want to do? That sounds exhausting!

Sophie: I mean, I do think so, and obviously every religion has versions of this.

Sarah: Every single one!

Sophie: If it’s just – it is, and someone asked me, they were like, Do you find watching the show too depressing? And I was like, No, I, I don’t, but it is quite depressing when you think about it.

Sarah: It’s very depressing.

Sophie: I find it a joy to watch, but it is very depressing when you look at a twenty-two-year-old who’s getting divorced with children.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: You’re just like, That’s okay. Um. And I did, I saw a post from someone who was like, Hey, I’m Mormon and just want to add that, like, these women are acting crazy because they were so repressed, and now they live alone or with their husband, and they’re literally just going insane, and it’s like, Yeah, of course you are.

Sarah: Yeah! And they’re isolated with a set of very specific domestic responsibilities that are invisible and unappreciated and uncompensated, and here is this venue online through which they can get recognition, they can get compensation, they can get fame? They can get status within their community that they don’t have otherwise? It’s –

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – it’s, it’s, it’s, it is a weird mixture for me of secondhand embarrassment – I have very strong secondhand embarrassment problems.

Sophie: Oh yeah.

Sarah: Like, I really, like –

Sophie: No, the secondhand embarrassment of her dancing next to her baby and then – I literally, I can’t believe it’s real. I, I can’t believe it.

Sarah: [Laughs] We’re both, like, putting our hands over our shirts like we’re – [laughs more]

Sophie: No, I somehow missed that when that happened.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Sophie: I’m chronically online, but I missed that when it happened, and when they showed that on the show, I, the face you are making right now was me alone in my apartment. My dog, like, came running over; he was very, You okay?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: I was so, I was, What is this woman doing?

Sarah: What is happening right now? So –

Sophie: …what is MomTok. What is MomTok? They’re like, We’ve got to save MomTok, but, like, that’s just a hashtag. Like, what is MomTok?

Sarah: It’s like this weird, nebulous concept of entrepreneurship which it, which isn’t real? But to them is real? Like, from a, from a business organization perspective, it’s very strange to be like, This is our business. I’m like, No, it’s a hashtag. Like, literally –

Sophie: It’s a hashtag!

Sarah: – literally, I can use it, and I am older than you and not Mormon! Like, what is – it’s just a hashtag, y’all. Calm down.

Sophie: I’m so confused. I mean, it is also genuinely fascinating to watch a woman be like, Hey, a vibrator company offered me twenty thousand dollars; should I post about this?

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: And it’s –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sophie: First of all, yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: I like the girl who was like, I mean, for thirty. I was like, Hmm. Right answer.

Sarah: Yes, that is the right answer right there. If they’re starting at twenty, you can go up.

Sophie: Yeah, I mean, Whitney is a bad person, and I think she deserves all the bad energy she’s getting back from the world, based on how she has treated people.

Sarah: Yes. It’s true, and it’s – and so I just last month on my show, every other week I do a recap of the, of a magazine, and then in the interest, interims like this one. So last month I was looking at reality TV and romance readers, because there’s a huge overlap between Real Housewives and Bachelor, Bachelor fans and romance readers. Bachelor, Bachelorette, Real Housewives, and romance have this huge overlap. And I don’t –

Sophie: Hmm.

Sarah: – consume a lot of this, ‘cause again, secondhand embarrassment. I like to, I like my internal organs to be relaxed, not freaking out.

Sophie: [Laughs]

Sarah: So it, I, I did a conversation with an academic and romance author who is an expert on The Bachelor, who’s Australian, so she has this global Bachelor perspective, which was really cool; talked to one of my writers who’s a big Real Housewives fan; and then the last episode I had a producer of Real Housewives come on and talk to me about making a reality show. His name is Chris DeRosa. He has a podcast called Fixing Famous People, and the – and I, I was fascinated. I was like, just, I’m going to hit Record, and you’re going to talk, and it’s going to be great. But one of the things he kept saying was like, This is not scripted; this is real. We couldn’t write this if we tried, and these are shows that center women who, at a certain age, disappear. Real Housewives are all older women who are single and wealthy and self-actualized and have ideas about themselves. And the thing that is so interesting to me is the contrast between Real Housewives and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, because aesthetically they’re very similar. They do the thing with the hair, where it’s long and it…

Sophie: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: They, they are aesthetically extremely similar –

Sophie: Yeah.

Sarah: – and yet very, very different, because the Mormon wives do not have the wealth, the autonomy, the self-actualization, and the overall lack of giving a fuck, except for the villains in that show. Those are the women who have just the smallest more amount of self-actualizations, but they get it by being an asshole.

Sophie: [Laughs] Yeah. I’m huge Real Housewives watcher. Like, I am such a Bravo-head, and watching The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and then this, I mean, get them all in a room together? I mean, some of these I’m sure will end up on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and what’s crazy too is, like, some of the real salt, the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, like their ages? There’s a thirty-one-year-old on Secret Lives, and there’s a thirty-seven-year-old on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

Sarah: Yep.

Sophie: One of them, their husband is one of the others’ ex-husband.

Sarah: Yes, there’s –

Sophie: Like, the Salt Lake City woman –

Sarah: They’re all, they’re all –

Sophie: Yeah!

Sarah: – intermingled.

Sophie: But I agree with you, and actually, so I think of the Mormon ones like they seem kind of okay financially? This is a, a weird distinction: I have a very hard time watching reality television about people who are not doing well financially. I find it exploitative in a way that –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Sophie: – I don’t feel bad when I watch The Real Housewives? So, like, 90 Day Fiancé –

Sarah: No.

Sophie: – Teen Mom –

Sarah: No.

Sophie: – like –

Sarah: Nothing with children, for me.

Sophie: – any of the TLC’s –

Sarah: Nothing with children. Children can –

Sophie: Never?

Sarah: Okay, here is, here is the article that I would like to write, and I am not a journalist? I would really like to write extensively, extensive interviews with the children of the mommy bloggers who I grew up, who I was coming online and writing at the same time as Dooce and Leery Polyp and all of these people who were using their children for content, and now their children are of age, and I’m dying to know: are they – and, and, like, I am also being…

Sophie: You’re going to…

Sarah: – by asking these questions. Like, Are you okay? There’s…

Sophie: They’re not –

Sarah: There’s –

Sophie: – and you’re going to get a book on it. There’s a book coming out by a writer who I love who writes for Teen Vogue as well as a lot of other places. I’ve seen her doing the callouts, and she wrote one of the first, like, really big articles –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – and I’ve been following all the laws that are coming into place?

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: And I know she has a book coming out.

Sarah: Oh, I’m so excited to read it!

Sophie: Yeah, it’s like, she’ll literally tweet, like, Just got off the phone with another kid of a mommy, original mommy blogger. Like, you guys have no idea what’s coming. And I believe –

Sarah: They’re coming of age –

Sophie: – every ounce of it.

Sarah: Oh.

Sophie: Actually, yeah, I basically won’t engage with social media posts that feature children –

Sarah: No. No, thanks.

Sophie: – in general?

Sarah: They can’t consent. I have two kids –

Sophie: But I –

Sarah: – they’re teenagers, and, like, they were never part of my blog. Like, they had code names on the blog, and I, they were only pictured after they were born. That was off limits. They can’t consent. It makes me nuts. I cannot do…

Sophie: So much about –

Sarah: Ugh!

Sophie: Yeah, I’m not a parent. I think it’s so much about how you do it. Like, it’s one thing to, like, show your own life and your child happens to maybe be there, and then you see people be like, getting your kid to say something or, like, in, or, like, the content is them; the views are them.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: They’re a child! It’s not like you’re a person and you posted a cute family photo, and maybe someone saw your kid’s face. Like, that’s a conversation that’s like, Whatever you’re comfortable with; I don’t think this is unethical.

Sarah: There’s a difference between that –

Sophie: But it’s like –

Sarah: – and making your child the content.

Sophie: Oh, those are the kids where it’s like, First of all, they’d better be giving you that money. They’d be better giving you that money.

Sarah: There’s no money. It’s gone. There’s not even a, there’s not even a Coogan fund for these kids.

Sophie: It’s also like, to the people now it’s like, Fine, we didn’t know what the internet was and what it was going to do for a while. Like, you know now. Do better! I just –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – I see content constantly come across my feeds, and I’m just like, Don’t do this to your kid! Like –

Sarah: This is not okay. This is not okay. But you’re so right! You’re so right that the, the shows that already have the, the affluence, the financial assets? Like, you know these people, these people are not vulnerable; they’re not being exploited, except if they are they’re, they’re aware of –

Sophie: It’s a choice.

Sarah: They are choosing to do this. One of the things I think that works so well for Real Housewives, especially in romance fans, is all of this is forced proximity? Like, you may not –

Sophie: Hmm.

Sarah: – like these people, but you have to be there. And the, the point that the producer made that I thought was so interesting is that Real Housewives is conflict resolution porn. They’re, you’re going to make them say in dialogue to each other. It’s not as good as if it’s a to-camera follow-up, because he’s the one who’s asking them questions in those, in those to-cameras in the confessionals. He’s the one asking them questions to get them to talk. He’s like, It’s much better if they say that to each others’ faces. And you know, you might have a friend where you’re like, every time you hang out with them you feel shitty, but you never say anything. They’re going to make that text. It’s not subtext; they’re going to make it dialogue, and it’s all conflict resolution porn. And I’m like, That is fascinating, and I think that’s also another reason why Secret Wives, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is such a, a, like, incredibly, like, alluring television. You’re going to watch the conflict play out and see what’s happening –

Sophie: Yeah.

Sarah: – afterward.

Sophie: Oh. They must have gotten cameras up on those girls so fast for that first episode. I was like –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Sophie: – Jesus, did they know what they had? And it’s – I, I love – [laughs] – watching these women argue and resolve, and it just feels, like, so low-stakes to me in a way that I don’t have to feel bad about?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: Because it’s just like, You’re choosing to go to, I don’t know, Mexico this season and, like, all yell at each other over stuff. Like, you don’t have to do that.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: And also, like, Bravo couldn’t make Jen Shah go to prison. Bravo couldn’t make, like, Alexis Bellino start dating Shannon Beador, get engaged to Shannon Beador’s ex after she got in a car crash with her dog. Like, these women are doing this to themselves, and these are well-off, consenting adults –

Sarah: Who are –

Sophie: – and I love watching.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: Also, like, they’re getting famous off being messy. Like, it just, it’s like we’re all in it together. Whereas, like, oh, teenagers and, oh, some, some reality TV is just so gross to me. And I understand that people find the Housewives gross, and this is all a line we all draw for ourselves wherever we feel, but for me, that’s my personal line.

Sarah: And the other thing I always think is interesting is the line between your public persona and who you are in private? Like, I think one of the reasons why Blake Lively and Jennifer Lopez got so much blowback is because there is a big difference between their public-facing actions and their private-facing actions, and the farther that distance gets, the more satisfying it is to watch that snap back together. The Real Housewives are an interesting gloss on that, because their, their aesthetics and their public facing is incredibly well groomed and looked after, and they all look gorgeously well done, and their clothing is always great, they always look good, but they are also messy, and those things are right at the same level. Here is my mess, and here are my highlights. Did you notice my –

Sophie: Yes.

Sarah: – my tan? My tan is great! These are all existing openly at the same level. They’re, they’re not hiding it; it’s all the same, and I think that’s a little bit more authentic in terms of how authentic reality television can be. It’s a little bit more palatable when you’re like, Wait, this is bullshit. No, it’s not bullshit; they’re just messy. Pretty and messy at the same time!

Sophie: Right? Also, like, rich people are delusional –

Sarah: Oh my God!

Sophie: – in so many ways, and so it’s just like, Okay, great, let’s show them for how silly they are.

Sarah: This is silly. Like, this is what you’re, this is what you’re spending hours and hours and hours on. What, what, what the cheese was at the party. Mad about the cheese.

Sophie: Yeah.

Sarah: The cheese drama. Like, you know what?

Sophie: Oh my God.

Sarah: Life is so hard and difficult right now, people love some cheese drama!

Sophie: I love it. I, I’ve said for a long time that The Real Housewives is, like, the background of my professional life, because for so many years when I was cons- – so, so do, like, freelance work after my regular job, I was always like, I need a change of pace. Like, I can’t just sit in the same room, so for me work-work has always happened at a desk with music, and freelance work happens on the couch with The Real Housewives –

Sarah: Yeah.

Sophie: – because I don’t have to pay attention, so it’s like my background noise.

Sarah: Yeah. The Fug Girls call that a one-eye show, where you really only need one eye on it, and that’s, that’s, that’s their term for it, which I think is perfect.

Sophie: My favorite. Yeah, I love that kind of TV.

Sarah: Yeah! So thank you for talking about The Secret Lives –

Sophie: Yeah.

Sarah: – of Mormon Wives with me. I appreciate it!

Sophie: Oh my God, thank you! I, truly, I can’t stop talking about it. [Laughs]

Sarah: I would love to know – I always ask this question – what books are you reading that you would love to tell people about?

Sophie: Let me get my list, ‘cause I wrote them down. Okay, I have a few favorites from this year. I feel like I’ve had a really great reading year.

I just read Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, which I absolutely loved. It’s a very short, beautiful, literary novel about – [sighs] – the description’s going to not represent it well, but it’s about an alien who’s basically sent to Earth in the body of a baby, and it’s just like a coming-of-age story through that alien’s head, and it’s just, it’s a kind of book that’s not really science fiction so much as it’s a book about humanity and connection and communication, and it just blew my mind and made me feel things very deeply in the way where I could, like, barely tell you what happened in the book, but I just know how it made me feel.

Sarah: …books like that.

Sophie: Me too.

Another one I really loved was Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe? That’s a really, really fun, creative read. It came out, I think, this spring. It’s about a young girl who gets pregnant by her English professor her freshman year in college, and it’s not a spoiler to say keeps the baby – the whole book is about her with the baby – and it’s really creative, has characters that were so finely realized and so specific and so nuanced, and it’s also just, like, a very fun – the topics aren’t light, but the book is light – engaging read.

Sarah: Yeah. Yep.

Sophie: And then – can I do two more?

Sarah: Are you kidding? Absolutely!

Sophie: [Laughs] I read Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new book, Long Island Compromise, which I absolutely loved. I loved Fleishman Is in Trouble – or Fleishman’s in Trouble, however it’s punctuated – and I think that Taffy writes modern Jewish-American experience in –

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: – such a specific nuanced, brilliant, and accurate way.

Sarah: Yes.

Sophie: I could not be more obsessed, and I think especially in this moment where it’s very easy to be like, Any criticism of Jewish people is anti-Semitic somehow! It’s like, no. Just write about people accurately and fully. So I, I just think she’s brilliant, and it’s, was very cool to, you know, I read her writing in The Times, but Fleishman had such a specific voice and such a specific point of view, and I loved seeing that carry through to this book in a way that she could have just written in a totally different voice, and that would have been interesting too, but to see, like, Oh, this is your novel style? Like, I’ll follow you anywhere you go, was –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Sophie: – really fun.

Sarah: It’s kind of unfair for her to be so great at celebrity profile writing and also fiction. It’s, it’s a little unfair, I would just like to say for the record. [Laughs]

Sophie: She is one of my biggest girl crushes. I think Taffy is just the coolest person. She, it’s just remarkable; it’s a great read.

And then – I’ve read so many good ones this year – the last one I’ll mention is Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang, [Zang] I believe is how you pronounce her last name, but apologies if I’m mispronouncing. It’s also a literary novel. So exquisitely written. Like the kind of book where you’re just, like, hol-, physically holding onto words. Each sentence is beautiful. It’s about, it’s a near-dystopia, like a, a slight science fiction edge of, this fog has sort of, like, come across the world, and it’s really damaged plants, and it’s, their food culture is very different now, and it’s about a young woman who goes to be a chef at a very exclusive restaurant at the top of a mountain in Italy, where they still have access to all this food that other people don’t, and about her experience there and cooking, and the book is all about food. It made me so hungry and, like, want to engage in fine dining, and it’s just like the book is delicious, which is a ridiculous word to use for this book, but it’s what it is.

Sarah: Yes. I, I saw some beauty crit-, critics talking about how, because food is so expensive, food is becoming an accessory? Like, you see hairclips that look like pasta.

Sophie: Yeah!

Sarah: You know, things that look like food become decorative because it’s such a statement of wealth and how expensive food is, you wear it as jewelry. So this fits right into that particular trend.

Sophie: Oh yeah. That actually might be my favorite book I’ve read this year so far. That book really just, like, knocked me in the best way. I couldn’t get over the writing. It was not superfluous; just right. It was beautiful.

Sarah: Have you read I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol?

Sophie: I haven’t!

Sarah: Okay, first of all, it’s got the luscious cover. It is an art – take, take a look at the cover. It is luscious. It’s about a woman who is from New York, and in August 2021 she goes to Paris. It, there’s hardly anyone there; it’s still during, you know, post COVID, and –

Sophie: Oh! I just met her! Sorry, I just met her when she was, like, about to publish the book, and now it’s on my list! Yeah, she told me –

Sarah: Okay.

Sophie: – that she had this coming out! [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s so good! It’s, it’s food and, and what are you doing to enjoy yourself, and what does it mean to just follow your own interests and not just your bliss but, like, your desire. It’s so good.

Sophie: Oh, I need to do that, and you’re right, the cover is absolutely beautiful for that book.

Sarah: Whoever, whoever was in that meeting, whoever was in the art director meeting, like, mad props. All the kudos.

Sophie: Yeah! I was on a date and ran into her agent, who I know, at a bar. They were, like, having a drink together, and so I met her through her, and I was like –

Sarah: [Indistinct]

Sophie: – We’re not going to, going to sit and have like a date next to, like, this person I know and her client like, Hey, guys.

Sarah: That’s a very New York story? Like –

Sophie: Yes!

Sarah: – this is a very particular New York publishing story, and I’m like, Yeah, absolutely; story checks out. That is how –

Sophie: Yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: Where can people find you if you wish to be found?

Sophie: Yes! People can find me on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is @svershbow, which is my last name. I’m sure it’ll be in the show notes somewhere. And then –

Sarah: Yes!

Sophie: – I am also often on the internet under my dog’s handle, which is @upperwestsimon on TikTok and Instagram.

Sarah: Aw! Congratulations on getting spon con for your dog, by the way. He made it!

Sophie: Thank you so much!

Sarah: Simon got spon con. Hell, yeah.

Sophie: It is truly my career plan now to live off my dog so I can be a full-time writer and no longer work in marketing, and I’m just really hoping that we’re getting there.

Sarah: Thank you so much for doing this interview and hanging out with me. I’m sorry that we went long, but I’m really glad it was ‘cause of Mormon Wives! [Laughs]

Sophie: This was so fun!

Sarah: If it would be helpful for you in the future, when you’re doing an article that’s relevant to book publishing, if you want to email me and be like, I want to talk to you about the article that I wrote?

Sophie: Oooh!

Sarah: …love that, because –

Sophie: I would love that!

Sarah: – that (a) promotes the article, but (b) also gives it a different, like, venue from which to talk and elevates your profile –

Sophie: Totally!

Sarah: – and gives me an interesting conversation, ‘cause the stuff you write about is entirely my street.

Sophie: I love that! I was actually thinking about this the other day, but I was like, Man, it’s really scary to put yourself out there all the time, but if you don’t, people literally can’t find you, so you can’t get the opportunities. Like, most of my coolest opportunities haven’t been something I went after; it’s like I put myself out there a lot, and then they could find me ‘cause of that.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Sophie for hanging out with me. Our recording went long because we just, we had so much to talk about, and it was truly a delight. I hope you enjoyed it. If you’re looking for links, please do not worry. I have links to all of the stores and the articles that Sophie mentioned, and of course all of the books we discussed will be in the show notes as well.

I end every week with a terrible joke. This one is really bad, y’all; get ready. Okay, I’m actually rolling up my sleeves. Here we go.

What do you do when too many people turn up for the yodeling lesson?

Give up? What do you do when too many people turn up for the yodeling lesson?

You ask them to form an orderly-orderly-orderly queue.

[Laughs] So – I love it so much! [Sings] Orderly-orderly-orderly! That was really, really fun to say. I hope you are groaning in a good way now.

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

[end of music]