Release the Chickens! Part 4 of 4

Bruce and Sharon shift gears to their non fiction readings, including The Emperor of All Ailments month others. Sharon shares her love of Liquid Death and Bruce admits that he has discovered ultra caffeinated coffee. There is also some discussion about Barnes and Noble not stocking hard back books. They talk about print on demand, and Bruce postulates that POD machines should become localized.

Things that get mentioned: https://siddharthamukherjee.com https://liquiddeath.com https://www.deathwishcoffee.com https://www.barnesandnoble.com (Silver Magic)- https://brickcaveclick.com/nl0rtq (Blood From A Rose)- https://brickcaveclick.com/qg2aos

This episode was recorded August 25, 2022.

Join authors Sharon Skinner and Bruce Davis as they record the next episode of their Brick Cave Podcast. Covering a wide gamut of literary topics, you are sure to find the listen an engaging and entertaining event.

About Sharon Skinner

Sharon Skinner is the author of numerous books and a number of short stories, including the Tavara Tinker Series. Her most recent title, The Exile's Gift, is available now from Brick Cave Media. She is online at https://sharonskinner.com or https://bookcoachingbysharon.com

About Bruce Davis

Bruce Davis is the author of many books and several short pieces of fiction. He writes science fiction, fantasy and non fiction. His most recent title, Silver Magic, is currently available from Brick Cave Media. He is online at https://brucecdavis.com

About Brick Cave Media®

The Brick Cave Podcast is ©2024 Brick Cave Media LLC., all rights reserved. for more information on Brick Cave Media, visit the organization's website at https://brickcave.media. The Brick Cave Membership Community is called the BC Book Club, and you can join at http://bcbookclub.com.

Wanna Hear Their Thoughts on YOUR first Page?

First Words is the segment of the show where Bruce and Sharon each select the first page of someone’s work, read it on air, and discuss it with feedback.

You can submit your first manuscript page to have them read it during the show, learn more here:

https://brickcave.media/index.php/brick-cave-podcast/about-the-podcast

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Deal with around, his medical condition
and him wanting to play sports and having to deal with all of these different
things because he was having these seizures, and it took them some time to
figure out what was going on and and what kind of treatment and everything.
But the the book itself is actually very hopeful and
very filled with and she's an she she has anxiety disorder,

(00:23):
so she always is looking for the the thing that the bad thing to happen.
And the one she's lying and you know, she's lying on the floor thinking how
great things are, and then she goes to bed, and then she wakes up to
her son having this major seizure, and he's a teenager. So,
so there's the bad thing. Right? And, it's her dealing with that and
learning the whole family, learning to deal with it. So I thought that was it
was really well done. It was really well done. I

(00:46):
know it doesn't sound like a topic though of memoir that you could really
engage with, but she does a a great job with it. So
yeah. And my nonfiction reading has skewed heavily
toward not so much memoir as,
small slices of history. Yeah. Okay. So,

(01:08):
the emperor of all ailments, which is a story of
the development early development of chemotherapy
Oh. In children. It's about
cancer treatment in general and identification of
cancer as a subspecialty worthy of
study rather than something that's just a hopeless thing. And

(01:31):
then how they developed a lot of these chemotherapy specifically aimed at childhood
leukemia. And on the one hand, it's
just absolutely tragic. Because you get
Yeah. You know, all this investment in patient reports.
The names are changed, obviously. But, oh, we're trying this and this and this and
this and this. And, oh, look. The counts are different and the counts are better

(01:54):
and baby died. And it's like,
but it's it's a good
layman's discussion of
how clinical science
tries to work. Right. And it's for the
medical professionals. It's like, oh my gosh. What

(02:17):
IRB approved fact?
But this is the pioneering days Right. When you could do these things.
And it makes you realize, man, if they hadn't done that,
we wouldn't have to worry about IRPs because everybody would just
die. Well, that's hard. It's

(02:38):
it it is a an excellent book. It's a good
read. It gets a little dense at times because it's it's
written by a physician. Mhmm. And he gets very
heavily sometimes into the biochemistry of cancer and how we're
gonna attack it and how those decisions were made.
For the layman, it would be a little bit dense. For me, it was like,

(03:00):
oh, that is so cool. Well, I'm I just added it to my,
you know, pile. So I my TBR pile, which will be here
long after I'm not because it never ends. But, mhmm,
yeah. But, yeah, most of what I've been reading over the summer has just
been fun stuff. Yeah. Just just entertainment
with I've read, I think, 30 picture books this summer.

(03:22):
I've kind of been studying the picture books again and because I have clients
who are writing picture books again. So I'm
delving back in and and making sure that I've I'm paying attention to what's
happening in the picture book realm right now and what books are being published and,
you know, making sure that I'm keeping up with, a lot
of that. So and I also am writing a

(03:45):
a new blog that will be coming out in September that talks about
the language of illustrations. So Okay. Yeah. So I I'm
also, you know, feeding the hopper for that. So yeah.
So, yep. Oh, I have to say, I
there I've I have a new thing that I have to tie I have
to talk about that is

(04:09):
I found a new it's not a soft drink. It's a
carbonated beverage that I really, really like. But I think more than
anything, I think the advertising is what did it, and the branding is
what did it. It's called liquid death. And they brand and
their tagline is murder your thirst. And
Okay. Yeah. And one of the flavors is bury it alive.

(04:32):
So I'm like, this is my new, favorite
drink, and there's no alcohol in it and there's no sugar in it. So it's
it's it's great for me and it's tasty. So but I just
love the I just didn't like to talk about it. My new
discovery. I've discovered
ultra caffeinated coffee. Ultra caffeinated coffee.

(04:54):
Oh, boy. So death by coffee,
you know, black death.
See? These people know how to market to us. That's it. They know they
know what they're doing. They're marketing right at us. Electric buzz.
Yeah. My wife calls coffee, coffee, buzz, buzz.

(05:16):
Mango chainsaw. And, what's the other
one? Oh, I can't remember the
lime one. But See, if you're gonna put names like that on it,
though, you gotta be able to back it up. It's tasty.
It's I like it. So I'll give it a try. I mean,
these coffees, like yeah. It's like, oh.

(05:40):
Oh, my. He stole my
beating heart. Well, let's see. What else do we wanna talk about? Well, I think
the big thing out in the the book industry is,
how Barnes and Noble is not stocking hardbacks, especially for
middle grade. And so there's a big uproar about that.

(06:00):
And I just I just thought it was worth a mention because it's it's
all the rage right now. Everybody's talking about it. But to me, it's a business
decision. They're not selling hardbacks, so they're not
ordering hardbacks. I haven't been in the Barnes and Noble for
3 or 4 months, maybe longer. And the
last time I was there was to

(06:24):
purchase gifts for young
readers, 9 year old. What I know
but I always browse. Mhmm. And what I noticed was
I didn't see any hardbacks then. Right. Everything on the
shelves is trade paperback And you'll see
a show a a a special table of hardbacks

(06:47):
of, you know, particularly popular authors Right. Or
the cheap hardbacks that are reprints of, you
know, Classics. Classics. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, there
are a couple of things that feed into that. One is that it's less expensive
for the buyer to buy a paper bag. Right.
And it's also shipping costs are lower

(07:10):
because they're not so heavy. Because hardbacks weigh more
because Printing costs are lower. Right.
I'm surprised and and I've I've been saying this for years, but I'm surprised that
no one has jumped on the print on demand machines.
I realize their upfront investment is huge.
But if you're gonna have this huge investment in

(07:33):
stock on the shelves and shipping costs and Why not
have the Why not have the machine right there? Yeah. Yeah. And,
hey, I'll print your book. Here's a coupon for your coffee. Go have
15 minutes, you know, of peace and quiet in my in our Is that how
it works though? I don't is that Yeah. It is. Yeah. Quite literally
That's They can print a trade

(07:55):
paperback on demand in 15
minutes. Oh, then there you go. Why are they not doing that? Well,
the cost of the machine is high. It's evident. Okay.
The quality of the product that comes out
is not quite as
high as, you know, the glossy trade paperback.

(08:18):
Mhmm. You don't get the glossy cover. You get a matte cover.
I'd rather have a matte cover. Right? Well, you don't get the
glitz. Right. And
the wait time can
be longer than 15 or 20 minutes. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours
depending on On the book. The book, whether they have to get the program and

(08:41):
the formatting in from another location. But for popular books that
are selling well, they're all right there in the little machine. Right. Now,
the cost of the machine is huge and you have the cost of
paper and ink and everything else. And then the cost of maintenance
and the thing can break down. So I understand why but this is the
same machine that is doing print on demand for

(09:03):
Amazon. Right. There's no difference.
It's just that it's in the, you know Warehouse.
Warehouse. Right. And you get your book, what, in 24
hours? I guarantee you that book is not sitting printed
Chances are. In the warehouse. Chances are it was printed, you know,
that day. Now, I do print on demand for my

(09:27):
own self published books and it takes, used to take 5
days. Now it's taking a couple weeks, but I think that has more to do
with How many print on demand books are being. Books are there and then
shipping. Right. Right. Yeah. Because that takes time. Because that takes
time. It's just a model that I'm I've been kind
of surprised. Now it's not the kind of thing that your indie

(09:48):
bookstore is gonna do. Right. You're gonna spend 2,000,000 on one of
these machines, plus the cost of upkeep and with a big
outfit like Barnes and Noble. Yeah. They've already got But then they'd have to
have so many of them, I guess. I don't know. It's a good that's how
you really get 1 or 2 of them on hand, then they'd have their
specialty books, their Guzzi, you know, and still stock books.

(10:10):
But it would be the coffee table books and the collection of
photos books. This is not good for illustrated books. This is
print books. Right. But they already have the coffee shop.
They already have the game center. They already have their music stuff.
Why not this? That's a good that's a good question.

(10:30):
Well, let's see if that hap anybody picks up on that.
So, before we go, how about a writing update?
I am 2 thirds of the way through my
current project. It's been a slog
the last I'm at a stage
where there is not much in the historical record about

(10:53):
what went on between March May. Mhmm.
There's a lot that went on because the events
of May indicate that stuff was going
on. It's just not documented. Mhmm. Which on the one hand is good for
me because I get to play. Right. But on the other hand,
is a little bit tough because I have to stay still within the parameters

(11:17):
of what they would've known and what what would've gone on.
But I'm gonna I'm gonna have a little fun with having a
character that there's very little known
about appear at a key
point where we don't know if she was
there or not because we don't know the woman who actually christened the Enrica. We

(11:39):
don't know who she was. So I wanna make her one of my main characters.
Oh, nice. Okay. And there's gonna be some undercurrent
with that. And in the crowd then is going to
be one of the main opposition characters who's there
kind of undercover watching all these events unfold. Oh.
So Alright. I'm looking forward to that.

(12:01):
I really and I may have to engage your services as a book
coach, Sharon, because I'm I'm too close to this
to really tell is this just bogging down.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Or is this along the lines
I'm trying to write along the lines of, you know, Lacqueray.
Mhmm. Smiley's people and and Tinker Taylor. You know?

(12:24):
Yeah. There's a lot of trade craft going on, but it's
not flashy. It's not James Bond. Right. You
know, it's the spy who came in from the cold. I mean, it's you know,
this is. Right. And and it's I don't know if
it's interesting. Well, I guess we'll find out. Yeah. I guess we will.
Well, I happen to know that your, 3rd book in the magic series

(12:47):
is currently getting close to coming to press.
It's Oh, boy. Yeah. I I'm looking forward to that. Very close.
It's in copy edits, and there's a
a there's a, cover being done. I I'm very excited about that. So
very close. I I I wanna get that one out. I'd love if we could
get that out by the end of the year. I I think it's coming. I

(13:10):
think that I think that's a I think that's gonna happen. You say I've got
a series of books. You get 2 books. You got 3 books, that's
a series. And then maybe you could make people wait for but look forward
to Okay. Alright. Yeah. When you've only got 2, it's kinda like,
you know, you wrote a couple Well, you're close. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming
soon. Dare I say sooner than some other

(13:31):
people's 3rd book. So, but we won't we won't get into that.
So I I have a new book coming out
also before the end of the year. And so Blood from a Rose,
my dark fantasy that borders on horror, is
right now in final final mode, so I'm waiting for an arc to
come. Boop boop. I'm so happy. So So So

(13:54):
You have not talked about this much. No. I really haven't
because it's it well, it's partly because it's so different for
me, and it's been years in the making. It's
really made up of, short,
dark fantasy and short dark stories
and flash fiction that went very dark on me very

(14:15):
quickly when I was trying to write. Oh, I'll just have this prompt, and I'll
write flash fiction from this picture of a flower. And, oh my god,
that went really dark, really fast. And some of my darker
poetry, so it's a collection that I've put
together. And the way that it's
organized and structured is that it brings

(14:36):
you into the stories,
as night sets in and takes you throughout the darkest
part of the night and brings you back out at the end
as we were coming out of the darkness. And
I loved doing it, and I really am happy with the

(14:57):
structure and the organization. And I'm excited for it because it
is so different for me. So it's a collection. It it'll be interesting to see
then. And then you're still working on your sequel to Colors and
Curses. Yeah. So that's coming now. So that's for next year. That's,
it's got a ways to go. It's not first drafted yet. So
it's planned. It's started. It's just not it's not there yet. So

(15:21):
yeah. But We'll have to talk about that later then. Yes. We will. We will
talk about that later. Because I'm I'm looking forward to that too. I
just wanna see how those characters play out.
I I'm I'm having fun with it. So, you know, I that's part of that's
part of it. Right? I'm having a lot of fun with it. So yeah.
Well, gosh. I think we've run out of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But

(15:43):
it's it's been great getting back into the swing. I don't know how our
producer's going to edit this into something that's smaller
bites, but, boy, I've had a good time. So have I. This has been fun.
Well, I guess we'll see you all next time. Thanks for listening. And thank you
for buying Brick Cave Books.