Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
It's interesting because I thinkpeople who went to a
certain types of universities andcame out of a certain
frat boy culture used togo into a, like the
Capitol finance industry is ofthe world. They go to
the wall street, Right? Andyou got kind of that
real growth frat boy cultureon wall street. And then
something happened about 10, 15years ago where those same
(00:20):
people graduating were going intotech instead because it was
viewed as being where thebig money big upside was.
And so it made itworse in my opinion, because
a certain type of personwho was gravitating towards a
certain type of life whereit was all about the
money you can make outof it. And it kind
of made it worse. Youstill are in the gaming
industry as well.
(00:41):
I got really ugly andits still is a really
ugly in gaming.
Hi and welcome to PodcasterStories. Each episode will have
a conversation with podcasters fromacross the globe and share
their story. What motivates themby the start to the
show are the crucial AndMore will also talk about
their personal lives. And someof the things that have
happened to have Midem, theperson who you are today
(01:03):
and now here's your host,Danny Brown. Hi, welcome to
Podcaster Stories. The show thatgets to meet the people
behind the voices of theshow is we have listened
to you this week. Ihave Lainey Cameron who's host
of the best of women'sfiction podcast. A show that
brings you interviews with thebest of women's fiction offers.
So Lainey, welcome to theshow. I really appreciate it.
And just to give thegal the lesson, it was
a quick heads-up. This isour third attempt to, to
(01:25):
get them to listen tome.
So I really appreciate thefact that you've made the
time today. So welcome tothe shop. How about you
introduce yourself and your podcast?
Sure. Thanks so much forinviting me. Danny is such
a thrill to have thechance to share it with
you. And I love yourpodcast. It's so fun. Seeing
the diversity of different typesof people who put together
Podcasts. So let me tellyou a little bit about
(01:46):
myself. My name is LaineyCameron. I am a full
time digital nomad, which meansthat I pick places and
my husband and I pickplaces around the world to
live and work. All weneed is a really good
Wi-Fi signal wherever we are.And obviously we can talk
about the pandemics, put alittle bit of a, what
would you say? A littlebit of a problem. And
to that, we had tomake some different choices for
the last year, but we'relooking forward to getting back
(02:07):
to our nomadic lifestyle, hopefullystarting around October and that's
our cross fingers hope andI'm a full time author.
I write women's fictions. Sobooks that are mostly enjoyed
by women with tend tobe kind of a heartwarming
or emotional or thrilling storylines.My first book, my debut
novel came out last year.It's called the exit strategy
(02:28):
and I just got tothe news last night, but
it was in its fifthaward. So I'm kind of
celebrating on that. It's doingpretty well for a first
novel. And I have apodcast called, like you say
the best of women's fiction,which came out of a
place where I wanted touse my own platform because
I am starting to havequite quite a following. I've
got about 7,000 followers onInstagram and I wanted it
(02:49):
to use my own platformto uplift other authors who
perhaps didn't have the visibilitythat I had, perhaps didn't
yet have the readership orthe following.
And so I created thepodcast as way to highlight
author's that I admire andrespect. So I tried to
pick people who I thinkare among the best in
the genre. I get alot of pitches that they
actually have to turn downand then its getting a
(03:09):
little challenging. At this point,I'm getting a lot of
pitches funnily from publicists, whichis not something that I
was expecting when I startedthe podcast. But it's fun
because there are really shortinterviews. We keep them to
15 minutes max and Iask, what is the inspiration
behind the book? What doesthat germ have an idea
that started this novel thatjust came out generally were
talking about books that justreleased. I like to do
(03:31):
the interviews and release themkind of the weekend after
the book releases. And thereason I do that is
really nice.
When if you hear aninterview and you like a
book, you can go buyit right away. And very
often and writer, world, whatwe do is this thing
called pre-release campaigns where youcan go buy the book,
but it's not coming outfor another three, four or
five months. And so whenyou go give your money
to whoever your book selleror have preferences and then
(03:52):
you have to wait toactually read it and maybe
it's me. I mean, I'man impatient person. So what
I do with the podcastis I weight. Even if
we prerecord it, I weightand I release it right
after the book is available.So that if someone likes
the story, they're inspired bythe author and they can
go download it and readit at that very day.
And so that's what Ilike to do. I'm a
little different than people whodo things for in advance,
but it works for me.And it's a lot of
(04:13):
fun because I'm finding thatpeople are coming to me
now. It's kind of funny.
I've actually seen some bigtime authors post recently, some
really big, best sellers likeNew York times, best sellers.
I just read this bookand this book I love
to, I just read itand I find it from
Blaney's podcast and its crackingme up that know people
are like repeating it backto me that they bought
books and loved books becausethey heard them on the
(04:34):
podcast.
That's awesome. And I, asthe tape to a series,
it's, it's a fiction writers.It's not a non-fiction what
was the choice? Maier? Whatis the thinking behind it?
Was it because you werea fiction writer yourself with
your book? Or why areyou not interested in Fiction?
Okay.
Because I love non-fiction books,but it was because that's
the space I'm in. Iam writing women's fiction. And
so I felt like Ihad a very good handle
(04:55):
on that space. I knowa lot of the authors
I've met many of themthrough the volunteer work that
I do is work withan association called women's fiction
writers association. So for meit was like, I know
that space really well. Ifeel like I'm a quick
to choose great authors. Ilove the non-fiction space and
I love list listening tonon fiction authors on club
hosts these days. It's veryfun to hear them talk
about their books. I lovenonfiction in audio books. I
(05:18):
will actually, when the authorand the rate's their own
book, I find that fabulouswhen it's non-fiction I actually
find in Fiction, it's better.If you get a professional
narrator who is really ableto perform It, it's more
like acting when its afiction novel fiction novel.
That's a, what do youcall that? When two words
to me in the samething, let's say I'm a
writer and you're not supposeto ever say fiction novel
because a novel by definitionit's fiction. But Hey, whatever.
(05:40):
So yeah, I love nonfiction,but I decided to focus
the podcast on Fiction justbecause that's the space that
I'm really familiar with. Andgosh, the book world is
so big to start with,right? You've got thousands of
titles coming out every monththat you kind of have
to choose the focus ofsome type of otherwise. It
will be really overwhelmed.
And you had mentioned thereobviously it's, it's great were
in some club hosts atthe moment that has the
offer's is doing the reading.And it's interesting. You mention,
(06:02):
you should just always, oryou should get a professional
voiceover, a personal the gueststo do the, the, the,
the, the, the fictional stuff.Cause it kind of reminds
me of that. I sawa, like a documentary on,
on Disney plus the boatat the animation process and
actors that are doing the,the voice is for the
animated characters who are doingand why should you, you
could get anybody to givethe voices. But if you
(06:23):
bring in some one thatdoes voiceover, what can it
be like Mark Hamill asa well known for his
voiceover work for all ofthe Batman cartoons or stuff
like that, but bring itto someone in like sick.
It just has a morenuanced than the norm when
something needs to be emphasizedor whatever the guests, and
it makes it more enjoyablefor the list that, and
it helps the reader.
He would have been readingthe books otherwise.
Yes. Especially because I believethe process when they're recording
(06:45):
animation, as they're doing theVoice and then they're doing
the animation to match, right?So like there, there are
tweaking it, I believe asthey go these days, the
way they do it, I'mnot, I'm not an expert,
but I think that mattersbecause that means that the
voice needs to portray thecharacter completely. And then the
animation needs to match thatas opposed to the other
way, runs that they aretrying to match a cartoon
that already exist. And soit's a very similar when
(07:07):
you are in the writinga book, I actually just
went through this process forthe first time with my
own debut novel M itjust came at it now,
actually in April. And Iheard he hired the narrator.
She's called Susan Marlo. She'sdone a, a 150 books
and the process of creatingthat, it's fascinating. The first
thing they do is theyread your book end to
end.
And then they actually comeback to you with a
few questions. And then thenext part is the, well
(07:29):
first, before all of that,they do additions. So I
actually listened to 50 differentauditions for, from 50 different
voice talent. And I pickedthis, this narrator because I
really like the way hewas portraying my two characters
differently to each other. Andalso she came really recommended
from another author friend whosays she was approached. He
was really easy to workwith, which matters, right? If
someone's great talent, but theyare a pain in the
(07:49):
ass to work with. That'sgoing to be a problem.
And so I picked herfor both of those reasons
and he was so funto hear how it works.
So if this was allnew to me, they do
a 15 minutes. At leastthis was the way it
worked with her. I thinkit's pretty standard. They do
a 15 minute section ofthe book.
So you choose which voicesyou want to hear. So
in my case, I havetwo main characters in the
book. The first one isa really powerful Woman venture
(08:12):
capitalist. And the second oneis a CEO. Who's also
a single mom and it'svery dramatic in the opening
scenes. The powerful CEO hasjust discovered her husband is
cheating. And she's about towalk in to this meeting
where she was going tosign a deal. She is
investing in accompany that she'sbrought her whole career on.
And it on the openingpage, she realizes that the
(08:33):
woman who owns this companyis her husband's mistress. And
so what really mattered tome is that the narrator
got that these were twovery different characters and portrayed
them very differently so thatyou were never confused that
my CEO, mom, Carly, witha big case of imposter
syndrome versus my powerful venturecapitalist, they couldn't have the
(08:53):
reader be confused about whothinking, and who's had written
at any point in time,but also I really wanted
the tension to get acrossbecause the book has a
page Turner.
Many people have told methat Reviews kind of the,
the number one thing thatturns up and Reviews as
people say its a pageTurner we'll, you can mess
with that in an audioformat, if you weren't careful,
if you didn't get itright. So I wanted that
same kind of tension. Andso I picked a narrator
(09:15):
who also does suspense novels.So she does thrillers in
suspense as well as women'sFiction. And I think that
helps with her and kindof getting that tension into
it. And then the funthing is you don't hear
it again until the wholething has done. So they
don't give it to youin sections. They really want
to do the whole book.It is performing. It's acting
that they're they're doing here.And so she did the
(09:37):
entire book and then Igot 12 hours of audio
to listen to. And yougo back with what are
called pickups, which is basicallyany little things that need
change.
So like a small word,you know, she said all
of it instead of onor a pronunciation of something
like a place that's areal place that's pronounced drop,
pronounced strong. And so yougo back with that and
(09:57):
then you fix those. Andshe really was a pro
because I think in abook of 12 hours of
audio, we only had tofix like, I think it
was like 10 or 15things in total, which has
almost nothing, nothing. If youthink about it, it's, it's
almost nothing. And the funnestpart of the whole process
for me as a writerand this is my first
book in my debut novelwas you don't actually get
(10:18):
to hear your book readby somebody else. Like there's
a common thing we sayin the writer world, which
is once you put yourwork into the world, it
does not belong to youanymore.
And if you think aboutthis, every book you've ever
read your reading through thelens of your own personal
experience, right? So when Iread any book, whether it's
fiction nonfiction, especially if Iget triggered by a book,
(10:39):
that's not really a bitof the book it's about
me and my personal historyand something that happened that
makes certain topics trigger me.It's the same reason you
can't take negative reviews topersonally because it just means
you have to your, yourwork trigger triggered that person,
which could be completely todo with their life experience
and nothing to do withthat book in particular. And
so you, you kind ofget used to this concept
(11:00):
that, that people say, onceyou're work is in the
world, you don't own it.It belongs to the reader,
everybody's reading from their ownlens, their own life. But
here's the fun thing isyou never actually see that
in action, right?
I don't get to watchover someone's shoulder while they
read my book, right. It'shappening apart. Right. I get
to see the reviews atthe end of the day
and what their overall impressionwas. But I don't get
(11:20):
to actually sit and hearsomeone else to read my
work. And so 12 hoursof hearing how someone else
interpreted this, which was nota tall, the way I
said the words, the intonation,the way the phrases were
said, it was different. Itwas an entirely different. And
yet it still worked. Thatwas actually a really kind
of prayed moment. Like, wow,I created the thing and
here's someone else reading thething. And even though it's
(11:43):
not the way I imaginedit, it still cool. And
so that was a kindof a big Hi so
far and my author career,or the first time I've
got to listen to those12 hours of audio.
And I was going toask you that because you
had mentioned,
You only have to doabout 15 change is 15
minutes or 15. What isit called? Back's pick up,
pick up, pick up. Soyou don't need to do
it for 15 pick-ups. Soobviously you've got this after
(12:05):
the day after a greenand the first time that
you are going to sendover, you think in the
back and till it wasfinally finished with, it must
have been cleaned in allof us to start with
thinking in my group, I'mgoing to have a son
who is, you have anyedits on it, you know,
pick up the taskforce. Solisten to it back then.
You mentioned it, officer, thevoiceover artists at a great
job and internet in someof the stuff that you
hadn't maybe intended, intended tobe intonated that way, or
(12:27):
was it like almost likean out of body experience
and, and less than aback and thinking, this is
a really good book andnot even thinking it was
your book that was beingread at the time,
Because there were a coupleof moments that it makes
me sound it a little,like a humble bragging, but
there were a couple ofmoments where I was like,
huh, that really worked likein a way that I
hadn't like to me, itwas like, okay, like I
thought it worked, but itwas okay. And then when
(12:47):
I heard her read itand she was putting all
of the emphasis into It,which is possibly what every
reader is doing in theirhead. I was like, Oh,
that actually works better thanI thought it did. Like,
like I think we areour harshest critics of our
own work. We were talkingearlier, before, earlier, before we
started it at the editing,Right? When you have to
edit it to Podcast andhow much work goes into
that. And it's very similarby the way, with audio,
(13:08):
for, for an audio book,the, what the narrator charges
U is pear finished. Our,the acronym is P S
H, which says that they'recharging you an hourly rate,
but not for their hoursof work for the finished
our of Audio.
And I actually just interviewedMy, my audio and the
Raider actually on my, onmy own podcast. I invited
her last week. I said,come and talk to me.
(13:29):
I'm going to interview youabout the art of being
an audio narrator. How didyou get into it? What
are the highs and thelows what's difficult, what's easy.
And she was sharing thatfor each hour of finished
work. She has probably readthe book five to six
times for that hour. Sofor each of our finished
work, so the first timeshe reads it and then
she's actually narrating it, thenshe's editing it than she
(13:51):
is. She's editing it multipletimes. And so she said
at least five times, she'sread that same hour of
the book before she getsto a finished it.
Wow. That's, that's crazy. Iknow when I'm doing it
at it and it takesabout two and a half
times the amount of thefinished product. So as the
show is 30 minutes long,I'm editing for about two
hours, maybe. I dunno. SoI couldn't imagine him written
(14:12):
a book five or sixtimes to get to the
one on the one recordand know that's, that's incredible.
Well, it, that episode thatwe were all looking forward
to listen in to thatone.
My one is at theexit strategy is now in
April. I just came outor it's just getting out
there and this week actuallygot it
Or something, I will lookout for that. No, we
had mentioned that this startand you're sure, I think
primarily that at the beginningof this year, but actually
(14:34):
started out as a videoPodcast. So what's the transition
to Audio have been likefor you?
And it's, you know, thefirst thing I'll say is
it's been a surprise, howmany people just love the
podcast format? And like yousaid, I started on video.
And the reason I didthat was I was trying
to leverage, like I said,my following. And so I
thought the most, the bestway to do that is
(14:54):
to do on Instagram TV.So I did it as
videos that I released onInstagram TV. And then just
at the beginning of thisyear, I thought, you know,
it wouldn't be that muchmore work to also make
it into a podcast. Ichecked out anchor FM, and
I discovered that you couldtake your video. I record
the videos on Streamyard. Youcould take the video and
upload it to anchor FMand it will strip the
(15:15):
audio. And then I wouldadd like a header at
the beginning, I would addsome music, but it wasn't
like a whole separate thing.
It could be, you know,maybe 40% more work to
also do it as apodcast, as opposed to, you
know, for a hundred percentmore work. And so I
did it as an experimentat the beginning, the first
for podcasts that are released.And I thought, well, let's
see if anyone's even interestedin this format. And it
(15:37):
shocked me how excited everybodygot it. But the fact
that it was now apodcast and all these people
who are like, Oh, Ialways wanted to watch the
video, but I can neverfind time. And now I
can listen to it whileI'm doing my house work
or when I'm taking mykids to, you know, their
stuff, soccer practice. If youstill get to go to
these days or why not?Well, I'm taking my kids
somewhere in the car. Andso it was fascinating to
(15:58):
me, the excitement level thatcame over that, and also
how much I started gettingpitched and how many more
people wanted to go beon the show, know that
it was a Podcast.
And so its growing andencourages people to, to check
it out. And it's areally short 15 minute episodes
each, but, and we've donea couple of special episodes.
One was with my narrator,which was a little bit
longer. It was 30 minutescause I wanted it to
(16:18):
do a full interview andI actually included pieces of
the audio book as examples.So when she talks about
how do you do differentvoices? I took a piece
of the audio book forthree minutes after it actually
put it into the podcastthat people could hear an
example, which I thought itwas kind of fun. So
it made it more realto hear what she was
talking about. And then Idid a special episode, which
was also 30 minutes longwhere I took all of
(16:38):
the best advice from thefirst 30 odd authors who
had been on the podcastand on the videos. And
I created one, one podcastepisode that was just advice
for aspiring writers and itsreally cool.
It was a lot ofgreat stuff in there. If
you're ever thinking about gettinginto the writing profession or
even doing it as ahobby, that one's the one
I would definitely not miss.I wish I'd had all
(16:59):
of that advice when Istarted at all.
And then that's a greatthing that you mentioned it
a little bit Podcasts. Ifyou can put it basically
in the background and doit, whatever you're doing it,
you know, you can goup on the treadmill, you
can go maybe not golfing,right. And I guess you
could go off and dothat out, but it, it
makes it an easy buyin to anybody, but there's
no technical, you know, bindsor anything. It was really
cool to hear to hearthat it's just been picked
(17:20):
up so well. And, andobviously your guests are all
offers. Hence the name ofthe, the, the Podcast, the
best of women's Fiction, apodcast. And you mentioned that
you wanted to give avoice, you want to use
your platforms to give avoice to offer is it
may not have platform themselves.Is it a, like a,
obviously that was one ofthe processes. What are your
process for picking whose Laketo have on as guests
(17:42):
or who we'd like tointerview for the podcast?
And in the beginning itwas very easy for me
because I would say I'mvery well connected to the
women's fiction writers community. Iused to be the head
of programs for WFW awomen's fiction writers association, which
is an association of about1500 members, all of whom
write women's fiction. And soin the beginning it was
(18:02):
easy because I would knowmost of these authors either
through WFW way or MI'm a host of a
Facebook group where we have10 author hosts called blue
sky book chat. And soI would also hear about
books through that and throughour writers there as well.
So we're in the beginning,it was easy because I
was doing invite only likeI was reaching out and
inviting people. And it wasn'thard for me to think
(18:23):
of who to invite 'causeI would just say that
like for example, And Garvin,who is an author, I
totally admire her third bookis coming out in may.
So I would just sendher a quick message even
on diorama and say, HeyOn, so are you going
to a new one coming?I want to be on
the show. It was thatsimple. And then I had
a standard email that Isent that explained how it
works, that we X werecorded on Streamyard that what
they need in order todo the recording. But it
(18:44):
was the standard email thatwent every time and we
just agree on a releaseweekend and then we could
record at any time inadvance. And then I got
a bit more sophisticated recentlywhere I'm using Calendly, where
people can pick their ownschedule so that I don't
have to get into thescheduling back and forth, but
what's actually become really hard.No is now that I'm
getting pitched bye books andauthors that I don't know,
(19:04):
I'm having to do moreresearch in order to decide
whether or not to sayyes and that's actually, I
don't like that.
I don't actually like beingin the position of having
to say no to somebodysometimes, but sometimes the book,
you know, it doesn't havevery many reviews yet. It's
kind of hard to knowand I'm not going to
have time to read everysingle book. I read a
lot of books. I doa lot of blur. So
(19:26):
just to try and helpme, my fellow authors from
time to time, I dobeta reading. So I will
have seen the book evena year before it came
out in an early form.But you know, it, it's
not realistic at this point.Like someone just asked me
if I can write thema blurb by the end
of may. And I said,honestly, I have 15 books
that have committed to rateand review by the end
of may. I want tohelp you, but I'm not
sure it can do itlike time physically timewise. And
(19:47):
so its becoming a bitmore of a challenge because
it used to be, ifI wasn't sure about a
book, I would just say,Hey, send me a copy
and I'll read it andthen I'll work on it,
whether it fits.
But now that it's justmore than I can commit
to. So I have tolook at it like M
are they referred by anauthorized Myer? So if, if
Camille pick up again, whoI adore, he is a
fabulous, best selling author says,this person should be on
your podcast. I trust herinstincts. She knows what she's
(20:10):
talking about. And she isa book coach. She wouldn't
send me a book thatisn't worthy and isn't really
among the best. And sothat's easy. So sometimes I'm
having to do it alittle bit more GQ when
people reach out to me,I actually had to write,
go like, okay, who dowe have a blurb from?
What a blurb is. Right.And it is when your
book is coming out, youreach out to other authors
and you ask if they'llread up for you before
it's in the world. Andthen they write, it's basically
(20:31):
like an advanced review byan author. And that's what
you see. Like when yousee two sentences on the
front of a book oryou see it on Amazon
where it has some quotes,right.
As the book comes out,that's before readers even got
access to it. So that'sgoing to be other authors.
There are given an earlycopy. And so I'll look
if it has a goodblurb, if it's, you know,
it's easy, if it's anauthor, I know. And, and,
and I admire, and theywere already a bestseller that
(20:53):
Susie, but like M I'lllook at who is recommending
them to me, I'll lookat their blurbs if they've
won any awards or prizesalready before the book came
out, that one's a littletrickier. Cause it was not
that many pre-publication awards. Andsometimes I'll kind of say
like, I just don't thecurrent situation. I literally don't
have any slots before September.Like I am booked every
weekend through September. In fact,I've got a short season
(21:15):
break in there, which I'mtrying valiantly to hold for
two weeks.
So then I can taketwo weeks off. But other
than that, like I'm bookedthrough mid September right now.
And so I've also gottento the point where sometimes
not saying like, listen tothe book through September to
check back with me ona few months. And then
that way I know thebook is going to be
out in a few months.Maybe I can see a
little bit more about it,then it's out there yet.
And maybe that will giveme a bit more information
(21:36):
as well. So I amnot very good at saying
no, I hate saying noto a fellow authors. It
makes me feel bad.
Yeah. And then obviously, asyou mentioned it, and it
needs to fit in andreview our show and, and
you'd go, you know, withthe gas team to highlight
the guests and give themmore because I can imagine
if someone has already gota fairly, a large audience,
so I've got a wholehost, the award's behind them.
That may be a lessof a, an attractive guest
(21:57):
for one of about aworld. That was the title
of a description that, andless of a, a, an
attractive cast for you totalk to, maybe that are
up and coming in, ormaybe you just had one
bucco or something or isthat not the case?
Oh, I love both. No,I, I love both. Author's
like, so for example, I'vehad Carrie lens, Dale who
was a big, best selleron I've had Barbara O'Neill
who sold. Gosh, I thinkshe sold 2 million copies
(22:18):
through Lake union publishing. It'scrazy. And the cool thing
about these guesses. Yes. They'llcome on and we'll talk
about the inspiration for their,their latest book. But what
I love asking authors whoare multi, multi time, best
sellers in a bit totalk to a Bentley Crosby
in the coming week, she'sin that category too, is
how do they keep havinginspiration? It's one thing to
have inspiration for one novelare two or three, but
(22:39):
when you get to talkto someone who's had a
10 plus best-selling million copiedbooks. Like I want to
know how the heck theykeep doing that because I
want to do that likesome day.
And so I know alot of my listeners are
also writers and they're interestedin like, where does the
inspiration keep coming from? Youknow, Barbara and Neil is
shared some fascinating things aroundhow is she keeps newspaper
clippings. And her husband waslike C something in the
(23:00):
news, like quirky or weird.Someone ran a way to
the circus. And he waslike snippet for her and
send it to her forher file. And she just
keeps like an inspiration file.So that as she's working
on one novel, all thisstuff is brewing in her
inspiration file for the nextone. And then the other
thing I love to askauthors who are further down
the path is what theadvice is for writers who
are just starting out, whoare many years behind them
(23:22):
are a few years behindthem. That's a question I
ask every guest and itis interesting how different the
answers are from a newauthor whose first book is
coming out and it's calleda debut author, which is
what I was last yearversus someone who has had
many books.
And I think one ofthe things readers don't realize
that even writers don't realizeas a writer world is
the author of the pathis pretty up and down.
(23:46):
It's a roller coaster, evenwhen you are a best
selling author. So this isa fabulous episode with ,
who I referenced earlier. Hewas one of my favorite
Novelis and this is afabulous episode where she shares
the, now people know heras this best selling author,
but she shares that herdebut, when it came out
was slammed in the Reviews.Like she wants it to
(24:07):
crawl onto the bed anddie level of bad. And
she brings this up tosay, you assume, when you
look at her now, andshe's this incredible best selling
author, and she has abook coach, and she's really
well known that that waslike a seamless flawless path.
And she was like, Ialmost gave up after book
one. It was such adisaster for me. Like I
felt personally offended that everybodywas saying they added to
(24:28):
it and it's not true,but everybody was saying that
they hated it. It has,you know, very Reviews, but
we take it personally whenour work in the world
and it was criticized. Andso I loved talking to
other sir Further in thepath and, and encouraged folks
that listen to Camille, hisown words as she describes
that she does, is itmuch better justice than I
am, but I love whenpeople share that the ups
and downs of it, theway they keep going, like
(24:50):
Barbra Neil share the ideathat how do you find
your voice? She has avery strong voice. One of
the things people love abouther books is when you,
when you read her book,you know, it's Barbara and
Neil book, and that's, what'scalled having a voice as
an author.
And if you think ofit and the thing that
you love to read orto listen to, right? The
personality that makes that personon the radio, that person
or their podcast, that's thesame thing. It's a voice,
(25:10):
right? And so she said,the way you find your
voice is you listen towhat people say about your
work and what people complimentabout it, and that's your
Voice like, and then double-downon it. So take that
thing and do it evenmore because that's you doubling
down on your voice, yourvoice that people will appreciate
it.
So it was really interesting.And I look, I really
liked that advice because generallyas human beings, we're always
(25:33):
looking for the worst andwe're always, if someone's speaking
both of us, we takethat a lot more seriously
than our son was tryingto put us compliments. And
they know my wife alwaystells me that I'm really
bad at accepting compliments. And,and I need to work
on that. And, and Ido, I want to bet
that I think that isa Scottish thing really. And
I think that's a fair,our, so we, we don't
take off the ones touse a bit, but I
love that at face. Andespecially as you mentioned as
(25:54):
an offer our, our, ourcontent creators, you know, that
it's a podcast, a blogor whatever else, you're always
gonna have people. It, itisn't public. So you have
to have that kind offixed skin to know that
they're on a boat andwhat you put out, as
opposed to you yourself. Andthat advice about pick up
on the thing that theyare praising you for it,
because that's who is actuallyyou.
I love that advice. And,and I'm guessing that's what
(26:15):
you are, you've taken into.You're, you know, you're, you're
Corporate now. It has todo which we'll talk about
it. So that actually movingin to the book world,
et cetera, so I canget, and that's been a
good primer for you. Okay.
Yeah, it has, you know,this book is interesting. My
own book that just cameout and it was just
talking to someone on anauthor, a podcast about author
marketing, Dana K. She hasa podcast about our culture
(26:37):
breakout book. And it's allabout how to market your
book as an author. Andone of the questions she
was asking me was howdid you who your audience
was? And I said, honestly,I didn't because this book
has a bit unique. Itstwo women who are putting
in this dramatic situation, butultimately it's a book about
friendship and its a feministbook and it's uplifting, but
(26:58):
there was no other bookthat was quite like that
in the world. And sonormally when you're bringing out
your book, what you lookfor is something called cop's.
That means comparable titles.
And you say, okay, thisbook is really like that
other book. So what I'lldo the same things for
marketing that the other persondid because it works for
them. And you also physical.Like you, you actually compare
you say its just likeTwilight. If you love Twilight,
(27:21):
you will love this foundpair novel to, and now
obviously I couldn't do that.So what I did is
when you were a book,goes out into the world,
first, it becomes available forearly Review from readers, not
just from authors, but therewas a service called net
galley where you can putyour book up on net
galley and people can getit for free before it's
released in exchange for writingan honest review about the
(27:42):
book. And now you haveto have a hard skin
to go on and lookat your neck, galley or
Reviews before the book comesout of it.
But I actually did goin and I read them
from the lens, like yousay of who enjoyed this
book, who is this bookfor who read it and
said, I love this todeath. And those are the
people I need to findmore of because there was
one of my readers andI found that women who
(28:03):
are preciate female friendships, womenwho, our professional women, anyone
whose worked in an officeenvironment, anyone who likes kind
of a little bit oftension, but it ultimately happy
story. But interestingly, I findthat like thriller Raiders who
read only pure thrillers, we'renot digging this book because
it's not exactly that it'sabout friendship and its a
(28:25):
bit more touchy feely bythe end of the book
than a pure thriller, right?
Like the husband who portrayedthem both, it does not
die during the book. Youwould want him dead if
it was the thriller andyou would want them both
to make them dead. Andso it was just really
helpful as a way yougot to put on your
arm or your emotional armor,but a way to say
it, like who is thisbook for? Because I didn't
have an easy way totell that before it came
out. And so I thinkthat might be my startup
(28:46):
background, but it's okay tojust try something and see
what happens and then learnand then go from there.
No, you mentioned you starta background and obviously your
book, the exit strategy isset in the tech world
around a high flyer andexecutives have that world, which
is your own story. Youare a high-flying tech executive
yourself. So how much ofthe book has pulled from
your own life and thetech industry?
This is one of myfavorite questions I worked in
(29:09):
Silicon Valley and for howit worked for a really
big tech companies, I've workedfor a multibillion-dollar almost hundred
billion dollar, a tech companymanaging a billion dollar division's.
And then I also workedfor startups, Creating the whole
company, getting the marketing teamoff the ground as a
chief marketing officer. And Idid that for 20 years.
And then after 20 yearsI was pretty burned out.
It is frustrating and tiringto be the only woman
(29:31):
in the room and tobe the only senior woman
on the team, like aftera while it starts to
really wear you down. Andso I decided to take
six months, I just finishedone. And normally you kind
of roll straight into thenext one. And the minute
you leave, the head huntersare calling you and your
working out where you're goingnext.
And I decided to givemyself six months to see
if I had an endingto this book. I actually
(29:52):
didn't know. I had abeginning at a very clear
picture of how the bookstarted with this wife and
a mistress who are forcedto work together, but I
didn't know where it ended.And so I gave myself
six months to, to right,the first draft. Now anyone
who's close to the writingworld knows we call it
a shitty first draft fora reason. The first draft
is just that I lovethe phrase that says you
are just pummeling. So you'repouring sand and to the
(30:14):
sandbox, that's the goal ofa first draft is to
give yourself something, to workwith an editor it's in
the real beauty of wordsand writing actually happens in
revision, right? As you reviseit many times before it
comes out. But I gavemyself six months. Cause I
didn't even know if Ihad the end of the
story.
Right. Okay. And I didn'tknow if this was really
going to be my gigand was I willing to
step back? No, I'm agood paying job in tech.
(30:35):
You know, writers don't makevery much your money to
do this instead. And whathappened is I give it
six months and after sixmonths I found out, I
didn't know the ending andI wanted to keep it
going. They give the shthe book a chance to
actually see the world. Sothen they get myself another
six months on my husbandand I realized, well, if
I'm not earning any moneywhile I'm riding, before it
comes out, why are westill living in San Francisco?
(30:56):
Why are we still payingrent at crazy San Francisco
rental prices? And he's atech guy. And he realized
that he could do hisjob from anywhere. He does
consulting and tech development forvarious companies. And so that
was what drove us intobecoming nomads.
So we realized we couldlive and the most beautiful
places in the world, aslong as they have wifi
for, you know, a 10thof the price of what
(31:17):
it would cost us tobe in San Francisco. And
depends on your places. Likesometimes it's not a 10th,
sometimes it's a half, butyou know, we avoid expensive
cities. Like we'd never spentsignificant time in London or
Paris because that would kindof define the point. It
would be like being inSan Francisco, but we've lived
in Cartagena, Colombia, which isfabulous. I thoroughly recommend it.
We just, we had beenin and out have many
(31:38):
locations and Mexico right nowin San Miguel de
where we actually have ahouse that we are going
to rent part time andcome to part time by
October were hoping to bea new Orleans. We actually
just preliminarily, but for ourselvesand air BNB in October
for the full month innew Orleans, if anyone's looking
for a travel recommendation andobviously you can't make to
(31:59):
concrete plans right now, causewe don't know what's going
to happen with the world,but I'm kind of crossing
my fingers.
That enough of those willbe vaccinated, including myself, that
by October we'll be ableto be a little bit
more open and all ofthe fun things that happen
in new Orleans during theyear like jazz Fest quarter
festival, it was another oneof the big electronic music
festival. There were four bigfestivals that happened over the
(32:20):
year and they've all movedto October. So in a
way, in one month youget like a year of
new Orleans festivals, pretty mucheverything, but Mardi Gras is
preliminarily booked for October. Andso if it goes ahead,
it's going to be apretty fun, lovely meal. I
love to visit. And thething about being a digital
nomad for us as wework full time, we're not
traveling to be on vacation,right. Were both working a
(32:41):
full time schedule. So evenif none of those things
happen.
So as long as it'ssafe to be an, an,
an Airbnb and walk aroundthe streets, we'll still be
able to walk around andbuy Bengay and drink coffee.
And I enjoy walking aroundin new Orleans, even if
none of the festivals.
Okay. And you'd mentioned itin your career, you are
the only high flyer, awoman executive in your industry.
And we've seen in recentyears with the me too
movement, especially for the techindustry, that can be a
(33:03):
very sexist and toxic placeyou were in industry for
awhile. And I was wonderingwith the reputation has a
special in San Francisco. Didyou encounter any of this
toxicity in your own experiences?
Oh yeah. I, I didn'tthoroughly answer your question. I'm
going to actually answer yourquestion from before. And the
answer to this, you haveto ask, you know, how
much of the book wasfrom RE inspired by real
(33:23):
life and how do theyget to the story? And
what happened is I hadthe inspiration was the wife
and the mistress story. Andthen I asked myself, well,
where am I going toset this? So if I
have this waste on theway from this mistress are
forced to work together, wheream I going to set
that story? And what's thescenario where they're forced to
work together. And the obviousanswer for me coming from
having works in Silicon Valleyfor 20 years, I'll just
(33:44):
set in Silicon Valley, I'llsit it in the world.
I am used to whereyou got startups and you
got venture capitalists and visitingand investing in those startups.
So that was the easychoice, the sexism and its
really funny because this bookhas been called a feminist
Anthem, the sexism, I actuallydidn't set out to right
into the book.
I just said it. Andwhat I was used two
(34:05):
and wrote the story ofwhat that world looks like.
I wanted to show peoplewhat it felt like to
be in that world tobe the only woman in
the boardroom and the sexismis just part of what
I experience through my entirecareer. And so I actually
wrote an author's note atthe end because my own
mother, interestingly after I didn'tlet her read it until
it was final and itwas actually done with copy
(34:27):
edits and then I lether read it because my
mother is super critical. Sheis the most critical person.
I know she is anex English lecturer to give
you an idea. And Iknew that she was going
to pick it apart. AndI wasn't, I wasn't mentally
able to deal with that.I just knew that I
wouldn't be able to havemy own mother picked my
work apart until it waslike done.
And I felt like itwas as good as it
could be. But when sheread it, my mother says
(34:47):
to me, so all ofthat stuff about the sexism
and the, the main characteror the head of the
venture capital from who theyultimately have to work out
how to take down together,like you made all that
up that's Fiction. Right? AndI actually had to explain
to my own mother, butnot a word of that
was made up. In fact,the author's note says that
I toned it down. Isignificantly toned down in the
(35:09):
sexism in the book becauseI felt like for people
who didn't live in thatworld, it wasn't going to
be credible. And I actuallymentioned in the, in the
author's note that there wasan example of something that
I experienced frequently in Tech,which is meetings happening at
strip strip clubs where theguy's we've been in a
meeting all afternoon and theysay, lets take this meeting
to a strip club andyour face with this horrible
(35:32):
decision as a woman oflike, you're either going to
say, you know, no hellno.
In which case you arethat person and now you
are like out of itbecause they're going to go
anywhere. So now you're outof the meeting or you're
going to go and havethe most awkward business meeting
and the history of realitywhere some woman is wiggling
her tits and ass overyou while you're trying to
have a business conversation oryou're going to make the
(35:53):
joke of it and triedto be one of the
guys, but not kind of,it's horrible. It's just a
horrible, horrible situation because thereis no good answer in
that scenario other than don'tdo it. Don't suggest it's
a stupid idea. But thatwas an example of something.
I took her out ofthe book because I just
thought people are not goingto believe that actually happens.
Even though it happened tome four or five times
over at my career. Right.
(36:14):
What do you think needsto change as someone has
been in Australia at highlevel and seeing the experience
you just mentioned there, forexample, what needs to be
done to encourage diversity inquality, especially on the tech
industry, which is always comeacross as, you know, a
Silicon Valley threat boys continueto act a where the
product in the college.
Yeah, there is a whole,there is a whole bro
(36:34):
culture. There is a, ifyou just Google like bro
Silicon Valley, there's a whole,all these terms around to
it as well. And it'sinteresting because I think people
who went to a certaintypes of universities and came
out of a certain fratboy culture used to go
into a, like the Capitolfinance industry is of the
world. They go to wallstreet, Right? And you got
(36:56):
kind of that real brofrat boy culture on wall
street. And then something happenedabout 10, 15 years ago
where those same people graduatingwere going into tech instead
because it was viewed asbeing where the big money
big upside was. And soit made it worse in
my opinion, because a certaintype of person who was
gravitating towards a certain typeof life where it was
(37:18):
all about the money youcan make out of it.
And it kind of madeit worse. You saw that
in the gaming industry aswell. I got really ugly
and its still is areally ugly in gaming. The
simple answer to this. Andif I knew like a
silver bullet to make thishappen easily, I would, I
would tell you the simpleanswer is we need teams
that look like the diversityof the world we live
(37:38):
in. So we need ateam when we have a
team and that includes thesenior team have a start-up
you know, there should notbe one woman on the
board, right? We don't livein a world where out
of a board of 10people, one woman, so 10%
of the world is notWomen, right? 50% of the
board should be a woman.And having one woman on
a board actually puts ahorrible burden on that one
(37:58):
woman where she is notonly speaking for herself, she's
speaking for all of womankindand she's playing the role
of being a vote, awoman on the board in
addition to being herself andsucceeding as herself.
So it was like adouble burden on that Woman
and its the same thing.If you were the only
black person on the board,if you're the only person
of Indian descent, if youare the only transgender person
(38:19):
on the board, like pickany category, if there's only
one, you then have toplay a double role of
representing your group in additionto actually doing your job.
So your having to doto kind of almost like
twice the work and representyourself differently as a woman,
your, your having to, Italk about this a lot
with other career woman, you'rehaving to manage how you're
(38:40):
perceived as a woman andhow your emotions are perceived
in addition to actually gettingacross your point that you
want to make in themeetings. So, you know, or
if a man finds thatsomething has happened where, you
know, the company does somethingterrible, right?
Like we lie to onan application form, the guy
gets to slam his fistson the desk and say,
unacceptable. We do not dothat in this company ever.
(39:01):
And the whole team sitsup, it takes a toll,
pays attention and they go,he's angry. This is really
bad. What we did ifa woman does the same
thing and slams her handon the table and it
says, this is unacceptable. Everybodygoes, Whoa, she's kind of
hysterical today. And you getperceived entirely differently and you're
anger is perceived differently. Itsnot perceived as a productive
thing. And so you're constantlymanaging how you express your
(39:24):
emotions, which has not necessarilythe way you would naturally
express them. And again, that'sa double burden. So you
were like, you're representing womankind.
You are trying to doyour job and you are
managing your emotions are perceivedon the meeting. Gosh, it's
tiring. And I think it'stiring for any group that
is not represented at anequal level or at a
minimum at an equal levelto what they represent in
(39:46):
society. I mean, if youlook at African-Americans, there are
so few in Tech, it'sridiculous how often you will
have an entire tech companyof a a hundred person,
a hundred people and notone African American on the
entire team. And so like,you know, one would be
one of the a hundredis 1%. It's 10% of
the population than the us.So why is it not
10% of the population thatare companies like, and I
(40:08):
know it's not easy tosolve, but that's what we
should be shooting for isfor teams that look like
the world we live inin terms of the diversity
of them.
And we're very, very farfrom that right now.
It reminds me of panel.We saw which I can
remember what it was, butit was like a South
by Southwest or a socialmedia world or something. And
it was about the importanceof gender equality when it
comes to representation, pay, etcetera. And it was an
(40:30):
all male panel. So itrightly got slate on social
media where people decry anda panel about gender equality
being in an all maleone. I mean everyone was
thinking, are you crazy? Well,why would you do this?
There's a, there's a linein the book where the,
the, the head of theventure capital from that Ren
my main character works forit's called Simon Atherton and
(40:51):
the book. And he's kindof that bro culture is
very much, but he's alittle older, right? He should
know better for sure. Youknow, he's in his forties,
he's got that whole broculture thing. And there's a
line in the book wherehe says, I am not
sure that women have theballs to make good business
decisions or, or maybe it'slike, or maybe it's the
same thing. Like it's aline in the book where
he refers to balls. AndI have a number of
(41:15):
business meetings that I havebeen in over my career.
I mean, like we're intothe thousands we're having the
balls is used as away to say courage.
Well, nobody stops and thinksabout what does that mean
to be other people inthe room when you say
it that way. And soI deliberately put that in
the book and it's actuallythe way I wrote it
in the book is almostword for what I had
heard many times from someonewho specifically it was in
(41:36):
my head as someone whohad worked with when I
wrote that. And I'm justto say that, like I
write under a pen name,like Lainey Kamran is my
pen name. It's also howmost people know me these
days, but it was alittle deliberate in the, I
didn't want to end upone day. If I went
back to my job inSilicon Valley, sitting across the
interview table from a CEOwhere I'm supposed to be
(41:57):
interviewing for their job astheir best advisor, as their
chief, chief strategist, a marketingofficer. And they look at
me across the table andgo, so let me get
this right, you right aboutpeople like me and your
books.
No you'd mentioned earlier thatyou and your husband are
no digital nomads and whatit can while travel in
the world. And it soundslike you had some amazing
adventures. All one that stoodout for me when I
(42:17):
read him and it wasa certain, a hunting trip
in Tanzania with Stoned Tribesmen.How did that come about?
So funnily that was beforehe became digital nomads, M
we actually took off. Andthis was part of what
inspired us to do. Thenomadic thing is back when
we were both working intech, I think about three
years before we truly startedbecoming no meds, we took
(42:38):
us six months sabbatical andmy husband kept working the
whole time for that sixmonths. I actually took a
sabbatical for my start-up becauseit was going to be
too hard for me todo my kind of job
remotely. And so we tooksix months and we did
that differently. We actually movedaround a lot. I think
we covered like 20 pluscountries in six months and
we were working. So wewere doing like two weeks
at a time at thattime. That's exactly how it
(43:00):
adds up. It was liketwo weeks at a time
for six months do endup with like 20 odd
countries.
And so one of theplaces we went to was
Tanzania and we were ona Safari for two weeks.
This was a time wherewe actually did have to
stop working. Like you can'tbe honest with you in
the middle of the Serengetiand assume you can get
a wifi signal. So, butwe weren't, even though you
could look at it asa cell phone signal, I
(43:20):
was amazed that the Safaridriver's in the middle of
the Serengeti had cell phonesignal the entire time, they
were all calling each other,asking where the animals were.
And I saw some lionsover here. Where are you
worried? Oh my God, thatguy has got some over
here. I was amazed thatthey'd had cell phone signal
out in the middle ofLake. Literally the planes have
the Serengeti. There was nothingfor a a hundred miles,
but we had a cellphone signal. And what happened
(43:40):
is we had our firstoff, what happened is we
hired this local company todo our Safari.
This is a good tip.If you're ever looking to
go to a country thathas a very expensive, so
the fairies, so it's avery, it can be ridiculously
expensive that it can belike 20 or $25,000 per
person. Like they can becrazyville. But we also read
all these forums online thatsaid, if you book directly
(44:01):
with a local company andyou pay them directly, it'll
be like 10 X cheaperthan, than if you're going
through a big international company.That's marketing marketing at marking
up Up. So the firstSkerry piece of that, his,
we actually phoned this companythat was recommended for the
people on this travel forM and we wired them
in the money. So wehad no idea that when
we arrived at the airportintense and you know, whether
(44:22):
anyone was going to turnup, cause we were pretty
dubious that like wiring moneyto this random accounted in
Africa, and maybe someone isgoing to turn off the
tickets on a Safari.
And it was like, weare going to take the
risk and we'll find outa worst case. We'll get
to Tanzania. It won't bein the airport. No mobile
com come get us andwe'll come up with a
plan. So we took therisk. They pick us up
in this beautiful, well, notbeautiful, but a big 10
(44:45):
persons, a fairy truck andso forth like, Oh cool,
we're gonna beat the restof our Sperry. We'd go
to the hotel the nextmorning we get up, we're
ready to leave. And firstoff they laugh at us
because they wanted to knowwhere our bags were. And
we were like, well, thatlittle carry on suitcase, that's
it that's our bag. Andthey couldn't believe we can.
As far as with thecarry on suitcase, we are
traveling the world for sixmonths. That's all we had.
(45:05):
There was a carry onsuitcase in a backpack with
a laptop on it. Yeah.And they take us off.
And as you know, andleaving, we say, so where
are the rest of thepeople for this ten-person truck?
And they Go, don't, youknow, you booked a privat
Safari for two weeks. Soit was so cheap. We
assumed that we would bepeople in the truck with
us. But the cool thingthat happened is because we
(45:27):
were the only ones inthe Safari for two weeks,
our driver was this amazingguy. And then, well, who
had done all these documentary'sfor the BBC. And you
can only see so manyanimals before you were like,
okay, that's very interesting moreanimals today. And he actually
proposed that. We go anddo this thing with the,
the Tribesmen. He said thelast tripe that is truly
(45:51):
a Hunter gatherer, a nomadictribe is in this area.
I actually know them becauseI found this documentary about
them through the BBC. Okay.And if we take them
a bunch of pot, theywill take you a Hunting
for the day and thinkof it. But there, there
are a true Hunter gatherer,a tribe. So they don't
want electronics. They don't wantmoney. They have no value
(46:11):
and money, but they willtake part because they are
Stoned out of their minds.And so we go and
they take us Hunting. Butbefore the Hunting, there is
like an hour ceremony whereeverybody is smoking and it
goes on and on andon. And it was just
a very unique experience. I'msure I've got a Contact.
Hi, because like, it waslike we were sitting right
(46:33):
there in the circle withthem and they were smoking
and smoking and smoking.
And then after they're donesmoking for an hour, they
actually send off like theteenagers to go hunting. The
guys who are like, ah,you can tell that's the
tourist, take the teenagers. Solike these teenage boys between
like 18 and 17 takeas a Hunting with Spears
where they are tracking throughthe undergrowth, you know, you
got to be quiet. Otherwise,if you crackle things, the
animals here at As, andit was quite the experience
(46:55):
going hunting with a bunchof stones, teenagers, M who
also, and don't wear ourclothes yet because they don't
have much reason for clothesas a Hunter and gatherer
in tribes either. So it'sa bunch of Stoned naked.
Teenager's in the middle ofthe forest in Tanzania. It
was an awesome for uson a unique experience. And
here's what I'm both interestingand a little sad, but
(47:17):
I think sad is judgementalhere.
You know, the government andTanzania wants to force the
kids to go to school.So in these hunts, this
is the last have thehunting and gathering tribes. There
were five miles from theclosest school and the government
wants to force the kidsto go to school for
good reason. The government wantsthe kids to have a
chance in life to havea choice. But if you
(47:38):
think about it, once thisgeneration of kids goes to
school, there are not goingback to being a Hunter
gatherers, right? Like why wouldyou go to school C
all the other kids withcell phones, C all the
people with jobs in thehoses, and then choose to
go back and hang outwith a spear all day.
Like it's probably not goingto happen. And so what
a manual, all our driverwas explaining it is you
probably won't see this in10, 15 years any more,
(48:00):
it's not going to existanymore.
It's an interesting quandary, asyou say, I mean, how
involved do we, as thedeveloped world get, and is
there a negative connotation tothat involvement when you share
an example like these kids?
Yeah. But on the otherhand, like, are you going
to deny those kids achance, everything that all of
the other kids get? Like,it's a hard one, right?
That's not a, not aneasy answer either way.
(48:22):
And I'd mentioned earlier thatyou are sure started at
the beginning of the yearand has adapted to becoming
more of a video andaudio sho. So what are
your goals for the futureof the podcast and what
do you remain on bothmediums or maybe concentrate on
one of the other orsomething different?
It's a, it's a greatquestion. I think I might
need to ask people howmuch they like the video
(48:42):
is versus the audio, becauseit's rapidly getting to the
point that I'm getting morelistens on the audio, that
views on the video. Andso, you know, it's funny
because when I started it,I thought I'll give the
Podcast of tri for afew months. If it doesn't
take off, I'll just goback to doing just the
video. It was because it'sextra work and no, I'm
like, Oh, the Podcast isactually kicking off or even
faster than the video is.So I don't know. Its
(49:03):
really interesting. I mean I'm,I'm recording on Streamyard so
we're doing the video atthe same time. I could
just do a shorter videothat is just a trailer
for the Podcast. I thinkI needed to ask the
people who are watching andlistening and see what they
think. I think they're goingto keep going with it.
One of the things thatis really interesting as an
author is they say thatyou should try and bring
(49:24):
out books fast. And thereason for that is people
forget about you, right? Youbring out your first book.
My debut came out lastyear. It is still getting
a lot of good PRbecause it's winning all these
awards right now because ofthe words come out of
the following year. But bythe time of award season
is over this year, it'llkind of right off into
the sunset. It'll have, youknow, a few sales, but
it won't be a bigbuzz anymore. And so they
say that you're supposed tobring out your next book
(49:46):
and a year after yourfirst one. Well, very few
authors actually churn out abook a year. It's hard.
Right? And you can, ifyou put yourself in that
kind of schedule, it it'sstressful as well. 'cause, it's
a huge work to dorevise a book. I made
my first book to befive years and it must
have been revised 15 timesAs, and rewritten 15 times
by the time I cameup.
And so I'm working onthe second one right now,
(50:08):
I'm really excited about it.And maybe it'll be in
2020 too. So it'll havebeen, you know, a year
and a half, two yearsfrom the first one. The
really cool thing for thepodcast for me is I
can stay in front ofreaders, an offer them value.
That is not me comingout with a new book
because readers read voraciously. Theylove lots of books, right?
One of the biggest Fictionin the creative world is
(50:29):
the concept of scarcity orthat we're competing with each
other. We are not competingwith each other, right? My
podcast is not compete withyour podcast. People can listen
to both. And the samething in, in the writer
world, my book does notcompete with someone else's book.
In fact is the oppositeof that. If I recommend
a book, someone who waslooking for something to read
is going to read bothmost likely.
And so I love theidea that I'm going to
(50:51):
have something that I cankeep adding value to other
writers and readers, even whenI don't have a book
coming out of myself. Andit's a way for me
to kind of stay intheir awareness, even though I
don't have a book rightnow and it takes a
long time to bring upwith a coat. And so
for me it seems likea really positive way. And
its taking a little bitof the pressure off of
me to bring out anotherbook fast, which is nice
because it is very stressfultrying to like go through
(51:11):
that entire process of writingthe book and revising it.
And when is it ready?When is it actually ready
to see the world? It'sone of the biggest challenges
was challenging.
And, and for this newbook, well y'all have to
be used and a voiceover artist again, to read
it perhaps the same oneas X a Strategy.
It's a great question. Mysecond book is a different
age grip. My second, mymain character and my second
(51:32):
grip is in her twentiesand she's actually a digital
nomad. You know, all ofFiction is inspired from some
version of real life. Somy character in my second
book is a digital nomadwho is an adventure travel
writer. So imagine those peoplethat you see those amazing
photos on Instagram, like hangingoff the cliff by their
fingernails. And they were likehiking in there. So she's
that kind of a bigadventure travels, sky diving, all
(51:53):
kinds of stuff. But shehas a dark past that
she is afraid is goingto catch up with her.
She's living under a newidentity. And so I think
I would have to havemy narrator audition for that
and see if she's ableto do it because a
20 year old character, 26year old is pretty different
to a 30 or 40year old character.
And I know she saidshe was not a fan
(52:13):
of doing like ingenue characters.So I'd need to let
her have a go andsee if it's something that
she gets inspired by aswell, because you want, you
also want the narrator tobe really excited about narrating
that character and feel likethey can give it all
their best to you.
Wow. That's awesome. So Lainey,I really enjoyed chatting with
you today for our listeners.We want to check out
your podcast, buy your bookor perhaps connect with you
(52:34):
online. What is the bestplace to do that?
Yeah, I'm going to giveyou a two Webb addresses.
So to buy my book,as in my author persona,
that's going to be mywebsite, which is Lainey cameron.com,
L a N N EY. Cameron C a M
M E R S On.com. Good Scottish name there.
Actually, my grandmother's made aname is how I picked
my pen name. And ifyou want to check out
(52:56):
the Podcast, it has it'sown website. It's Best of
women's Fiction dot com andyou can find the links
right there on the bestof women's Fiction dot com,
both to the video versionsand its on Apple. It's
on Google podcasts. It's onStitcher, it's on M Spotify
and caret for them, butall of the legs are
right there on the website.
(53:17):
And are we sure haveto leave the links to
all of these in theshow notes. So if you
are listening to your favoritepodcast app, make sure to
check the show notes asusual. So thanks to Lainey.
It's been a real pleasureto speak with you today.
I really appreciate you comingon the show.
Okay. Thanks Danny. This hasbeen so fun. I really
appreciate that. You have invadedme. Thank you so much.
You've been listening to PodcasterStories. If you enjoyed this
week's episode, head on overto Podcaster Stories dot com,
(53:39):
where you can catch upin the previous episodes as
well as sign up tothe three newsletter. You can
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the next time take care,stay safe.