September 28, 2022 • 63 mins
The wonderful world of book publishing! How hard is it to get a book deal? And once you get the deal how hard is it to put out a book that YOU love? An editor passionate about highlighting Black and queer authors, despite how difficult it can be to promote them, explains the rollercoaster of emotions authors of color face in this predominantly-white industry.
Renowned book critic Bethanne Patrick, breaks down the secretive world of book publishing. From pain to privilege to unwritten books, and how some publishers play with the money to shortage authors both fiscally and creatively. She also discusses her book industry podcast ‘Missing Pages’ and book, Life B.
From across the pond, @Rod4Short shares the opposite of a sweet duty involving tens of thousands of bees. The team also weighs in on the drama in Boston involving the Celtics head coach.
Catch Roy alongside Jon Hamm in “Confess, Fletch” in theaters and On Demand NOW!
The episode is brought to you by sad Boston Celtics fans.
Want to be a guest on 'Roy's Job Fair?' Got a job scam you've seen run? A worst or first job to share? Job tips to share with everyone? Get on the show! Submit your story at www.roysjobfair.com
Watch all Roy Wood Jr Comedy Specials NOW available on iTunes and streaming NOW on Paramount+
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central. Alright, let me wait, test
y'all got me oh about I've been still in WiFi
from this building and think they finally had a good
year and a half run the office, the office where
(00:22):
I do this, the internet jack in the wall, that
ship still active. So I've just been rolling with it
and you're pointing into the wall. Let's let's hurry up
before they cut the inter it off again. Now hiring,
(00:44):
the Boston Celtics probably gonna be hiring for a number
of positions over the next couple of months. Their internal
investigation continues into inappropriate consensual relationships involving teams, staff, head
coach email who don't oh, brother Doka panly didn't slinging
dick around the Celtics facility like it would because currently
(01:11):
on a year long suspension from the teams. Brothers Doka,
but more importantly, me alone might be hiring for the
position of boyfriend. Fellas it's time to get your hair cutting,
your head shots. I don't think that's how it's gonna work.
You gotta give her time to heal and leave a lovlub.
(01:33):
About three years from now, it's gonna be time to
shoot those shot at me alone. Man, let me go
fush your hair start. Oh my gosh, my name is Roy,
(02:03):
this is my job for No, there's a lot going
on with this Celtic stuff. We probably have to talk
to Ride about that. They'll take Rod. I'm back all
of the chaos. The whole story is built for Rod,
built for Rod. Funked up that that story dropped the
week after we did about banking co workers. Do you
(02:28):
think more people would listen? You know what I'm saying.
We gave it to him? What is it? What is
it you need to understand? J g Is it? Because
I don't understand everything about the story either. Oh I
have so many questions, but I need to understand inappropriate consensual?
What help me? It's I think it's very clear cut.
(02:50):
If you work at a job and your employer has
said nobody can suck, nobody can suck. So there's a
morality clause or something. Poss believe. But they that just
made company policy, like, hey, if you work here, y'all
can be fucking. Y'all wanna fun one y'all gotta quit
and it don't matter if it's consensual. But there are
some companies where you go and you say, Hi, I'm
(03:14):
a I'm also interested in be and we want to
let you know about this relationship. Obviously he didn't do that,
but it happens. Yeah, but this is no different than
last week when Third was talking about how some companies
incur Hey, we won't ya in fact, while let us know,
but put your name on the wall. Was married okay
(03:38):
in the process, ain't it. I'm just saying, like, oh,
most places, most places. To me, the whole thing that's
weird is that even if y'all had the clause, and
even if he did something wrong, why are you just
suspending him for a year, Like, go ahead and let
the dude fly. Like I don't understand. Y'all to the
(04:00):
NBA Finals and you took the Golden State Warriors six games,
and low key you would have had him, but Steph
Curry was just literally ungotten during that series. That's true.
Do you fire a coach that got you within two
games of an NBA championship or do you suspend him?
Or does that coach have a good contract And there's
(04:21):
some other clause in there that he's already protecting himself with.
See what you're saying, Third, if this was a Sacramento King,
jam funk out of here you're going. If it was
the Wizards, I can promise you he'd have been on
the first thing s been going. They got people of
the Wizards for less. But on the same tip with
(04:41):
j G saying has a lot of merit, like maybe
this guy was sharp enough to have easily the most
ironclad contract in NBA history that they can't fire me
if I make if I think with my dick, I
can't get fired basically, And maybe he had that. Yeah, yeah,
as a close he knows his problems. We'll we'll we'll
(05:03):
chat with Rod and a little bit about that. But first, UM,
it's important that we have balanced on this show. And
last week we was talking a lot about that ignorant
but Naked's exaction that be going on. Thank you for
the reaction emails and social as well. It's important that
we had a little balanced this week. And Um, this
week I want to talk about reading and ship. We're
going to talk about the publishing industry and we've got
(05:28):
two wonderful guests. They are gonna peel back the lid
on that occupation of what it means to be a
book editor. Not only a book editor, but a black
woman book editor trying to get black and queer titles
onto store shelves. And um, we're gonna talk with wonderful,
wonderful Bethan, who's a very very prominent book critic. What's
that like? Just what do you say when you criticize
(05:51):
a book? Like, yeah, that story just didn't flow. And
I would be piste up. At least if you review
a movie, that's just two hours of your life. A book,
is it? God? Damn, the book is a challenge two
weeks we can do. How frequently do you review? How? Like,
you know, how do you review a book? Back in
the day, man, when I had to produce for for
you know, guys who review books for a living, you
(06:12):
got to read about five books a week? How many? Literally,
like easily somewhere between the hundred and fifty three pesuk
out my face. It was like going back to school. Man.
It was it was, it was it was a lot.
I read a lot, a lot, a lot of very
bad books. H Wow. While I was doing doing production,
(06:33):
I I read. But I've transitioned into a book on
tape type person, Like I understand people who read, but
you know, some books. Some like tangible hardcover readers. They
like turn their nose up at people like me because
you know they're purest you know, they're page turners. And
I want to sit by a pool and enjoy a
nice book under my blanket and all of that. Ship
(06:55):
Michelle Obama's book Becoming, I had to have that in
my physical hand in, but I want to hear Will
Smith read his book, so I get it. I work
both ways. Yeah, yeah, And you know we're gonna talk
to bething about that about having a celebrity versus a
regular person do all the voice acting and everything, the voice,
(07:15):
the reading, you know what. I'm the narration for all
of these books. We don't have a lot of time.
We gotta get into us a real quick first up,
it's time for Cody's Most Outstanding Employee of the Week.
Boston Celtics coach email. I failed a trend trand oh
(07:36):
my goodness, gracious email, however you say it, man trash.
Here here's the thing. Now. According to TMZ, they said
that one of the women or the only woman that
so far, the one person that is that it is set.
And I'm quoting TMZ. I'm not spreading roomors. We're not
(07:57):
gonna spread no rooms with what we didn't have. Just
only confirm ship on the shop. You don't even the
current events for real, for real, because I'd like for
more information to come out. But this ship still got
damn lay sick say that it was a woman who
books the team travel, including the plus ones of some
of the coaches and players, including one Madam Neil Long.
(08:20):
That's messy. That's the world, like dirty world right there.
You then flew in the main chick and you decide chick.
And then you saw also on TNG because we ain't
spreading no rumors. He got caught on the ring doorbell, bro,
he got caught on the ring doorbell. I'm sorry, break
(08:41):
that down. Got the video who who like see them
snitch as doorbell got caught on the ring camera at
the at Shorty's house by her husband. That's all this
stuff popped off. So the husband is just on the
ring app watching his house in real time. And then
the don the door. I didn't know. It's my head
(09:03):
coach at my wife's door, right, And why is they
talking dirty nash the ship? Oh my god, they're sucking
on the front boot was on the front. Mm hmmm, Well,
I mean the tape stopped work before he got to
any point. But yeah, that's online. So lost what just happened?
Who saw what? You froze? Who frozen? Roy? Oh? Did
(09:28):
Jacqueline talked to a Raulph? I'm on stolen internet today.
Someone on the rain camera. I don't know how Udokami
Udoka was with, said team arranger. Girl, she's married. Woman.
Let's go with a woman. We're not going to defame
(09:50):
poorly of her. No, we're not gonna say that either,
just because he's the one walking around putting his penis
in everything, so she's sting checking. He didn't the story.
We have a guest standing Bible knowledge to tell us.
We got to get through this. Just a woman, So
(10:11):
just say woman, third woman. Woman. I'm getting pronounce It
ain't even my damn fault. Roy Anyway. The point is
the husband saw Judoka with his wife on their ring doorbell,
and he put the video out and that's how all
(10:32):
this started because they was on the video and they
was talking hell of spicy in front of the dough.
He was hurt, didn't he didn't think it's through. You
best not be cheating on the ring door. But how
you get caught on the ring doorbell? Lazy? He didn't
think this through. Now here's what I'll say. And I
(10:54):
don't know how many of you have been aside dude,
or have cheated or be cheated on or played an't
role in the love triangle of this nature. What I
can say without giving away too much of my past,
that there is a degree in comedy. It's called commitment
to the bit. This is where, no matter what is happening,
(11:17):
you maintain a truth and your performance stays true to
that no matter what's we're talking Jimmy Kimmel level at
the Emmy's laying at the feet of Quinto Bronzon, being disrespectful.
Commitment to the bit, to be a side check and
be the travel liaison. That means you're in some instances
at the hotel j G. You have done this work
(11:39):
on many productions. You are the point person who is
talking to the people. Your room is gonna be ready
at this time. I got the sweet, I got there's
a car coming to get your knee. See you at
the Aventure. You see it in the Sweet, You see
it at the Celtics charity chip that's going on and
(11:59):
you gotta look in the face even or you're fucking
a man and keep us. Do you understand the level
of commitment to the bit that you have to have
to be fucking another woman's man and have business dealings
with that woman not motherfucking budget for fucking that man's
(12:23):
and fucking that one. For fucking that woman's man and
not flinching at all over a year, knowing that she
was getting moved to Boston two weeks before the ship
hit the fan, she probably helped to move Email the
(12:44):
color had excuse me, woman who was sucking em Doka,
woman who was fucking Email Doka consensually but illegally due
to Boston Celtics Los not illegal, but it's immoral, But
go ahead, it's not illegal. It's immoral, going to get
(13:05):
to this guest woman who was immorlly but not illegally
and consentually fucking emaila who was also part to blame
because young man and he should have kept predictative fans.
M hm, you most outstanding employee of the week if
(13:26):
you like that. By Sackleson State Community College. Let's get
into reading week worst than first time. It's getting to
this reading ship now and this reading and ship. That's
what we agree. He was gonna do this episode of
reading and ship, okay, And I think it is only
fair that we start this episode with the person who
(13:49):
was the reason that we're doing this fucking episode. Just
wonderful woman dropped the email. And that's that's what the
whole job fair community is about. Roy's job fair dot com.
By the way, if you ever want to be a
hard to show, reach out to us on social topes
of ship. Jacqueline will reply. I might not, but I
guarantee you Jacqueline will reply. Even if you're a boy
(14:10):
and you're not even a real person, Jacqueline will reply.
And I've also chestis a few people because they were
mean to others and we will not be mean. Yes,
please go out and fix the internet. Go fix. Let
me know how that works out for you. To chief,
(14:31):
it's important that the jobs that you know. Part of
why we started this podcast was about learning about the
jobs that you forget that there are jobs and in
the ins and outs of those particular jobs. And this
woman reached out to us about the publishing industry and
the ins and out of trying to get published. J
G let us meet the patient zero for Reading and
(14:51):
Ship Week, and we welcome Amanda. She lives in l
A and has spent over twelve years in the book
publishing industry. She's dealt with her fair share of microaggressions
and radio active Karen's as an editor. She's passionate about
highlighting black and queer authors, despite how difficult it can
(15:14):
be to promote them. Roy Today, Amando will be talking
with you about those challenges and the other challenges people
of color face and the predominantly white industry. Hello Amanda, Hello, everybody, helong,
It's Jacqueline. It's a delay. All the pleasures are as.
I promise y'all done. I'm gonna let y'all do your
(15:35):
bond and we talked about so we're good. Yeah, yes, yes, polite.
Oh ya. Now, Amanda, when you reached out to us,
to me, the email read from a place of more
people need to know what the fund is happening over here.
(15:56):
So when we talk about the publishing industry, just welc
us through your journey, you know, just from a worse
and first aspect, just your foray into that world as
a newbie. I absolutely started publishing a like one of
the worst times. It was peak recession. Um, it's like,
oh nine, I got this job at Phoenix Books and Audio,
(16:20):
which was at the time kind of famous for doing
vanity books with celebrities. But a new editor in chief
had come and he was going to make it legit
lit ok, and uh. They interviewed for like assistant position
and instead they offered me a publicity manager role, of course,
being paid a lot less than what plicity manager should
(16:40):
actually say. It's my first time, um they gave me.
They offered me a cool thirty eight and they were
like and then going up, not even in two years. Yeah,
it was wild. What is it about books instead of say,
writing television or writing movie piece Because books are the
(17:01):
longest and most detailed form of story, but they're also
the most difficult to get to market a lot of
at least so it seems to me. So what was
it about that particular genre of entertainment and storytelling that
that drew you to it? Gosh, I think it goes
back to my dad. Shout out to my dad, right right,
Because he only knew one thing about being a dad
(17:22):
was reading, So he read to us constantly and he
got us into comic books and that sparked my love
for the comic book art form really early, reading everything
from X Men to Archie and then kind of lapsing
as a teen because ship was getting real toxic. Yeah,
I've just been reading as my primary means of escape
(17:45):
after television. Uh. Yeah, it's a passion for me because
it's an experience a book is. It feels like magic
when it's a really great reading experience. And so that's
always been kind of a thing for me, is pushing
people forward and making a mess by blending genres and
taking chances on debut people. When did the duality happen?
(18:07):
If you just trying to get through the door yourself
to now, from what I can tell, being a person
who's trying to hold the door open to get more
people through, it's hard. And I mean at first I
had to kind of be a pick me to survive,
and uh, that faded once my partner and I started
our own weird comedy and comics anthology that then turned
(18:32):
into a small press called The Devastator, And there I
actually learned, oh fuck, this is a business and it's
a bad one. It doesn't actually make sense. Um, and
when you're actually trying to play with your own real money.
There's no margin of error exactly. The game changes, your choices,
(18:54):
change the risks you want to take, change, And so
we were just kind of like bumping against that constant lee.
And so I learned the art of craft of you know,
coming up with the book concept all the way to
half the then hand sell that book directly to readers
at like a comic con um and we did like
(19:14):
a dozen and a half of those a year for
a long time, like selling out the trunk like a
music artist a print of impressing your own CDs and
then going out, okay, exactly nice. And like we even
had like an issue called Crossovers where the cover is
like a kind era of like a dozen cartoon characters
and it's just very wild. That kind of made a crack,
(19:37):
And that was like our eighth volume, and the A
V Club wrote up, wrote it up, and we actually
sold some copies and it was like, wow, this is
what it looks like to be visible, just like a
smidge in a visibility. What's the A Club? It's the
Onions old culture paper. I guess it's still it still exists,
but I don't understand the corporate Yeah, but their opinions
(19:59):
are perspectives on all things, like fiction, and the fiction
is extremely respected like on some Yeah, if you can
get written up in the A V. Club, you did
very well. You did some dope word up and you know,
and that was just like back in um. But that
was like the first time I started to feel like, Okay,
(20:20):
people are reading this, people are understanding what we're trying
to do and appreciate it in some way. And that really,
you know, pushed us, you know, especially when we decided
to open it up. Before you get out of this podcast,
you will, you would give us the name and a
way to go and look up this old stuff so
that we can go and visit this stuff. Some of
us might have kids who like looking at old comments.
Oh hell yeah yeah. Devastator press dot com. That website
(20:44):
still up. It has all of the stuff that we
that we have done, and I think a lot of
stuff is also still available as like any book. But um,
I also send you ship. So let me know. I'm
curious about two things. One, what's your favorite genre? And
then also did you read I'm sorry, I'm sorry she
wants question up today? It rolls into the point about
(21:12):
how they actually did the marketing for Getty Shades of Gray,
which turned into a movie about independent comic books, and
you're like, you remember that book where the white people
was tying each other up and she understands where I'm
going and where you're going. I know where you're going,
but you're also royaling with secret desire. I'm gonna start
showing you all my d m s where they say
(21:33):
thank you for asking valid questions. I don't want to
see half of them. The reason that was that popped
off the way it did was because it grew from
a community. It was fan fiction, but then got the
serial numbers rubbed off and kind of up cycled into
traditional publishing, which like already was publishing it with like
(21:55):
kind of you know, holding it out there like you know,
we have this too. It's it was a whole They
didn't expect it to be as big of a hit
as it was, and you know, so you know, that's
that's the game. Though you're literally making lotto tickets with
each book in a way, especially like from a marketing perspective,
(22:17):
and you kind of see it that way, which is,
you know, good and bad. But the majority of books
sell under two thousand copies to that point, Amanda, about
they're only being two thousand books sold on average for
the average copy. When we talk about the marketing and
the dollars that are put behind particular projects, being movies
or music or TV whatever, they tend to bet on
(22:40):
what they think is going to do well based on
what did well before it. But when you have so
many new authors coming in of color, touching on topics
that have never been breached before in the literary world,
how are they or how are they not looking at
trying to market Talk to us a little bit about
the hurdles that you've seen within your industry on the
market inside them of how they try to market black content.
(23:04):
There's a lot of fight, especially in editorial, as editorial
teams get like little sprinkles of tokens across the board
and they start asking the questions, and marketing tends to
kind of clam up and be defensive about these things,
because again, it is an industry that's mostly white, but
it's also mostly white women, and there's a lot of
(23:28):
just like propriety, politics and and fear about even talking
about stuff, and so like the diversity and inclusion language
has been kind of co opted and bastardized and stuff um.
And but most importantly, it's still a cynical calculation. Anytime
they do make the actual risk and give a large
(23:50):
issue advance to an author of color um, there's always
more scrutiny. There's always weirder problems with the cover design. Um.
You know, you'll get a design spit out and sent
to you by the editor and they're like, well, I
don't know, the publisher doesn't want to change it that much.
(24:10):
I'm gonna see what I can do. And there have
been a lot of people's hearts broken by like bad
covers um, and that ship happens. Yeah, and with uh
these publishers all monopolizing and they're just fewer and fewer
options and a lot less people bidding against each other
for things, it just becomes even easier to devalue everyone's work.
(24:33):
And usually that's what happens. Once they start letting poc in,
they start kind of neglecting it a little, and they
kind of stop spending as much money across the board
because they've got to spread it up. You know, there's
a lot of just like weird white people mental accounting
that happens when they look at a schedule. If they
(24:55):
see two books by black authors in a season, they think, Wow,
this is like a really diverse season. It's like you, bro,
you put out hundreds of books a year. Yeah, there's
just a lot of weird handwringing and microaggressions and bad
assumptions and miscommunication. People not telling me ship because they
(25:18):
just are afraid to talk to me. Um so uh
And that's on them. We need to be clear about that.
That is on problem. You cannot be Yeah, it's their problem.
A lot of people listen to this, people who don't
even know what microaggressions are. And we've been very fortunate
to educate. But coming up to a black woman just
(25:39):
because she is strong, smart and beautiful and you're like,
I can't talk to her. No, that is your problem.
Go ahead, man, No that is And like adding to that,
that was one of the many things I would get
is you know, you're gonna do this fat liberation book,
but how do we make it approachable? You know? The
(26:00):
there's like a whole the saurus of weird ass words
that white women used to describe how scared they are
of a topic or a person. And I feel like
I've seen every variation. I guess that's not prudent in
the sense of no business exists for the purpose of
providing you a service, you know what I mean, Like,
(26:22):
like the purpose of all businesses on this planet, no
matter what service they provide or what product they say,
it's strictly to make profit. It's not to do anybody
any good. The whole purpose to sell you things and
make money. And aren't they supposed to lean towards what's
(26:42):
gonna sell more so than what's a feel good story,
so to speak? But Rod, you're forgetting like the whole
money thing is kind of like I think Roy was
about to say, like, it's kind of there's a one
be there. I think um. To them, it's more about
(27:04):
their sphere of influence. It's more about maintaining their position, um,
And so you know that they're not really thinking like
a business, and a lot of the notes from the
trial kind of out them as being completely disconnected from
what they're actually offering people. My issue though, is the companies,
(27:25):
and it's very similar in television, where no one wants
to try the new idea. They want an idea that's
like the other idea, like I'm not going to name
names about shows, but there are a bunch of shows
coming out next year that are all weird versions of
Abbot Elementary. And if you've never gotten Abbot Elementary, then
you wouldn't have gotten all these other shows. They just
(27:47):
want to be stylistically and tonally like Abbott Elementary, which
means that whatever the next Abbott Elementary is doesn't get
a chance, because everybody wants something that looks like ship
that's already out there, and I think that's probably, you know,
at least that's what I think, right, and where the
idea of making money. But we don't want to take
a risk on something different to make money because it
(28:08):
might not make money and then we're fucked. But then
you don't get a Jordan Peel film. But then even
on my funking like, Jordan Peel had to fucking have
ten years of success doing some other ship for somebody
to even take a five get Out was a five
million dollar movie that shouldn't be a gamble, but it
was treated like a whole lass fucking gamble, but it was.
(28:31):
It was a gamble. You're not gonna be a successful
business if all you're doing is constantly pitching what's next,
you know what I mean, Like, you have to have
shows that are already great or cookie cutter that are going, Okay,
we do five cookie cutter things, and then the sixth
(28:53):
thing we do is what we try to branch out.
Because if you're constantly branching out, then you don't have
a base and you're out. I agree with that, But
then what do you do right if the sixth branch
out project is being quarterback by the motherfucker's that did
the other five cookie cutters and they want the sixth
project to look like the cookie Cutters, and those are
(29:14):
the people that have too much of a blind spot
racially or creatively to even roll the goddamn dice on
a five million dollar get out exactly. Yes, this is true.
That's the only way you're ever gonna get something new.
It's about those type of people. Like I said, you
can't just be taking chances left and right. That leads
to failure. With publishing, it's all about building a strong
(29:37):
back list of books that are just always kind of
selling in the background. And you know, for a place
like Penguin before it merged with Random House, it was
all those fucking classics. You know, they'll just put out
Moby Dick every every two months with a different cover.
They still dover because they have the money to float
(30:01):
for the risks. So then that brings me to the
final question than Amanda, if you have an idea that
is on the outside of that corporate ideology, what are
some tools and instruments that new authors can use to
try and get their ideas seeing to try and get
their ideas self published? Yeah, just give them. First base
(30:23):
is have you ever printed your work before? Um? That's
something I tell everyone, whether they're drawing or just typing, Uh,
to print it out and edit it that way, um,
before you start shopping it around. UM. I always find
that my printed out edits are a lot smarter, um
(30:45):
because I'm thinking about it more and like a reader's
I And they also, like you know, the same ship
where you like, you put a type in an email
and you don't notice till it's already sent, Like it
works that way with a printed thing. Um. Another thing
is to sort of open up your sphere um, socially,
even if that's one sided, just like on your socials,
(31:06):
especially if you use your social media for your career,
you really should look up who the like hit makers
and the players are as well as the weirdos and
try to follow them. And and you want to get
some experience taking in the weird biases and opinions and
(31:28):
uh thaves and all kinds and the politics of the
thing you're trying the world you're trying to pitch in.
Another thing is to reach out to mentorship programs, especially
if you're black, indigenous person of color, especially if you're
queer or fhem. There are a ton of resources out there.
(31:48):
There's also databases that people have put together that you
can add yourself to so that when people are looking
they can kind of go through a database like Mari
Naomi has a cartoon This of Color database and a
disabled cartoons database, and and those have helped a lot
of people. Amenda, thank you so much for coming on
(32:10):
the show, than for emailing us, and thank you for
being the whole reason that we even did a reading
and ship week this week. We appreciate we appreciate you.
Thank you so much for calling into the job. Thank
you so much. It was it was a joy job.
(32:34):
Fair reading week were reading and ship. We're talking about
the world a book publishing Vig Thank you to Amanda
for breaking down everything she goes through some book and
understanding by it's a book critic who's going to give
us some game on the scams that are going on
in the book industry. But first time to slow it
(32:56):
down here and welcome a brother into this show. This
is the part of show where we try to give
you a couple of things to talk about to your
co workers as the opposite race coworkers you're board with
just people you generally just can't stand. There's always one
person and you all see you get stuck on the elevator,
but you haven't seen that one more fun on the elevator. Third,
the elevator open up, and you just gotta act like
(33:17):
you left some ship at your desk an take the
heavy side and everything. I don't even care if you
know that's how bad it is. You just looked it.
I can't today. No, just a boring motherfucker, bro, and
I kind of I'm sorry. I gotta luck and walk
away to help us do that. He's a man who
heils to us from Middle Tennessee. He is currently the
(33:43):
Boston Celtics grief counsel As he is help him counsel
all of the various women in the Celtics office through
this tragedy. Then is Mama named the Murato? We call
him right for short ride. We don't have a lot
(34:06):
of time to day. This is a pact episode. We're
trying to We're trying like what we have to do ride,
you know, after we do a relationship fan, we have
to do an episode that has like real worth and
like ethical to talking about sucking a holiday parties. We
turn it over to you, right, We bring right on
this program to give you topics that you can use
(34:29):
to break the ice which co work and you can't
stand right well. So some of the biggest news that's
been going on recently is, uh, a lot of people
have find a lot a lot of weird things about
the people's obsession with the royal family and a lot
of the protocols for the death and something you might
(34:49):
want to talk to your white co workers about because
they're more in tune with the royal family than anybody else.
One of the weirder things I discovered during the Queen's
death was the story about how the royal beekeeper was
tasked with informing the queen's bees of her death. Yeah,
(35:11):
it's got everything. It's got royals and animals. White people
are gonna be all over those with buddy. Uh yeah.
John Chappell the official keeper of the bees owned by
the royal family in their states. It's a real not
official beekeeper. But this is apparently a tradition that stretches
(35:34):
back centuries in Europe. But okay, I get it her
own homemade honey. But why is he out there trying
to doctor Doolittle with? But he has to go in
a hushed tone to each hive and informed them that
their mistress has passed, but don't worry. You're about to
(35:58):
have a new master, and they be very good to you.
And this man has to go to every hive in
the kingdom and say this to the bees. That's the
script right there, like you're gonna that's the script that
you're gonna have a wow? Does he say it or
doesn't do? A fair question to the right, how many has?
(36:31):
Do you know? How many has? I don't know how
many hives? But um, math, you can do the math
on it. There's uh he says, here's in charge of
about a million bees, and there's twenty thousand bees per home.
He has had to go there. They've kept it to
the states. There's one in bucket Hand Palace, and there's
(36:52):
nothing at another ground. So he has had to go
around and sombrely informed the bees like a doctor coming
out of the old r to tell you a family
member didn't make it, and he has to left the beast.
So the queen has massed. It's about my question that
y'all is, if you had a job like that and
(37:18):
they told you you got to go around and let
all the all the animals know that the queen is dead,
would you do it? Or would you just have to
quit because you can't lower yourself that far. First of all,
if it's the job, you know you gotta do what
the job tells you you got to do. So you
(37:39):
know what I mean. If the job tells you you
got to go, and you know you committed to the
job at that point, ain't you If you had to
raising beats like you you ain't doing that for like
two weeks, bro. I mean, I listen, if I had
a job working with animals, I do it. But you can't.
You can't. I don't think I could last through it.
I could take care of some be he's as a
(38:00):
person who's just a beekeeper. But if you tell me
I need to go around all the hives and let
them know the Queen is there, and you can actually
watch me and make me do that. Like I'm not
talking to the beats my day, I'm out. But right you,
of the four of us ride, you're the only one.
You worked as a vetican for years, so you have
the compassion. So I would imagine every day you have
(38:23):
to talk to a animal who's gonna be okay. But
then I don't imagine that you're fine. The most of
the most I would do was was pet them somber Land.
I would try to comfort them, but I couldn't talk
to them. I couldn't do that ship It would make
me feel so stupid and good. How much do I
(38:46):
make right? I just didn't do that. I don't. I
couldn't see myself going around the hives going hey, guys, um,
you know you probably felt the change in the air,
and just want you to know it's not about to rain. Unfortunately,
some bad news queen has passed. No, not that queen,
(39:08):
the actual Queen of England. Listen, I understand, but you
know it's a sad days for us. All. Yeah, if
you guys want to just get a place, honey, production,
I get if we're gonna be morning for about seventeen days.
(39:29):
You know, my heart goes out to you. I'm gotta
go down the door and too, I'm so sorry for
your loss. I can't do that. I can't do that.
You see that. You saw that right? Did you see
that right there? You know what that was. That was
committment right there, That was ride committing to that ride
just improved the point of the dog Cody's That was brilliant. Right.
(39:55):
Let's flip it up. Let's flip it up for the
people today. Get a folks on to bring up to
the black co work. The biggest, the biggest news going
right now and the Black community is uh Rihanna has
officially been announced as the upcoming super Bowl's halftime shows.
So she is fresh off you know, ship pushing fenty
(40:17):
and and and all of that up through the roof.
And she's she's had a baby, now she's working on
a new album, now she's coming She's gonna do the
super Bowl. This is uh, this is huge, but it's
causing a little backlash because she was one of the
people who supported Colin Kaepernick, and there's a lot of
people who still think black people shouldn't be working with
(40:40):
the NFL. Well, I wonder what she's getting paid, because
the rumor is that you don't get paid to do
the Super Bowl because they know that you're going to
get a bunch of streams and it's you have ways
to fiscally leverage that appearance, So nor Rihanna should drop
an album the next day or something like that. But
you know, understand the social back and forth on it,
(41:02):
you know, but I do think there's a little bit
of hypocrisy and that. But you know what, if it's
hypocritical to perform at the Super Bowl because you're black,
then it's hypocritical to play in the NFL and black,
not because you're black, but because you openly criticized this
(41:23):
organization for having systemic issues that funk with black players,
and a lot of those issues have not been completely
absolved and cleansed yet there's been progressing. There's programs, and
there's money, but don't and maybe that's enough for Rihanna.
But I get by the streets matter that it's a
fair is gonna be watching the Super Bowl at the
same time they talk about black people should perform it.
(41:45):
It's not gonna listen that, right. They asked Taylor Swift
and she was like, now, thank you that it's not
because she supports I was doing it too, said that
she's not performing. She wouldn't form at the super Bowl
until she's done recording her first re recording her first
six albums so she could get the Royals is if
(42:05):
not the people who sucked her over back into day Oh,
that's right. What I also think we should hold out
on with Rihanna is that she might do something that
pays or not to something that's a little pro black.
She's definitely for the culture, but you know, if that
remains to be seen, they're not gonna muter. I don't
know if they'll form at the hat stand up well
(42:28):
not understand. I just mean, would you just be like
if they just asked the host the half tipic, but
would you be like, no, I'm with Colin Cavern. They going, hell, yeah,
I made the super No, I get the money and
I'll use that money and donated to programs at a
state and local level which are far more effective than
any racism. But we have to understand the lank of
corporations aren't exactly the statement. I understand issues with the NFL,
(42:54):
but what we must understand is that the state and
local level, there's so many things where youth are not
efficiently it. That's why I'm a part of the I
See Me Reading Reading Fund, and I see me as
a beautiful nonprofit that makes sure that books get in
the hand. Part of my proceeds will go to the
I See Me as well as Growing Keen. This is
a black male mentorship program right there on the heart
(43:17):
affirman have and I've been think so so we all
know the name of this episode is Reading This Ship.
But but the underlying theme here is coming There is
a beautiful show talking about the strict empower of commitment
ladies and gentlemen. I love I love it. The podcast
(43:37):
is Uncle Rod Story Corner. You can get it wherever
you get this fine podcast. Rod, as always sir, we
bid you would do you get with you next with absolutely,
let's up scam it a week time. Let's get back
into this reading now. I know that I don't know
ship about writing a book. I have read in a
(44:00):
book proposal, I had a lit agent um and you
have a there's a book idea, and like the thing
that a lot of comedians do. Third, I know you
know this, but like a lot of stand up comedians,
a lot of bigger name comedians. And I'm not saying
this as a diss I'm not saying this is disrespect.
Let me make that clear first. A lot of comedians
(44:22):
will take jokes that never worked on stage and compile
them into a book, and jokes that don't work on
stage sometimes read funny. I can't explain it, but it's
a trick that a lot of bigger name comics do.
Like once you're big, once you're established, just go back
and digging the crates, fine old jokes, print them ships
(44:43):
and it's a book and everybody will buy it and
it's always fuking funny. But I didn't have anything like that.
And just the process of writing the book, because you
know what they make you do to sell a book.
This motherfucker's make you write a piece of the book
first for free day, like a demo tape. I have
front size twelve courier new one point five spacing thirty
(45:09):
five fucking pages, and someone reads it and they go,
your ship sucks or tighten it up. And that's how
you sell a book. And that's part of why I
don't have a book yet, because I just don't have
time to keep typing thirty page word documents. I want
to know about some of the scams in this industry.
I have a lot of questions about what it takes
to sell a book. J G. Who do we have
(45:30):
on the phone? Clearly she's chomping at the big Come on,
we have author and critic beth and Patrick. Beth Ann
is a literary insider and influencer in the book world.
Her monthly columns and book reviews are available in The
(45:51):
Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, in PR and The
Boston Globe. Absolutely, and basically because he does in darkness,
I do yes. So. Most recently, Bethan added podcast host
to her resume with a launch of The Missing Pages Podcast,
(46:15):
a brand new investigated podcast exposing crimes, scammy jobs, cancel culture,
and controversies within the book world. Hello Bethan, jack skins
and scandals. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm chomping at
(46:37):
the bit because publishing is full of this ship. It
really is um and yet no one talks about it.
You know, what you know, ours is the first podcast
to really say, oh, look, so and so is just
robbing you blind, and so and so is doing all
of this bad behavior stuff, and you've got to talk
(47:00):
about it. We got to talk about what makes publishing
such a weird book publishing such a weird little thing
in the world. Here, here's the thing that I found
interesting about book publishing. Now that I'm not gonna say
it shady. You just explained it to me. If that's
how the market goes and the market now dictates, I
didn't know that your audio book and your tangible book
(47:23):
are two separate fucking deals. Like I thought, you write
a book and then you go in the studio and
read that bitch, and then they go, okay, do you
want to digital book or do you want But now
they make you sometimes if you're not a popular enough Arthur,
and you stop me if I'm wrong that fan, you
have to do a digital book first, and if that sales,
(47:45):
then we'll then we'll consider you worthy of chopping down trees.
Now wait a minute, Broyd, because we're talking audio books
are one thing and then e books or digital books
are another. That the fund is the difference want is painful.
(48:07):
Is it coming through your ears or your eyes? Okay?
If it's coming through your ears and it's an audio book.
It used to be that those rights were sold separately
when you signed your contract. Okay. So people were getting
shafted by publishing because publishing is like, oh we we
don't know. Um this is different, and um we'll have
(48:30):
it over here, and we'll pay you like this much.
They'll pay you almost nothing for audiobook rights. It's become
a huge business now, and so agents have gotten smarter
and now agents negotiate the audiobook rights and usually the
book rights too. But like a swindle or Amazon fire
(48:51):
tablet or whatever, now that's your books, yeah, exactly, okay,
and so the book thing about that is all right?
Those rights are usually negotiated in your contract now. Even
ten years ago, it wasn't a short thing. But the
audio book thing. Let's say you've written a book it's
(49:12):
all about your life. You are dying to read this
book out loud because you want to show your heart
to the world. Right, doesn't mean you will. They might
get some actor, sometimes someone really good. But you know what,
a lot of audio books I don't know, Jacqueline, If
you listen to them, you know, Roy. Third, if you
listen to audio books, you're gonna have a bad narrator,
(49:36):
and that can ruin the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, no
they don't, So you have to be really careful about
those rights. So if you're if you're what did you say, Roy,
I'm sorry, I'm Some of the celebrities who read their
own autobiographies be struggling through them syllables. I know a
(49:57):
few cases of which you speak when we're talking about
I P. It just sounds like the book industry to
some degree has a little bit of the duplicitousness of
the record industry, but it's not as exploitive because the
sales aren't necessarily one to one of a book versus
you know, actual music rights and royalties and mechanical royalties
(50:19):
and writing royalties into perpetuity ba blah blah blah blah.
But it just seems like as the as the way
the publishing industry has been set up now with a
hard copy e book and audiobook, are those new barriers
of Are those used as new sales barriers of entry
for new authors? You know, that is such an interesting
(50:44):
question because they will say no, they will say, oh,
we bring everything out together. But you know what, if
a book is selling really well and hardcover, they're going
to delay that paperback. If your book comes out quickly
in paperback, it means hardcover sales were disappointing. We're hoping
we're going to get get our money from you now,
(51:05):
and then you know, usually now the audio book will
come out at the same time. Uh, they're getting away
from the separate releases. But let me tell you advances.
See I don't know how this works in music, right,
I don't know anything about this. But in the book industry,
you get this quote unquote advance. And so you hear
(51:27):
about people getting you know, five hundred thousand dollars for
their book or whatever. Well, you don't get five hundred
thousand dollars deposited that day. You get a quarter of
five dred thousand dollars deposited. And then maybe you get
a quarter when your manuscripts accepted, and blah blah blah
and on and goes. And there are all these things
that publishing calls bonuses. And I've just been sitting in
(51:51):
court for this Department of Justice versus Penguin Random House trial.
I've been covering it for publishers weekly. Let me just
tell you without going too far into that, because I
don't want to bore you to death, but they'll get
a lot of questions, and these literary agents and publishers,
(52:11):
they'll get these questions like, well, how is an author compensated?
And they'll say something like this, Roy, well, we give
them an advance, but sometimes the agents negotiate a bonus,
and then the attorney says, so what's a bonus? Uh?
You know, it's just like, oh, well, it's what we
give people. Well, what do you mean, it's what we
(52:33):
give people. Well, if we think this is going to
happen or it is all I swear dark magic, you know,
I'm just just yeah, no doubt I'm saying here, listen
to you, bet then I'm absolutely intrigued. I'm not gonna
lie to you. I know that you were talking about
books and stuff, but the drama of the of the
(52:54):
cigare world of publishing right now has gotten me because
I mean, if you work, if you have been able
to go to some of the parties that they throw
for some of the authors and some of the stuff
like that, you would never believe that some of these books.
Some of these parties are stupid lavish, like there's been
a lot of money and stuff and it's a book.
(53:14):
And unfortunately, I say again, unfortunately, people just don't read
hardcore books anymore like that. But when they do some
of these launches, man, it's bananas and it's like how
they're spending all this money just for a book. Yeah,
it's it's wild, and that the book industry is set
up in a way where Okay, we gave you half
a meal, which means you don't touch ship until we
(53:35):
get you don't get a dollar until we make back
at half a meal, which is why they I've noticed
with a lot of my friends who are authors, they
are always stressing for people to write forwards for them.
You have to get endorsements. And apparently explained to me
the concept or explain to me why pre sale numbers
are so important to books, because that's another thing about
(53:55):
books is that that's it's an interesting metric by which
they measure, you're the potential success and longevity of a
project and whether or not to even invest more advertising
and to give another pr push to a book in
week two and week three. Movies are not about pre
sale tickets. If it's a tent pole, Marvel, whatever the fun, Fine,
people are gonna buy tickets up front for that. But
(54:17):
for the most part, box office is about what happened
once the movie drops. Sound scan and record scales or
record sales are about what happened with the streams the Dave,
that's when we start counting. But it seems with books,
it's well, how many people already won't it? It's likely
you know more about publishing that I do. Roy, you
(54:40):
are so right about pre sales. You're so right about
pre orders. And here's the thing. Um, So there was
an author you might know of him. Um, he was
on the stand last week. His name is Charles do Hig.
He wrote the Power of Habit. Look at that. Yes,
everyone loves the power of habit. And so one of
the things you saying that in the actual like just
(55:03):
tweeting it, people were like, oh, he sounds so spoiled,
and I'm like no, because here's what he said. He said,
your advance doesn't really matter. You know, that's just like
some cost for the publisher. And yeah, you get some money,
and it's great if you get a lot of money,
but where you make your money really is in sales,
(55:24):
and what he means by this is exactly Roy what
you're asking. You know, that's why publishers look at those
pre orders, and that's where they make a lot of
these decisions about marketing and advertising and distribution that really
can make or break a book. Right, So you know, sure,
(55:44):
if they give you a million dollars, take it. I'm
not saying that that advance doesn't matter to you, but
what matters? Thank you? Yeah, exactly sixty million, But you
know what, that book probably will go on to make
so much more. And like do Higgs said, he has
(56:06):
made five million dollars after seven advance on sales. Damn right.
So if you look, if you you're careful about those
pre orders, if you make sure people know how to
pre order your book, if you you know, pump it
up before publication, if you really pay attention to that,
(56:27):
you can make a huge difference to the long tail.
But then this is good stuff. After the break, I
want we need to talk about how new authors can
break into the game if they are trying to get
their books out there. What can you do if you
got a book and ideas the job fair would be
right back, job fair, We are around and third and
(56:52):
hit it for home talking books and reading and ship
book publishing. Go ahead that thing. Can you go back
even further? Because I wanted to read Michelle Obama's book
by hand. I read Paul Monney's book by hand. But
I also know there are some amazing authors out there
(57:13):
that don't have those big names. How do they get
in the game? But then, oh boy, you get in
the game by finding yourself an agent. That's definitely different
from the music industry. You can't stand on the corner
with a book like a demo tape. You want to
listen to my book, I'll read it to you. Well,
(57:38):
you know, you have to find an agent. And this
is tedious. Okay, um, it's tedious finding an agent. You
have to submit your like Roy's proposal, or if you
want to write fiction, your first I don't know, twenty
five or fifty pages. It varies from agent to agent.
So sometimes you're gonna be sending out like seventy five
(58:00):
two hundred queries to agents. And here's the thing. Everyone's like,
oh boo, who who? I got five more rejections today
from agents, And I'm like, look, that is okay because
you're only ever going to work with one. People have
to remember that you don't work with ten agents at
a time, you work with one. So wait for the
(58:21):
right one. Be patient. You know, if you really have
written something worth saying, it's worth waiting, you know, a year,
two years, even more than that to find the agent
you want to work with. So once you've done that,
and I don't again, don't want to bore you all
to death, but then your agent has to, you know,
pull up his or her big girl pants and get
(58:44):
in there and start negotiating with editors. And this is
part of the problem with publishing. It's all based on
trust and relationships, and how do people form those relationships? Oh,
I think I'm going to say we're a dirty word,
prof Ledge. I was gonna guess drugs. But okay, Privilege,
(59:11):
do you mind dropping a little bit more on us
about your podcast? I want to know a little bit
more about what you're doing with this. Oh fantastic. Well,
Missing pages is it's it's a collaboration between members of
a small army at the Podglomerate. So um. The CEO,
Jeff Bmbro, had this idea that he wanted to do
(59:32):
sort of a page six for books, and um, he
found me and he liked my voice and he liked
my resume, and I said, look, I'm really interested in this, Jeff,
but if we work past, you know, a few weeks here,
I've got some deeper issues I want to cover in this,
you know. I want to talk about the problems in
(59:55):
the publishing industry, about privilege, around diversity, around include Shian, accessibility,
all of this stuff. And he brought on this brilliant
show runner. Her name is Kayla Littman, and she with
my producer Jordan Aaron, and my wonderful writer Matt Keely,
we all came together and made this show not just
(01:00:17):
about scams and scandals, but about why scams and scandals
like this can take place. Okay, so, um, we're looking
at things like, for instance, um, the Woman in the
Window was a big bestseller four or five years ago
and its author was um A J. Finn, But A J.
Finn was really a book editor named Dan Mallory. And
(01:00:39):
Dan Mallory, well, let's just say he lied a little bit.
No more spoilers than that, but it's a pretty interesting show.
And then we have another one about this it girl
in New York named Caroline Callaway. She was like the
Queen of the West Village, big influencer, big instagrammer, and
(01:01:00):
got a huge advance to write a memoir at random House.
And not only did she never write the memoir, but
in order to pay back the advance, she decided, I'm
not going to tell you anything more than this, but
she opened an only fans account to pay back. Open,
got a bust open, let's go, bus it open and
(01:01:20):
let's go. And then, of course make sure you make
sure you send me, send me the name of that
table picture. Oh yes, absolutely yeah. And that's not to
count the scores of authors that have a deal, get
in advance and say something wile get canceled and then
they have their book deals taken from them or have
their titles pulled from the shelves. We definitely thank you
(01:01:41):
so much for coming on the podcast. Is Missing Pages.
Your debut memoir Life be published by cattle Point. We
can expect that in we'll give you some pre sales
to make sure that these motherfucker's give you a digital
book and an e book and an audio book to
let me do you like that? We want all to
read money, money, you guys so much You can follow
(01:02:10):
her on all of her socials at the book Mayven
The Book Mayven. If you want to talk books in
gospipel a little bit, Beck, then thank you so much
for coming on the job Fair. We appreciate you. Thank
you for coming on Reading week, reading and ship reading
Ship Week. Thank you, roy Ironed Jacqueline read reads a
(01:02:31):
little weird. You already had like a we but we
talked ship but now like reading a book on the toilet,
right that the same thing we need. We need your
toilet book picks. Next time we got wait wait, I
wrote an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, and I am next
(01:02:51):
time you have me on. I will read some selections
from that, but we'll back man what you taught you
about Kwam Mills and good. But I'm gonna let it
go right now. Yeah, we'll talk about black Litt later.
Thank you so much. Right there, he got excited about it.
Thank you for your bet. Royce John Fare is a
product of iHeart Media, Comedy, Central, Paramountain, South Park and
(01:03:13):
Princeton Productions. Thank you as always, Rod, appreciate you for
the reading and ship stories this week. And you know
next week we'll try and do it again, and maybe
next week, Jacqueline will break her consecutive week street of
asking freaky ask questions. It ain't got shipped to do
with the topic that here is that, what we're doing whatever.
(01:03:43):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central. Alright, let me wait, test
y'all got me oh about I've been still in WiFi
from this building and think they finally had a good
year and a half run the office, the office where
(00:22):
I do this, the internet jack in the wall, that
ship still active. So I've just been rolling with it
and you're pointing into the wall. Let's let's hurry up
before they cut the inter it off again. Now hiring,
(00:44):
the Boston Celtics probably gonna be hiring for a number
of positions over the next couple of months. Their internal
investigation continues into inappropriate consensual relationships involving teams, staff, head
coach email who don't oh, brother Doka panly didn't slinging
dick around the Celtics facility like it would because currently
(01:11):
on a year long suspension from the teams. Brothers Doka,
but more importantly, me alone might be hiring for the
position of boyfriend. Fellas it's time to get your hair cutting,
your head shots. I don't think that's how it's gonna work.
You gotta give her time to heal and leave a lovlub.
(01:33):
About three years from now, it's gonna be time to
shoot those shot at me alone. Man, let me go
fush your hair start. Oh my gosh, my name is Roy,
(02:03):
this is my job for No, there's a lot going
on with this Celtic stuff. We probably have to talk
to Ride about that. They'll take Rod. I'm back all
of the chaos. The whole story is built for Rod,
built for Rod. Funked up that that story dropped the
week after we did about banking co workers. Do you
(02:28):
think more people would listen? You know what I'm saying.
We gave it to him? What is it? What is
it you need to understand? J g Is it? Because
I don't understand everything about the story either. Oh I
have so many questions, but I need to understand inappropriate consensual?
What help me? It's I think it's very clear cut.
(02:50):
If you work at a job and your employer has
said nobody can suck, nobody can suck. So there's a
morality clause or something. Poss believe. But they that just
made company policy, like, hey, if you work here, y'all
can be fucking. Y'all wanna fun one y'all gotta quit
and it don't matter if it's consensual. But there are
some companies where you go and you say, Hi, I'm
(03:14):
a I'm also interested in be and we want to
let you know about this relationship. Obviously he didn't do that,
but it happens. Yeah, but this is no different than
last week when Third was talking about how some companies
incur Hey, we won't ya in fact, while let us know,
but put your name on the wall. Was married okay
(03:38):
in the process, ain't it. I'm just saying, like, oh,
most places, most places. To me, the whole thing that's
weird is that even if y'all had the clause, and
even if he did something wrong, why are you just
suspending him for a year, Like, go ahead and let
the dude fly. Like I don't understand. Y'all to the
(04:00):
NBA Finals and you took the Golden State Warriors six games,
and low key you would have had him, but Steph
Curry was just literally ungotten during that series. That's true.
Do you fire a coach that got you within two
games of an NBA championship or do you suspend him?
Or does that coach have a good contract And there's
(04:21):
some other clause in there that he's already protecting himself with.
See what you're saying, Third, if this was a Sacramento King,
jam funk out of here you're going. If it was
the Wizards, I can promise you he'd have been on
the first thing s been going. They got people of
the Wizards for less. But on the same tip with
(04:41):
j G saying has a lot of merit, like maybe
this guy was sharp enough to have easily the most
ironclad contract in NBA history that they can't fire me
if I make if I think with my dick, I
can't get fired basically, And maybe he had that. Yeah, yeah,
as a close he knows his problems. We'll we'll we'll
(05:03):
chat with Rod and a little bit about that. But first, UM,
it's important that we have balanced on this show. And
last week we was talking a lot about that ignorant
but Naked's exaction that be going on. Thank you for
the reaction emails and social as well. It's important that
we had a little balanced this week. And Um, this
week I want to talk about reading and ship. We're
going to talk about the publishing industry and we've got
(05:28):
two wonderful guests. They are gonna peel back the lid
on that occupation of what it means to be a
book editor. Not only a book editor, but a black
woman book editor trying to get black and queer titles
onto store shelves. And um, we're gonna talk with wonderful,
wonderful Bethan, who's a very very prominent book critic. What's
that like? Just what do you say when you criticize
(05:51):
a book? Like, yeah, that story just didn't flow. And
I would be piste up. At least if you review
a movie, that's just two hours of your life. A book,
is it? God? Damn, the book is a challenge two
weeks we can do. How frequently do you review? How? Like,
you know, how do you review a book? Back in
the day, man, when I had to produce for for
you know, guys who review books for a living, you
(06:12):
got to read about five books a week? How many? Literally,
like easily somewhere between the hundred and fifty three pesuk
out my face. It was like going back to school. Man.
It was it was, it was it was a lot.
I read a lot, a lot, a lot of very
bad books. H Wow. While I was doing doing production,
(06:33):
I I read. But I've transitioned into a book on
tape type person, Like I understand people who read, but
you know, some books. Some like tangible hardcover readers. They
like turn their nose up at people like me because
you know they're purest you know, they're page turners. And
I want to sit by a pool and enjoy a
nice book under my blanket and all of that. Ship
(06:55):
Michelle Obama's book Becoming, I had to have that in
my physical hand in, but I want to hear Will
Smith read his book, so I get it. I work
both ways. Yeah, yeah, And you know we're gonna talk
to bething about that about having a celebrity versus a
regular person do all the voice acting and everything, the voice,
(07:15):
the reading, you know what. I'm the narration for all
of these books. We don't have a lot of time.
We gotta get into us a real quick first up,
it's time for Cody's Most Outstanding Employee of the Week.
Boston Celtics coach email. I failed a trend trand oh
(07:36):
my goodness, gracious email, however you say it, man trash.
Here here's the thing. Now. According to TMZ, they said
that one of the women or the only woman that
so far, the one person that is that it is set.
And I'm quoting TMZ. I'm not spreading roomors. We're not
(07:57):
gonna spread no rooms with what we didn't have. Just
only confirm ship on the shop. You don't even the
current events for real, for real, because I'd like for
more information to come out. But this ship still got
damn lay sick say that it was a woman who
books the team travel, including the plus ones of some
of the coaches and players, including one Madam Neil Long.
(08:20):
That's messy. That's the world, like dirty world right there.
You then flew in the main chick and you decide chick.
And then you saw also on TNG because we ain't
spreading no rumors. He got caught on the ring doorbell, bro,
he got caught on the ring doorbell. I'm sorry, break
(08:41):
that down. Got the video who who like see them
snitch as doorbell got caught on the ring camera at
the at Shorty's house by her husband. That's all this
stuff popped off. So the husband is just on the
ring app watching his house in real time. And then
the don the door. I didn't know. It's my head
(09:03):
coach at my wife's door, right, And why is they
talking dirty nash the ship? Oh my god, they're sucking
on the front boot was on the front. Mm hmmm, Well,
I mean the tape stopped work before he got to
any point. But yeah, that's online. So lost what just happened?
Who saw what? You froze? Who frozen? Roy? Oh? Did
(09:28):
Jacqueline talked to a Raulph? I'm on stolen internet today.
Someone on the rain camera. I don't know how Udokami
Udoka was with, said team arranger. Girl, she's married. Woman.
Let's go with a woman. We're not going to defame
(09:50):
poorly of her. No, we're not gonna say that either,
just because he's the one walking around putting his penis
in everything, so she's sting checking. He didn't the story.
We have a guest standing Bible knowledge to tell us.
We got to get through this. Just a woman, So
(10:11):
just say woman, third woman. Woman. I'm getting pronounce It
ain't even my damn fault. Roy Anyway. The point is
the husband saw Judoka with his wife on their ring doorbell,
and he put the video out and that's how all
(10:32):
this started because they was on the video and they
was talking hell of spicy in front of the dough.
He was hurt, didn't he didn't think it's through. You
best not be cheating on the ring door. But how
you get caught on the ring doorbell? Lazy? He didn't
think this through. Now here's what I'll say. And I
(10:54):
don't know how many of you have been aside dude,
or have cheated or be cheated on or played an't
role in the love triangle of this nature. What I
can say without giving away too much of my past,
that there is a degree in comedy. It's called commitment
to the bit. This is where, no matter what is happening,
(11:17):
you maintain a truth and your performance stays true to
that no matter what's we're talking Jimmy Kimmel level at
the Emmy's laying at the feet of Quinto Bronzon, being disrespectful.
Commitment to the bit, to be a side check and
be the travel liaison. That means you're in some instances
at the hotel j G. You have done this work
(11:39):
on many productions. You are the point person who is
talking to the people. Your room is gonna be ready
at this time. I got the sweet, I got there's
a car coming to get your knee. See you at
the Aventure. You see it in the Sweet, You see
it at the Celtics charity chip that's going on and
(11:59):
you gotta look in the face even or you're fucking
a man and keep us. Do you understand the level
of commitment to the bit that you have to have
to be fucking another woman's man and have business dealings
with that woman not motherfucking budget for fucking that man's
(12:23):
and fucking that one. For fucking that woman's man and
not flinching at all over a year, knowing that she
was getting moved to Boston two weeks before the ship
hit the fan, she probably helped to move Email the
(12:44):
color had excuse me, woman who was sucking em Doka,
woman who was fucking Email Doka consensually but illegally due
to Boston Celtics Los not illegal, but it's immoral, But
go ahead, it's not illegal. It's immoral, going to get
(13:05):
to this guest woman who was immorlly but not illegally
and consentually fucking emaila who was also part to blame
because young man and he should have kept predictative fans.
M hm, you most outstanding employee of the week if
(13:26):
you like that. By Sackleson State Community College. Let's get
into reading week worst than first time. It's getting to
this reading ship now and this reading and ship. That's
what we agree. He was gonna do this episode of
reading and ship, okay, And I think it is only
fair that we start this episode with the person who
(13:49):
was the reason that we're doing this fucking episode. Just
wonderful woman dropped the email. And that's that's what the
whole job fair community is about. Roy's job fair dot com.
By the way, if you ever want to be a
hard to show, reach out to us on social topes
of ship. Jacqueline will reply. I might not, but I
guarantee you Jacqueline will reply. Even if you're a boy
(14:10):
and you're not even a real person, Jacqueline will reply.
And I've also chestis a few people because they were
mean to others and we will not be mean. Yes,
please go out and fix the internet. Go fix. Let
me know how that works out for you. To chief,
(14:31):
it's important that the jobs that you know. Part of
why we started this podcast was about learning about the
jobs that you forget that there are jobs and in
the ins and outs of those particular jobs. And this
woman reached out to us about the publishing industry and
the ins and out of trying to get published. J
G let us meet the patient zero for Reading and
(14:51):
Ship Week, and we welcome Amanda. She lives in l
A and has spent over twelve years in the book
publishing industry. She's dealt with her fair share of microaggressions
and radio active Karen's as an editor. She's passionate about
highlighting black and queer authors, despite how difficult it can
(15:14):
be to promote them. Roy Today, Amando will be talking
with you about those challenges and the other challenges people
of color face and the predominantly white industry. Hello Amanda, Hello, everybody, helong,
It's Jacqueline. It's a delay. All the pleasures are as.
I promise y'all done. I'm gonna let y'all do your
(15:35):
bond and we talked about so we're good. Yeah, yes, yes, polite.
Oh ya. Now, Amanda, when you reached out to us,
to me, the email read from a place of more
people need to know what the fund is happening over here.
(15:56):
So when we talk about the publishing industry, just welc
us through your journey, you know, just from a worse
and first aspect, just your foray into that world as
a newbie. I absolutely started publishing a like one of
the worst times. It was peak recession. Um, it's like,
oh nine, I got this job at Phoenix Books and Audio,
(16:20):
which was at the time kind of famous for doing
vanity books with celebrities. But a new editor in chief
had come and he was going to make it legit
lit ok, and uh. They interviewed for like assistant position
and instead they offered me a publicity manager role, of course,
being paid a lot less than what plicity manager should
(16:40):
actually say. It's my first time, um they gave me.
They offered me a cool thirty eight and they were
like and then going up, not even in two years. Yeah,
it was wild. What is it about books instead of say,
writing television or writing movie piece Because books are the
(17:01):
longest and most detailed form of story, but they're also
the most difficult to get to market a lot of
at least so it seems to me. So what was
it about that particular genre of entertainment and storytelling that
that drew you to it? Gosh, I think it goes
back to my dad. Shout out to my dad, right right,
Because he only knew one thing about being a dad
(17:22):
was reading, So he read to us constantly and he
got us into comic books and that sparked my love
for the comic book art form really early, reading everything
from X Men to Archie and then kind of lapsing
as a teen because ship was getting real toxic. Yeah,
I've just been reading as my primary means of escape
(17:45):
after television. Uh. Yeah, it's a passion for me because
it's an experience a book is. It feels like magic
when it's a really great reading experience. And so that's
always been kind of a thing for me, is pushing
people forward and making a mess by blending genres and
taking chances on debut people. When did the duality happen?
(18:07):
If you just trying to get through the door yourself
to now, from what I can tell, being a person
who's trying to hold the door open to get more
people through, it's hard. And I mean at first I
had to kind of be a pick me to survive,
and uh, that faded once my partner and I started
our own weird comedy and comics anthology that then turned
(18:32):
into a small press called The Devastator, And there I
actually learned, oh fuck, this is a business and it's
a bad one. It doesn't actually make sense. Um, and
when you're actually trying to play with your own real money.
There's no margin of error exactly. The game changes, your choices,
(18:54):
change the risks you want to take, change, And so
we were just kind of like bumping against that constant lee.
And so I learned the art of craft of you know,
coming up with the book concept all the way to
half the then hand sell that book directly to readers
at like a comic con um and we did like
(19:14):
a dozen and a half of those a year for
a long time, like selling out the trunk like a
music artist a print of impressing your own CDs and
then going out, okay, exactly nice. And like we even
had like an issue called Crossovers where the cover is
like a kind era of like a dozen cartoon characters
and it's just very wild. That kind of made a crack,
(19:37):
And that was like our eighth volume, and the A
V Club wrote up, wrote it up, and we actually
sold some copies and it was like, wow, this is
what it looks like to be visible, just like a
smidge in a visibility. What's the A Club? It's the
Onions old culture paper. I guess it's still it still exists,
but I don't understand the corporate Yeah, but their opinions
(19:59):
are perspectives on all things, like fiction, and the fiction
is extremely respected like on some Yeah, if you can
get written up in the A V. Club, you did
very well. You did some dope word up and you know,
and that was just like back in um. But that
was like the first time I started to feel like, Okay,
(20:20):
people are reading this, people are understanding what we're trying
to do and appreciate it in some way. And that really,
you know, pushed us, you know, especially when we decided
to open it up. Before you get out of this podcast,
you will, you would give us the name and a
way to go and look up this old stuff so
that we can go and visit this stuff. Some of
us might have kids who like looking at old comments.
Oh hell yeah yeah. Devastator press dot com. That website
(20:44):
still up. It has all of the stuff that we
that we have done, and I think a lot of
stuff is also still available as like any book. But um,
I also send you ship. So let me know. I'm
curious about two things. One, what's your favorite genre? And
then also did you read I'm sorry, I'm sorry she
wants question up today? It rolls into the point about
(21:12):
how they actually did the marketing for Getty Shades of Gray,
which turned into a movie about independent comic books, and
you're like, you remember that book where the white people
was tying each other up and she understands where I'm
going and where you're going. I know where you're going,
but you're also royaling with secret desire. I'm gonna start
showing you all my d m s where they say
(21:33):
thank you for asking valid questions. I don't want to
see half of them. The reason that was that popped
off the way it did was because it grew from
a community. It was fan fiction, but then got the
serial numbers rubbed off and kind of up cycled into
traditional publishing, which like already was publishing it with like
(21:55):
kind of you know, holding it out there like you know,
we have this too. It's it was a whole They
didn't expect it to be as big of a hit
as it was, and you know, so you know, that's
that's the game. Though you're literally making lotto tickets with
each book in a way, especially like from a marketing perspective,
(22:17):
and you kind of see it that way, which is,
you know, good and bad. But the majority of books
sell under two thousand copies to that point, Amanda, about
they're only being two thousand books sold on average for
the average copy. When we talk about the marketing and
the dollars that are put behind particular projects, being movies
or music or TV whatever, they tend to bet on
(22:40):
what they think is going to do well based on
what did well before it. But when you have so
many new authors coming in of color, touching on topics
that have never been breached before in the literary world,
how are they or how are they not looking at
trying to market Talk to us a little bit about
the hurdles that you've seen within your industry on the
market inside them of how they try to market black content.
(23:04):
There's a lot of fight, especially in editorial, as editorial
teams get like little sprinkles of tokens across the board
and they start asking the questions, and marketing tends to
kind of clam up and be defensive about these things,
because again, it is an industry that's mostly white, but
it's also mostly white women, and there's a lot of
(23:28):
just like propriety, politics and and fear about even talking
about stuff, and so like the diversity and inclusion language
has been kind of co opted and bastardized and stuff um.
And but most importantly, it's still a cynical calculation. Anytime
they do make the actual risk and give a large
(23:50):
issue advance to an author of color um, there's always
more scrutiny. There's always weirder problems with the cover design. Um.
You know, you'll get a design spit out and sent
to you by the editor and they're like, well, I
don't know, the publisher doesn't want to change it that much.
(24:10):
I'm gonna see what I can do. And there have
been a lot of people's hearts broken by like bad
covers um, and that ship happens. Yeah, and with uh
these publishers all monopolizing and they're just fewer and fewer
options and a lot less people bidding against each other
for things, it just becomes even easier to devalue everyone's work.
(24:33):
And usually that's what happens. Once they start letting poc in,
they start kind of neglecting it a little, and they
kind of stop spending as much money across the board
because they've got to spread it up. You know, there's
a lot of just like weird white people mental accounting
that happens when they look at a schedule. If they
(24:55):
see two books by black authors in a season, they think, Wow,
this is like a really diverse season. It's like you, bro,
you put out hundreds of books a year. Yeah, there's
just a lot of weird handwringing and microaggressions and bad
assumptions and miscommunication. People not telling me ship because they
(25:18):
just are afraid to talk to me. Um so uh
And that's on them. We need to be clear about that.
That is on problem. You cannot be Yeah, it's their problem.
A lot of people listen to this, people who don't
even know what microaggressions are. And we've been very fortunate
to educate. But coming up to a black woman just
(25:39):
because she is strong, smart and beautiful and you're like,
I can't talk to her. No, that is your problem.
Go ahead, man, No that is And like adding to that,
that was one of the many things I would get
is you know, you're gonna do this fat liberation book,
but how do we make it approachable? You know? The
(26:00):
there's like a whole the saurus of weird ass words
that white women used to describe how scared they are
of a topic or a person. And I feel like
I've seen every variation. I guess that's not prudent in
the sense of no business exists for the purpose of
providing you a service, you know what I mean, Like,
(26:22):
like the purpose of all businesses on this planet, no
matter what service they provide or what product they say,
it's strictly to make profit. It's not to do anybody
any good. The whole purpose to sell you things and
make money. And aren't they supposed to lean towards what's
(26:42):
gonna sell more so than what's a feel good story,
so to speak? But Rod, you're forgetting like the whole
money thing is kind of like I think Roy was
about to say, like, it's kind of there's a one
be there. I think um. To them, it's more about
(27:04):
their sphere of influence. It's more about maintaining their position, um,
And so you know that they're not really thinking like
a business, and a lot of the notes from the
trial kind of out them as being completely disconnected from
what they're actually offering people. My issue though, is the companies,
(27:25):
and it's very similar in television, where no one wants
to try the new idea. They want an idea that's
like the other idea, like I'm not going to name
names about shows, but there are a bunch of shows
coming out next year that are all weird versions of
Abbot Elementary. And if you've never gotten Abbot Elementary, then
you wouldn't have gotten all these other shows. They just
(27:47):
want to be stylistically and tonally like Abbott Elementary, which
means that whatever the next Abbott Elementary is doesn't get
a chance, because everybody wants something that looks like ship
that's already out there, and I think that's probably, you know,
at least that's what I think, right, and where the
idea of making money. But we don't want to take
a risk on something different to make money because it
(28:08):
might not make money and then we're fucked. But then
you don't get a Jordan Peel film. But then even
on my funking like, Jordan Peel had to fucking have
ten years of success doing some other ship for somebody
to even take a five get Out was a five
million dollar movie that shouldn't be a gamble, but it
was treated like a whole lass fucking gamble, but it was.
(28:31):
It was a gamble. You're not gonna be a successful
business if all you're doing is constantly pitching what's next,
you know what I mean, Like, you have to have
shows that are already great or cookie cutter that are going, Okay,
we do five cookie cutter things, and then the sixth
(28:53):
thing we do is what we try to branch out.
Because if you're constantly branching out, then you don't have
a base and you're out. I agree with that, But
then what do you do right if the sixth branch
out project is being quarterback by the motherfucker's that did
the other five cookie cutters and they want the sixth
project to look like the cookie Cutters, and those are
(29:14):
the people that have too much of a blind spot
racially or creatively to even roll the goddamn dice on
a five million dollar get out exactly. Yes, this is true.
That's the only way you're ever gonna get something new.
It's about those type of people. Like I said, you
can't just be taking chances left and right. That leads
to failure. With publishing, it's all about building a strong
(29:37):
back list of books that are just always kind of
selling in the background. And you know, for a place
like Penguin before it merged with Random House, it was
all those fucking classics. You know, they'll just put out
Moby Dick every every two months with a different cover.
They still dover because they have the money to float
(30:01):
for the risks. So then that brings me to the
final question than Amanda, if you have an idea that
is on the outside of that corporate ideology, what are
some tools and instruments that new authors can use to
try and get their ideas seeing to try and get
their ideas self published? Yeah, just give them. First base
(30:23):
is have you ever printed your work before? Um? That's
something I tell everyone, whether they're drawing or just typing, Uh,
to print it out and edit it that way, um,
before you start shopping it around. UM. I always find
that my printed out edits are a lot smarter, um
(30:45):
because I'm thinking about it more and like a reader's
I And they also, like you know, the same ship
where you like, you put a type in an email
and you don't notice till it's already sent, Like it
works that way with a printed thing. Um. Another thing
is to sort of open up your sphere um, socially,
even if that's one sided, just like on your socials,
(31:06):
especially if you use your social media for your career,
you really should look up who the like hit makers
and the players are as well as the weirdos and
try to follow them. And and you want to get
some experience taking in the weird biases and opinions and
(31:28):
uh thaves and all kinds and the politics of the
thing you're trying the world you're trying to pitch in.
Another thing is to reach out to mentorship programs, especially
if you're black, indigenous person of color, especially if you're
queer or fhem. There are a ton of resources out there.
(31:48):
There's also databases that people have put together that you
can add yourself to so that when people are looking
they can kind of go through a database like Mari
Naomi has a cartoon This of Color database and a
disabled cartoons database, and and those have helped a lot
of people. Amenda, thank you so much for coming on
(32:10):
the show, than for emailing us, and thank you for
being the whole reason that we even did a reading
and ship week this week. We appreciate we appreciate you.
Thank you so much for calling into the job. Thank
you so much. It was it was a joy job.
(32:34):
Fair reading week were reading and ship. We're talking about
the world a book publishing Vig Thank you to Amanda
for breaking down everything she goes through some book and
understanding by it's a book critic who's going to give
us some game on the scams that are going on
in the book industry. But first time to slow it
(32:56):
down here and welcome a brother into this show. This
is the part of show where we try to give
you a couple of things to talk about to your
co workers as the opposite race coworkers you're board with
just people you generally just can't stand. There's always one
person and you all see you get stuck on the elevator,
but you haven't seen that one more fun on the elevator. Third,
the elevator open up, and you just gotta act like
(33:17):
you left some ship at your desk an take the
heavy side and everything. I don't even care if you
know that's how bad it is. You just looked it.
I can't today. No, just a boring motherfucker, bro, and
I kind of I'm sorry. I gotta luck and walk
away to help us do that. He's a man who
heils to us from Middle Tennessee. He is currently the
(33:43):
Boston Celtics grief counsel As he is help him counsel
all of the various women in the Celtics office through
this tragedy. Then is Mama named the Murato? We call
him right for short ride. We don't have a lot
(34:06):
of time to day. This is a pact episode. We're
trying to We're trying like what we have to do ride,
you know, after we do a relationship fan, we have
to do an episode that has like real worth and
like ethical to talking about sucking a holiday parties. We
turn it over to you, right, We bring right on
this program to give you topics that you can use
(34:29):
to break the ice which co work and you can't
stand right well. So some of the biggest news that's
been going on recently is, uh, a lot of people
have find a lot a lot of weird things about
the people's obsession with the royal family and a lot
of the protocols for the death and something you might
(34:49):
want to talk to your white co workers about because
they're more in tune with the royal family than anybody else.
One of the weirder things I discovered during the Queen's
death was the story about how the royal beekeeper was
tasked with informing the queen's bees of her death. Yeah,
(35:11):
it's got everything. It's got royals and animals. White people
are gonna be all over those with buddy. Uh yeah.
John Chappell the official keeper of the bees owned by
the royal family in their states. It's a real not
official beekeeper. But this is apparently a tradition that stretches
(35:34):
back centuries in Europe. But okay, I get it her
own homemade honey. But why is he out there trying
to doctor Doolittle with? But he has to go in
a hushed tone to each hive and informed them that
their mistress has passed, but don't worry. You're about to
(35:58):
have a new master, and they be very good to you.
And this man has to go to every hive in
the kingdom and say this to the bees. That's the
script right there, like you're gonna that's the script that
you're gonna have a wow? Does he say it or
doesn't do? A fair question to the right, how many has?
(36:31):
Do you know? How many has? I don't know how
many hives? But um, math, you can do the math
on it. There's uh he says, here's in charge of
about a million bees, and there's twenty thousand bees per home.
He has had to go there. They've kept it to
the states. There's one in bucket Hand Palace, and there's
(36:52):
nothing at another ground. So he has had to go
around and sombrely informed the bees like a doctor coming
out of the old r to tell you a family
member didn't make it, and he has to left the beast.
So the queen has massed. It's about my question that
y'all is, if you had a job like that and
(37:18):
they told you you got to go around and let
all the all the animals know that the queen is dead,
would you do it? Or would you just have to
quit because you can't lower yourself that far. First of all,
if it's the job, you know you gotta do what
the job tells you you got to do. So you
(37:39):
know what I mean. If the job tells you you
got to go, and you know you committed to the
job at that point, ain't you If you had to
raising beats like you you ain't doing that for like
two weeks, bro. I mean, I listen, if I had
a job working with animals, I do it. But you can't.
You can't. I don't think I could last through it.
I could take care of some be he's as a
(38:00):
person who's just a beekeeper. But if you tell me
I need to go around all the hives and let
them know the Queen is there, and you can actually
watch me and make me do that. Like I'm not
talking to the beats my day, I'm out. But right you,
of the four of us ride, you're the only one.
You worked as a vetican for years, so you have
the compassion. So I would imagine every day you have
(38:23):
to talk to a animal who's gonna be okay. But
then I don't imagine that you're fine. The most of
the most I would do was was pet them somber Land.
I would try to comfort them, but I couldn't talk
to them. I couldn't do that ship It would make
me feel so stupid and good. How much do I
(38:46):
make right? I just didn't do that. I don't. I
couldn't see myself going around the hives going hey, guys, um,
you know you probably felt the change in the air,
and just want you to know it's not about to rain. Unfortunately,
some bad news queen has passed. No, not that queen,
(39:08):
the actual Queen of England. Listen, I understand, but you
know it's a sad days for us. All. Yeah, if
you guys want to just get a place, honey, production,
I get if we're gonna be morning for about seventeen days.
(39:29):
You know, my heart goes out to you. I'm gotta
go down the door and too, I'm so sorry for
your loss. I can't do that. I can't do that.
You see that. You saw that right? Did you see
that right there? You know what that was. That was
committment right there, That was ride committing to that ride
just improved the point of the dog Cody's That was brilliant. Right.
(39:55):
Let's flip it up. Let's flip it up for the
people today. Get a folks on to bring up to
the black co work. The biggest, the biggest news going
right now and the Black community is uh Rihanna has
officially been announced as the upcoming super Bowl's halftime shows.
So she is fresh off you know, ship pushing fenty
(40:17):
and and and all of that up through the roof.
And she's she's had a baby, now she's working on
a new album, now she's coming She's gonna do the
super Bowl. This is uh, this is huge, but it's
causing a little backlash because she was one of the
people who supported Colin Kaepernick, and there's a lot of
people who still think black people shouldn't be working with
(40:40):
the NFL. Well, I wonder what she's getting paid, because
the rumor is that you don't get paid to do
the Super Bowl because they know that you're going to
get a bunch of streams and it's you have ways
to fiscally leverage that appearance, So nor Rihanna should drop
an album the next day or something like that. But
you know, understand the social back and forth on it,
(41:02):
you know, but I do think there's a little bit
of hypocrisy and that. But you know what, if it's
hypocritical to perform at the Super Bowl because you're black,
then it's hypocritical to play in the NFL and black,
not because you're black, but because you openly criticized this
(41:23):
organization for having systemic issues that funk with black players,
and a lot of those issues have not been completely
absolved and cleansed yet there's been progressing. There's programs, and
there's money, but don't and maybe that's enough for Rihanna.
But I get by the streets matter that it's a
fair is gonna be watching the Super Bowl at the
same time they talk about black people should perform it.
(41:45):
It's not gonna listen that, right. They asked Taylor Swift
and she was like, now, thank you that it's not
because she supports I was doing it too, said that
she's not performing. She wouldn't form at the super Bowl
until she's done recording her first re recording her first
six albums so she could get the Royals is if
(42:05):
not the people who sucked her over back into day Oh,
that's right. What I also think we should hold out
on with Rihanna is that she might do something that
pays or not to something that's a little pro black.
She's definitely for the culture, but you know, if that
remains to be seen, they're not gonna muter. I don't
know if they'll form at the hat stand up well
(42:28):
not understand. I just mean, would you just be like
if they just asked the host the half tipic, but
would you be like, no, I'm with Colin Cavern. They going, hell, yeah,
I made the super No, I get the money and
I'll use that money and donated to programs at a
state and local level which are far more effective than
any racism. But we have to understand the lank of
corporations aren't exactly the statement. I understand issues with the NFL,
(42:54):
but what we must understand is that the state and
local level, there's so many things where youth are not
efficiently it. That's why I'm a part of the I
See Me Reading Reading Fund, and I see me as
a beautiful nonprofit that makes sure that books get in
the hand. Part of my proceeds will go to the
I See Me as well as Growing Keen. This is
a black male mentorship program right there on the heart
(43:17):
affirman have and I've been think so so we all
know the name of this episode is Reading This Ship.
But but the underlying theme here is coming There is
a beautiful show talking about the strict empower of commitment
ladies and gentlemen. I love I love it. The podcast
(43:37):
is Uncle Rod Story Corner. You can get it wherever
you get this fine podcast. Rod, as always sir, we
bid you would do you get with you next with absolutely,
let's up scam it a week time. Let's get back
into this reading now. I know that I don't know
ship about writing a book. I have read in a
(44:00):
book proposal, I had a lit agent um and you
have a there's a book idea, and like the thing
that a lot of comedians do. Third, I know you
know this, but like a lot of stand up comedians,
a lot of bigger name comedians. And I'm not saying
this as a diss I'm not saying this is disrespect.
Let me make that clear first. A lot of comedians
(44:22):
will take jokes that never worked on stage and compile
them into a book, and jokes that don't work on
stage sometimes read funny. I can't explain it, but it's
a trick that a lot of bigger name comics do.
Like once you're big, once you're established, just go back
and digging the crates, fine old jokes, print them ships
(44:43):
and it's a book and everybody will buy it and
it's always fuking funny. But I didn't have anything like that.
And just the process of writing the book, because you
know what they make you do to sell a book.
This motherfucker's make you write a piece of the book
first for free day, like a demo tape. I have
front size twelve courier new one point five spacing thirty
(45:09):
five fucking pages, and someone reads it and they go,
your ship sucks or tighten it up. And that's how
you sell a book. And that's part of why I
don't have a book yet, because I just don't have
time to keep typing thirty page word documents. I want
to know about some of the scams in this industry.
I have a lot of questions about what it takes
to sell a book. J G. Who do we have
(45:30):
on the phone? Clearly she's chomping at the big Come on,
we have author and critic beth and Patrick. Beth Ann
is a literary insider and influencer in the book world.
Her monthly columns and book reviews are available in The
(45:51):
Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, in PR and The
Boston Globe. Absolutely, and basically because he does in darkness,
I do yes. So. Most recently, Bethan added podcast host
to her resume with a launch of The Missing Pages Podcast,
(46:15):
a brand new investigated podcast exposing crimes, scammy jobs, cancel culture,
and controversies within the book world. Hello Bethan, jack skins
and scandals. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm chomping at
(46:37):
the bit because publishing is full of this ship. It
really is um and yet no one talks about it.
You know, what you know, ours is the first podcast
to really say, oh, look, so and so is just
robbing you blind, and so and so is doing all
of this bad behavior stuff, and you've got to talk
(47:00):
about it. We got to talk about what makes publishing
such a weird book publishing such a weird little thing
in the world. Here, here's the thing that I found
interesting about book publishing. Now that I'm not gonna say
it shady. You just explained it to me. If that's
how the market goes and the market now dictates, I
didn't know that your audio book and your tangible book
(47:23):
are two separate fucking deals. Like I thought, you write
a book and then you go in the studio and
read that bitch, and then they go, okay, do you
want to digital book or do you want But now
they make you sometimes if you're not a popular enough Arthur,
and you stop me if I'm wrong that fan, you
have to do a digital book first, and if that sales,
(47:45):
then we'll then we'll consider you worthy of chopping down trees.
Now wait a minute, Broyd, because we're talking audio books
are one thing and then e books or digital books
are another. That the fund is the difference want is painful.
(48:07):
Is it coming through your ears or your eyes? Okay?
If it's coming through your ears and it's an audio book.
It used to be that those rights were sold separately
when you signed your contract. Okay. So people were getting
shafted by publishing because publishing is like, oh we we
don't know. Um this is different, and um we'll have
(48:30):
it over here, and we'll pay you like this much.
They'll pay you almost nothing for audiobook rights. It's become
a huge business now, and so agents have gotten smarter
and now agents negotiate the audiobook rights and usually the
book rights too. But like a swindle or Amazon fire
(48:51):
tablet or whatever, now that's your books, yeah, exactly, okay,
and so the book thing about that is all right?
Those rights are usually negotiated in your contract now. Even
ten years ago, it wasn't a short thing. But the
audio book thing. Let's say you've written a book it's
(49:12):
all about your life. You are dying to read this
book out loud because you want to show your heart
to the world. Right, doesn't mean you will. They might
get some actor, sometimes someone really good. But you know what,
a lot of audio books I don't know, Jacqueline, If
you listen to them, you know, Roy. Third, if you
listen to audio books, you're gonna have a bad narrator,
(49:36):
and that can ruin the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, no
they don't, So you have to be really careful about
those rights. So if you're if you're what did you say, Roy,
I'm sorry, I'm Some of the celebrities who read their
own autobiographies be struggling through them syllables. I know a
(49:57):
few cases of which you speak when we're talking about
I P. It just sounds like the book industry to
some degree has a little bit of the duplicitousness of
the record industry, but it's not as exploitive because the
sales aren't necessarily one to one of a book versus
you know, actual music rights and royalties and mechanical royalties
(50:19):
and writing royalties into perpetuity ba blah blah blah blah.
But it just seems like as the as the way
the publishing industry has been set up now with a
hard copy e book and audiobook, are those new barriers
of Are those used as new sales barriers of entry
for new authors? You know, that is such an interesting
(50:44):
question because they will say no, they will say, oh,
we bring everything out together. But you know what, if
a book is selling really well and hardcover, they're going
to delay that paperback. If your book comes out quickly
in paperback, it means hardcover sales were disappointing. We're hoping
we're going to get get our money from you now,
(51:05):
and then you know, usually now the audio book will
come out at the same time. Uh, they're getting away
from the separate releases. But let me tell you advances.
See I don't know how this works in music, right,
I don't know anything about this. But in the book industry,
you get this quote unquote advance. And so you hear
(51:27):
about people getting you know, five hundred thousand dollars for
their book or whatever. Well, you don't get five hundred
thousand dollars deposited that day. You get a quarter of
five dred thousand dollars deposited. And then maybe you get
a quarter when your manuscripts accepted, and blah blah blah
and on and goes. And there are all these things
that publishing calls bonuses. And I've just been sitting in
(51:51):
court for this Department of Justice versus Penguin Random House trial.
I've been covering it for publishers weekly. Let me just
tell you without going too far into that, because I
don't want to bore you to death, but they'll get
a lot of questions, and these literary agents and publishers,
(52:11):
they'll get these questions like, well, how is an author compensated?
And they'll say something like this, Roy, well, we give
them an advance, but sometimes the agents negotiate a bonus,
and then the attorney says, so what's a bonus? Uh?
You know, it's just like, oh, well, it's what we
give people. Well, what do you mean, it's what we
(52:33):
give people. Well, if we think this is going to
happen or it is all I swear dark magic, you know,
I'm just just yeah, no doubt I'm saying here, listen
to you, bet then I'm absolutely intrigued. I'm not gonna
lie to you. I know that you were talking about
books and stuff, but the drama of the of the
(52:54):
cigare world of publishing right now has gotten me because
I mean, if you work, if you have been able
to go to some of the parties that they throw
for some of the authors and some of the stuff
like that, you would never believe that some of these books.
Some of these parties are stupid lavish, like there's been
a lot of money and stuff and it's a book.
(53:14):
And unfortunately, I say again, unfortunately, people just don't read
hardcore books anymore like that. But when they do some
of these launches, man, it's bananas and it's like how
they're spending all this money just for a book. Yeah,
it's it's wild, and that the book industry is set
up in a way where Okay, we gave you half
a meal, which means you don't touch ship until we
(53:35):
get you don't get a dollar until we make back
at half a meal, which is why they I've noticed
with a lot of my friends who are authors, they
are always stressing for people to write forwards for them.
You have to get endorsements. And apparently explained to me
the concept or explain to me why pre sale numbers
are so important to books, because that's another thing about
(53:55):
books is that that's it's an interesting metric by which
they measure, you're the potential success and longevity of a
project and whether or not to even invest more advertising
and to give another pr push to a book in
week two and week three. Movies are not about pre
sale tickets. If it's a tent pole, Marvel, whatever the fun, Fine,
people are gonna buy tickets up front for that. But
(54:17):
for the most part, box office is about what happened
once the movie drops. Sound scan and record scales or
record sales are about what happened with the streams the Dave,
that's when we start counting. But it seems with books,
it's well, how many people already won't it? It's likely
you know more about publishing that I do. Roy, you
(54:40):
are so right about pre sales. You're so right about
pre orders. And here's the thing. Um, So there was
an author you might know of him. Um, he was
on the stand last week. His name is Charles do Hig.
He wrote the Power of Habit. Look at that. Yes,
everyone loves the power of habit. And so one of
the things you saying that in the actual like just
(55:03):
tweeting it, people were like, oh, he sounds so spoiled,
and I'm like no, because here's what he said. He said,
your advance doesn't really matter. You know, that's just like
some cost for the publisher. And yeah, you get some money,
and it's great if you get a lot of money,
but where you make your money really is in sales,
(55:24):
and what he means by this is exactly Roy what
you're asking. You know, that's why publishers look at those
pre orders, and that's where they make a lot of
these decisions about marketing and advertising and distribution that really
can make or break a book. Right, So you know, sure,
(55:44):
if they give you a million dollars, take it. I'm
not saying that that advance doesn't matter to you, but
what matters? Thank you? Yeah, exactly sixty million, But you
know what, that book probably will go on to make
so much more. And like do Higgs said, he has
(56:06):
made five million dollars after seven advance on sales. Damn right.
So if you look, if you you're careful about those
pre orders, if you make sure people know how to
pre order your book, if you you know, pump it
up before publication, if you really pay attention to that,
(56:27):
you can make a huge difference to the long tail.
But then this is good stuff. After the break, I
want we need to talk about how new authors can
break into the game if they are trying to get
their books out there. What can you do if you
got a book and ideas the job fair would be
right back, job fair, We are around and third and
(56:52):
hit it for home talking books and reading and ship
book publishing. Go ahead that thing. Can you go back
even further? Because I wanted to read Michelle Obama's book
by hand. I read Paul Monney's book by hand. But
I also know there are some amazing authors out there
(57:13):
that don't have those big names. How do they get
in the game? But then, oh boy, you get in
the game by finding yourself an agent. That's definitely different
from the music industry. You can't stand on the corner
with a book like a demo tape. You want to
listen to my book, I'll read it to you. Well,
(57:38):
you know, you have to find an agent. And this
is tedious. Okay, um, it's tedious finding an agent. You
have to submit your like Roy's proposal, or if you
want to write fiction, your first I don't know, twenty
five or fifty pages. It varies from agent to agent.
So sometimes you're gonna be sending out like seventy five
(58:00):
two hundred queries to agents. And here's the thing. Everyone's like,
oh boo, who who? I got five more rejections today
from agents, And I'm like, look, that is okay because
you're only ever going to work with one. People have
to remember that you don't work with ten agents at
a time, you work with one. So wait for the
(58:21):
right one. Be patient. You know, if you really have
written something worth saying, it's worth waiting, you know, a year,
two years, even more than that to find the agent
you want to work with. So once you've done that,
and I don't again, don't want to bore you all
to death, but then your agent has to, you know,
pull up his or her big girl pants and get
(58:44):
in there and start negotiating with editors. And this is
part of the problem with publishing. It's all based on
trust and relationships, and how do people form those relationships? Oh,
I think I'm going to say we're a dirty word,
prof Ledge. I was gonna guess drugs. But okay, Privilege,
(59:11):
do you mind dropping a little bit more on us
about your podcast? I want to know a little bit
more about what you're doing with this. Oh fantastic. Well,
Missing pages is it's it's a collaboration between members of
a small army at the Podglomerate. So um. The CEO,
Jeff Bmbro, had this idea that he wanted to do
(59:32):
sort of a page six for books, and um, he
found me and he liked my voice and he liked
my resume, and I said, look, I'm really interested in this, Jeff,
but if we work past, you know, a few weeks here,
I've got some deeper issues I want to cover in this,
you know. I want to talk about the problems in
(59:55):
the publishing industry, about privilege, around diversity, around include Shian, accessibility,
all of this stuff. And he brought on this brilliant
show runner. Her name is Kayla Littman, and she with
my producer Jordan Aaron, and my wonderful writer Matt Keely,
we all came together and made this show not just
(01:00:17):
about scams and scandals, but about why scams and scandals
like this can take place. Okay, so, um, we're looking
at things like, for instance, um, the Woman in the
Window was a big bestseller four or five years ago
and its author was um A J. Finn, But A J.
Finn was really a book editor named Dan Mallory. And
(01:00:39):
Dan Mallory, well, let's just say he lied a little bit.
No more spoilers than that, but it's a pretty interesting show.
And then we have another one about this it girl
in New York named Caroline Callaway. She was like the
Queen of the West Village, big influencer, big instagrammer, and
(01:01:00):
got a huge advance to write a memoir at random House.
And not only did she never write the memoir, but
in order to pay back the advance, she decided, I'm
not going to tell you anything more than this, but
she opened an only fans account to pay back. Open,
got a bust open, let's go, bus it open and
(01:01:20):
let's go. And then, of course make sure you make
sure you send me, send me the name of that
table picture. Oh yes, absolutely yeah. And that's not to
count the scores of authors that have a deal, get
in advance and say something wile get canceled and then
they have their book deals taken from them or have
their titles pulled from the shelves. We definitely thank you
(01:01:41):
so much for coming on the podcast. Is Missing Pages.
Your debut memoir Life be published by cattle Point. We
can expect that in we'll give you some pre sales
to make sure that these motherfucker's give you a digital
book and an e book and an audio book to
let me do you like that? We want all to
read money, money, you guys so much You can follow
(01:02:10):
her on all of her socials at the book Mayven
The Book Mayven. If you want to talk books in
gospipel a little bit, Beck, then thank you so much
for coming on the job Fair. We appreciate you. Thank
you for coming on Reading week, reading and ship reading
Ship Week. Thank you, roy Ironed Jacqueline read reads a
(01:02:31):
little weird. You already had like a we but we
talked ship but now like reading a book on the toilet,
right that the same thing we need. We need your
toilet book picks. Next time we got wait wait, I
wrote an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, and I am next
(01:02:51):
time you have me on. I will read some selections
from that, but we'll back man what you taught you
about Kwam Mills and good. But I'm gonna let it
go right now. Yeah, we'll talk about black Litt later.
Thank you so much. Right there, he got excited about it.
Thank you for your bet. Royce John Fare is a
product of iHeart Media, Comedy, Central, Paramountain, South Park and
(01:03:13):
Princeton Productions. Thank you as always, Rod, appreciate you for
the reading and ship stories this week. And you know
next week we'll try and do it again, and maybe
next week, Jacqueline will break her consecutive week street of
asking freaky ask questions. It ain't got shipped to do
with the topic that here is that, what we're doing whatever.
(01:03:43):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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