K 

So lately I’ve been thinking about how does my new job compare to my old job. And I also kind of imagine what it would be like to be doing my new job in the US versus doing it in Japan. And I’m super happy I’m doing it in Japan because most of the – so my new job is actually well, y’all know, I’m the owner of a press. I’m actually the editor in chief, but I don’t use that title I use head of marketing. Because I don’t like the title of editor in chief, I feel like that’s heavy handed to be getting an email from the editor in chief, as an author. What do you think, you’re an author?

C 

I would feel like, oh, the big guns.

K 

Right. And I don’t want people to be intimidated by me.

C 

And I think that there are a couple of different roles for editor and not everybody, even writers know which one is which.

K 

Right.

C 

So you’re the editor in chief because you are the one who picks the books. The way that somebody who picks the stories for an anthology is the editor of that anthology. That doesn’t necessarily mean they did be proofreading or line editing or anything.

K 

So I picked the books that go on to the panel. So there’s a group of us that read the books. So I picked the books that everyone reads, like I tell people don’t bother reading this one, I’m going to reject it. And I give everybody, everybody reads the first – sorry. My throat is still thick, is going to be thick all month. Just to warn you all the I don’t know what’s going on some seasonal thing. I know what’s going on They’re working on the building, and I’m allergic to the trees. So everyone reads the three chapters. But then I say whether or not I’ll read beyond the three chapters. And I asked everybody, when we get the three chapters, what page would you stop reading on?

C 

Yes.

K 

And sometimes for me it’s page one. But I do read all three chapters. It doesn’t mean that the writer’s writing isn’t valid, I think every everybody who writes that the writing is valid. And I think that’s because I’m a therapist, and I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s lived experience or anyone’s art, or any person. I think that’s my old job moving into my new job.

C 

I think so because I will absolutely invalidate like fascist writing. Nope. I don’t accept it as valid writing. It’s not valid. Sorry.

K 

So I think if if someone is a fascist, and they write about fascism, and we have non fascist writers writing about fascism.

C 

Yes. I’m saying like fascist propaganda. No, you’re not writing. You’re preaching, but you’re not writing.

K 

Okay. So I’m not ready to accept that I’m not a therapist anymore. I keep thinking that COVID will pass, and that I’ll be able to see clients and office. I do know that I’m not an Etherapist. And I’m still working with things that are going on with my health. And I, as long as we’re still in this pandemic, and still in the crisis, even with everyone vaccinated, the fact that they don’t know how long the vaccination lasts. And that it just, it doesn’t prevent you from getting COVID it just reduces the severity. And all of that, I

C 

Which is what the smallpox vaccine did, too, it reduced the severity. People still got smallpox, it was just a smaller illness.

K 

Yeah. So I know I’m not an Etherapist. I don’t like doing sessions over Skype. Although the plus side to doing sessions over Skype is that they start and end pretty close to on time. There was one client that I would normally go over time with, and that was because we were both trekkies. And so he would have to like talk about what’s going on with Star Trek.

C 

And you didn’t feel right, charging them to do that.

K 

Right. So I’d be like

C 

You’re no Ferengi.

K 

Right? I’m not I’m not Ferengi at all. Because a Ferengi would have been like what? But We would have like our few moments, like sometimes as much as 20 minutes just talking about Star Trek, which was time well spent. So I know I don’t like doing etherapy. I had some clients that only – that didn’t come into the office. I’d like the mix of in office and Skype sessions. But I prefer in office because I felt like when it switched to Etherapy where we were only doing it over Skype, that a lot of my personhood got lost on the client, and clients would be more aggressive. And also clients would do things on Skype that they would not do in person, like take me to the bathroom with them. Or eat, or change, or just completely walk off camera and like cook dinner and be shouting. So that I can hear them and I’d be like, hey

C 

I think that that’s like a time dedication thing. Because I know that I haven’t ever taught online. But I’ve taken classes online. And I feel like the teachers are not very engaged. But I did teach in person, and there was a whole ritual to getting dressed to go teach riding out to the school, like preparing the classroom, there was a ritual to kind of put me in a very different headspace. And now, I work at home. And there’s no ritual, like, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between working and not working.

K 

But that’s why you have an office.

C 

Right. But even when I’m not in the office, like, am I reading news or am I actually just like monitoring things at work? Am I actually playing video games or am I monitoring things at work? Or both.

K 

That’s hard to distinguish. You spend – every night you monitor things at work. Every night, you’re on call for a certain amount of hours.

C 

Yeah, but I I feel like that’s unofficial. I could stop at any time.

K 

No, you couldn’t. And I think that’s the major difference between your new job and your old job.

C 

Yes.

K 

Because you were – so in your new job, you’re a manager in your old job, you were a manager. But in your old job as a manager, everybody stopped working at a specific time. And everybody was working in the same timezone.

C 

Yes.

K 

Everybody was working in Japan timezone. So how would you define old job, new job?

C 

I think at the old job management was kind of an add on to the regular thing that I did. I was a senior editor. We had others. I did the senior editor work. And then every once in a while, I would do the management stuff. And I was supposed to fit it into zero hours so that I could keep working the same amount of hours as I had been on the editing side. I feel like now, management is my primary job. And if I don’t get something done, that would have been my job as a data engineer, because I’m doing management stuff, then that’s totally fine. Because I’m doing my primary job. My primary job is not people management, that’s like a very tiny part of what I do. So I’m worried people are gonna think he’s a micromanager. He spends 40 hours a week managing people? No, I don’t.

K 

But you ask your team all the time if they want you to stop doing some of the things you’re doing. They’re like, no, we enjoy it.

C 

Yeah. Like we have a daily stand up meeting, which is a practice adopted from agile. And I ask them, are you sure you want to keep doing this? Because I do not need you to tell me what you did yesterday, and what you’re going to do today for me to believe you’re going to work. They’re like no, it’s a nice time to socialize.  Ot’s only it’s only 15 minutes and let us socialize as a team. Okay.

K 

Yeah, they take it as team bonding. And they also really value your one on ones.

C 

Yes.

K 

Your weekly one on ones.

C 

And those go different lengths. So I have one person, those are usually five minutes a week and the one person that does usually an hour week, so I kind of follow people’s lead on how much they want that, how much time they want to spend doing that.

K 

So how different do you think it would be if you work in Australia, than working distance from Japan?

C 

I feel like if everybody was in the same office, it might be somewhat different. But because even – I am not the only person not in the office in Australia. At the moment, nobody’s in the office because of COVID restrictions. So I don’t think it would be all that different.

K 

Really, do you think it would be as quiet as your own office? Because your own office was almost silent?

C 

No, I don’t think at all it would be as quiet. Well behaved dogs are allowed. There’s a ping pong table. There’s a kitchen where people go and chat. Like it’s more relaxed. And I think it’s more relaxed than most Japanese companies, because I’ve gone to Japanese companies where there’s like 50 people in one room.

K 

Yeah. And it’s silent.

C 

And it’s silent. I’m like, ehhh.

K 

so the Japanese work culture is you’re meant to be working. And there is a space for conversation. And then the rest of the space is – because most Japanese offices have too many people.

C 

Right.

K 

Like the space just isn’t big. It’s  not like the United States where you have like these huge spaces offices, the owner of a company, like the chief executive officer of a company, used to laugh that my therapy office. Just one room in my therapy office was bigger than his entire office. And they joked about it as a family, and it was not a big deal. And so it was funny when people would call my office a shitty little office. Clients that, you know, sometimes as a therapist, you’re like, hey, this isn’t working out. And some people will be like, fuck you and your shitty little office. And I’m like, okay, my three room office is bigger than your apartment. And that’s bigger than your office at work. Right on. Think it because I want you to kind of thing. So office space in Japan is at a premium.

C 

Yes, it is.

K 

And it’s really crowded. And so the respectful thing to do is to just be silent. And then my office was quite, it’s quite big. It’s 2DK. So it’s two rooms, and it has a dinette is what I would call it in the United States. And then like a little dining area that I’ve converted – now they’re reading spaces for when everybody comes in the office.

C 

Yeah, I think that my current workplace and my previous workplace, both use Slack, and I was remote at both. And in my previous workplace, people were friendly. But Slack was very much please complete job number 714 by 3pm, or let me know if you’re not going to. And my new workplace slack is – so Slack has a free tier where you don’t have to pay anything, but you only get to save 10,000 messages. And then you have to pay if you want to read back further than 10,000 messages. At my previous job, it took us three years to use the 10,000 messages. At my current one, it takes us six days to use 10,000 messages.

K 

Wow. To you?

C 

Huh?

K 

Messages to you?

C 

No for the company in general.

K 

I’m like, that – you’re spending all your day every day reading Slack?

C 

Yeah, no, email is more – I get about 500 emails a week, most of which do not require anything from me. So it’s not like, oh, woe is me. I am the email King. Ot’s more like, I get a lot of emails, most of them just get automatically fired – filed as great. But on the Slack, people will come on and joke and like the CEO comes on and shares dog pictures. And it’s a very friendly atmosphere. They’re trying to recreate what was in the office when they had basically two offices. Which still do, they’re just not fully open because of restrictions in Australia.

K 

I think for you, there’s a lot of similarities between the old job a new job in that your position is really defined.

C 

Yes.

K 

And that your subordinates know they’re your subordinates.

C 

Yeah, but it’s not a big thing.

K 

They know they’re your subordinates. Yeah.

C 

They they know that my – so they know that there are my direct reports.

K 

Is the language of your new position. Your old position, the language was subordinate. So what do you so what is direct report? What’s the difference between being a subordinate and being direct report? Curious minds want to know.My curious mind.

C 

Being subordinate means that you are lower on the corporate hierarchy.

K 

Okay.

C 

And specifically that you are somewhere below the person on the corporate hierarchy and in their chain of command kind of thing. But direct reports of the people who report directly to you.

K 

Okay, and which group has more no’s to give?

C 

I think direct – it depends on the workplace. Like, I get a lot of no’s because I solicit no’s. N-Os, it’s not like, those are mighty fine nostrils. Can I have more nose please? I solicit no’s. I say, I don’t know how to do this. Because I haven’t looked into it. Not because I’m incompetent, but because I haven’t looked into it. I think you have better knowledge on it. What do you recommend?

K 

Okay.

C 

Or I say I think that we should do it this way. Who has a reason we shouldn’t? Because I think there are reasons I haven’t thought of, and let’s talk through and see if they’re persuasive enough to do it a different way. And sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. So, I have a lot of people who are experts in their own field working for me. And so that’s why I don’t really embrace the language of subordinate. Because each person who works me has something that they do better than I could do it.

K 

So here’s the thing was both my, my old job and my new job, nobody who I work with could do what I do better.

C 

Right.

K 

And I found with my old job, people would come in and test my knowledge. And I think because it was in person, and verbal. And as a therapist, I expect there to be a learning each other and building trust window. For there to be. And I found that when, because I had employees, I found that I’m finding the same thing happening. And I think that there’s something wrong in the way I’m approaching things. Because we have a phrase in my family, you have too much tongue in your mouth, which means that you’re popping off and you’re messing with somebody – you’re addressing somebody in a way that’s disrespectful. And I find that my personality and my communication style is such that people only go so far, like there’s a couple people that go a little bit too far and they get shut down. But I find as soon as I hand them off to another team member, that they immediately change, and all of the more aggressive aspects of their personality comes out. And I don’t know how to lend my gravitas and my experience, and my expertise, because when it comes to – when it came to, to doing therapy, my therapy assistant was an expert in assisting me in therapy. And I would say, hey, this person has XYZ amount of experience, please treat them with the same respect that you would treat me. I don’t quite know how to do that in the new job. And people think that because publicly, I’ve been doing this job a year, that I don’t have my seven years of experience in this job because they’re only seeing – they haven’t even seen a year’s worth of experience.

C 

Right.

K 

Because our first book that we published isn’t even a year old. And they haven’t been following us since the beginning, so they don’t see everything that’s been going on. They don’t see all the invitations that the first book got. They don’t see all of the write ups and all of the magazines that it was in and everything that it got

C 

And the awards that are still pending which we don’t know if it’s won the awards are not. May win none of them but there are still

K 

But they were invited – the book was invited. And our second book was invited. We just got a personal invitation for our second book, and our third book and our fourth book. All invited for awards, personalized invitation. And our fourth book is actually an official nominee for an award. So for me I feel like I must be doing something right. I must know something about my business if all of these awards people with us only four books deep into publishing are asking us to please send our books in. And the same with reviews. We’re getting professional reviews and reviewers clamoring for our books. So if I’m doing all of that, I must know – I must know a little bit something.

C 

And the reviews are the ones that publishers don’t pay for.

K 

Yes, correct.

C 

So it’s not a money making opportunity for them except that they want good content. They’re like can you please send us an Ebook – an Ecopy of the book and we will review it in our magazine for free

K 

Correct. So for me I feel like – and reviewers that we don’t even know, no affiliation with, are requesting copies of our books for reviews. So I feel like when people are dealing with me, I have all of that… and all I carry all of that in me. And I feel like – I just have had a few – like our take two is gonna be like the down and dirty about author’s because man oh man. We’ve had some experiences. But in my new job I find that I don’t have the language that to – how do I talk about treating my subordinates with respect because they’re seen as my subordinates, they are not seen as my direct report. And the author, some of them are so nasty at particular parts of the process, like they’re really sweet, flowery and light when you’re signing them.

C 

Right.

K 

But then when it comes to cover art, some of them are so nasty during the cover process that our cover artists have asked, please do not put us in direct contact with any artist with any authors. We don’t want to deal with authors directly at all ever, period. Our editors, please do not put us in contact with any authors. So like nobody on our team wants to deal directly with authors, and all of them have experience in the field. So it’s just Rasta and myself. And Rasta is the head publicists. And I’m the head of marketing because I – I deal with all of the marketing companies. So for me, it’s one having people think that I’m just making up all of these different people even though, like they see the work product.

C 

Right.

K 

Like, I wish I had the artistry to design a cover. But I don’t. Like you can go on our talent page and see that there are cover artists that we work with.

C 

So I think this is a key issue. And I I don’t – I have seen it happen a lot in Japan. And I think it’s worse than in the US., But it still seems to happen a lot in the US. If you say, this person works for me because they are better than me at what they do. I could not do what they do. So I hired them for their talents.

K 

Yes.

C 

People tell you. Well, that’s sad that you suck at that thing.

K 

Yeah. And then they think that I don’t have – I can’t possibly have any judgment about that thing.

C 

Whereas I say, I have a bunch of people who work for me. And they work for me because they are all highly skilled at what they do beyond what I could do if I spent the time. People are like, you’re so smart for iring people to do those things that you know, you’re not good at.

K 

Yes, I’m struggling with like, Why don’t they respect the people that we’re working with? Why don’t they respect the team? Why are they – they respect me, they trust my judgment, but they don’t trust the team. And I think – I know that my energy is always I have strong boundaries. And I have a temper, and everyone can sense that temper. And if you follow us Musick Notes, y’all know I will go off about things. And I just tell people no, I just write back no. And I will write – I will do a 15 chain that’s just me saying no 15 times. And I have no problem with that. And so they go – they try to go around me and do an end run, but like I’m super protective of our team. I’m super protective of our narrator’s, and I’m like if you are abusive towards our – because you have to work one on one with the narrator’s. And I feel the same way about our artists that we use, and there are – we have artists that have said we don’t want to be on your website,

C 

I was gonna say the narrator’s it’s required that they be credited. So they can they can use a pseudonym. And I’m not saying whether or not any of our narrators do use pseudonyms, but narrators can use pseudonyms just like authors can. But they have to use some name. Whereas the artists can be totally anonymous. Most of them request credit. Most of them are like, yes, I would like to be listed on the inside cover of the book. And most of them say, I think I would like to be on your website. But some of them who won’t deal directly with self published authors, for example, are like no, don’t list me. I only deal with other publishers.

K 

Yeah. And so I think that for me, the fact that we respect those boundaries… if – and I had the same thing with – at Adjustment Guidance they only ever saw Rasta and myself. Yeah, and I feel like everybody should be aware Raasta is my son, and that changes the way… they tend to be condescending, but not outright rude. If they know Rasta is my son, because they know okay, well, I don’t want Kisstopher’s energy coming at me because I did something to Rasta.

C 

Right.

K 

And I don’t want to damage the relationship. But I think as a therapist, people were more careful with how they dealt with Rasta than they than they currently are now. And I think so I’m going to say something that’s really shitty. But I’m going to put it out there. I could fill an author’s spot that’s supposed to be published with us six months from now, today. Literally today. So we have authors signed all the way through the year 2025. And I think people don’t understand what I’m saying, when I say that, it means that I can cancel your book, cancel your contract and replace you today if you’re one of the authors if things go sideways. And I hope things don’t go sideways, but we had an author get another opportunity. And they wanted to take their book in a different direction. And I said, okay, and I replaced them in 24 hours.

C 

Yeah.

K 

Not even it took me I timed it, it took me 30 minutes.

C 

So I think one of the dynamics that’s very different between you and me, is that the people that you pay don’t actually work for you. And when you were a therapist, they paid you, but you didn’t actually work for them. Whereas I’m working in a corporate structure, where if somebody says something nasty to somebody who works for me, that somebody works for the same company. And if they are not at the senior manager level, I can tell their manager, hey, this person is out of line and causing, like bad feelings in the company. And if they are at the same senior manager level, I could say, hey, that person works for me. If you have an issue with how I am having them do their work, you need to talk to me.

K 

So for me today, I’m really missing being a therapist. And I’m really not enjoying being in…

C 

Publishing. So I think, and you could tell me that I’m wrong about this, you could tell me I’m wrong about anything. You’re not always right about me being wrong. But I think as a therapist, the people who came to see you were at least nominally interested in self improvement. But were like easing their pain or whatever reason that they were willing to spend the money to pay a therapist to talk with them.

K 

Yes.

C 

And authors are there to get famous and get paid. And some of them still remember to have some humility that they are getting paid by us at Cinnabar Moth taking a risk on them ,and some of them don’t. They’re like, you paid me because I am the best in the world and irreplaceable and deserve to treat you however I like.

K 

Well, and I find that I’m struggling with favoritism within myself.

C 

Yeah.

K 

And I don’t like who I am becoming as a publisher.

C 

Cuz you have your favorite two authors. Obviously.

K 

I have what?

C 

Two favorite authors, obviously, me and Rasta.

K 

No you and Rasta are not my favorite authors. To deal with? To work with?

C 

No, not to not to work with. Just as people.

K 

I don’t like working with either one of you.

C 

Yeah, just as people.

K 

And I think that’s part of what’s souring it for me. Right now we just launched Rasta’s book, Rasta’s book launched this month. And it has been the most uphill both ways and snow launches I’ve had to do of any book. And it is so hard. It’s so hard to deal with. Because Rasta, just doesn’t want to be an author, and wrote that book and then was like, I’m done. Actually wrote this book, mapped out three more books, wrote two thirds of the next book, and then decided not to be an author. And so I’m like, okay, so there’s a book, it finishes. It’s a whole story. But it’s also written in such a way that it could lend itself to a sequel.

C 

Yeah, most books can take a sequel.

K 

Yeah. And then I have you dealing with you, where everybody is clamoring for a sequel to Not My Ruckus, and you’re not writing that ever. And so I have to deal with everybody wanting your next book to be something that it’s not going to be and reshaping minds and getting that promotion out there. And so I’m having to – like promoting a book start six months before the date of publication, sometimes a full 12 months before the date of publication. So I have already started promoting book two of Relatively Normal Secrets, because we’re past the one month mark of the first book being out. So past the one month mark of the first book being out, and it’s just so complicated, and so complex, and some authors are super appreciative, and super get it and want the education and have humility on board and have appreciation on board, which is the majority of authors. There’s just one or two, that think they know everything. And they’re not even close to knowing step one. When I’m doing the education process for them. It’s super, super tedious. Like with therapy clients, it was seriously one conversation on brain maturation. And they’re like, okay, you know, your stuff. Because I can describe every single part of the brain and the neural pathways and how the brain develops and good, deep down and dirty with it. And that gives me all the expertise that, that people need and why they do the things that they do, what neurons are firing, in which pattern what what is the sequence that’s causing this behavior? And what do I do to retrain my brain to not fire in this way. And we can talk about the different techniques and why some techniques work for some people. And certain techniques don’t work for others.

K 

When I try to have that conversation with authors about their books, why this cover works for some books, but this cover will not work for your book, and reader expectation, they don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to hear what I have to say – they have this fantasy of their books so ingrained in their brain. And that’s because some people, we have one author that literally wrote their book 20 years ago. Their book is 20 years old. And it stands the test of time, we haven’t do some modernization of it. We have several authors that wrote books 20 years ago. So this isn’t identifying any particular author. And that causes an intimacy in the relationship that for some authors causes an attachment. And for me, it’s challenging when I have several authors that are all in the same situation. And two of them are being lovely, and one of them is just being just so rigid and stuck and fixed. And for me, with clients, there was so much differentiation, that their backstories were so different, and so individual, that you can really see the individuality. But in the authors I’m not getting to know them on that level. Like some authors do not interact with me at all. Right? They don’t talk to me at all, until it’s time to start working actively on their book. So I don’t know them at all, and other authors I talk to on a regular basis. So I know them really well. I know their temperament. I know their mindset, I know, their hopes, their dreams, their fantasies, their visions, and other authors aren’t talking to me at all, and then get really pissed off at me that I don’t know them. And I didn’t have that as a therapist

C 

Well as a therapist you knew them. And I think too,

K 

That’s not true. I didn’t  – some of my clients, I didn’t know at all. I knew their issues I mean we’re working on and how to help them. I knew how their brain worked. That’s not the same as knowing them.

C 

Well, I think, too, as a therapist, that you had a kind of a limited number of approaches. And you could say why each approach works or doesn’t for different people.

K 

I have unlimited approaches. I find that there’s – no there’s that – any therapist tells you that they don’t have a million approaches. And that if you need a million of one that they’ll find that 1,000,001 approach is shitty at their job.

C 

I mean, that’s a lot of sessions. But I guess

K 

And you can go through, I had one client that we went through 25 different approaches, with them just saying no. And the 26th they’re like, I’ll try that one. That one sounds like it’ll work for me and the 26th worked like a dream. And we did two sessions and they were done.

C 

Nice.

K 

Yeah. So this shows how little Chad knows about therapy and about my clients. So this is true confidentiality at work.

C 

I’m just saying that to get through a million approaches at 25 per session will be 40,000 sessions, and that’s still a lot of sessions.

K 

You can get through approaches fast. You can get through approaches really, really fast. So any, any therapist is taking a long time. They’re like, let’s just do this one approach. Even if you’re not feeling it, they’re a bad therapist. Because I would like I’d be sitting across from so and I’d say, okay, let’s count to five. And they’re like, no, I’m like okay, let’s take a deep breath. Nope. And you ask clients, have you ever been to a therapist before? And what approaches? Have you tried? What worked for you? What didn’t? Why isn’t what worked for you not working now? And then you go from there. So Chad’s only been to two therapists.

C 

Yes.

K 

And had negative experiences with both.

C 

I did. Okay, so then I’ll punch up some business point of view. I feel like therapy is an experience good. You know whether or not you liked it by doing it. And then you can say you don’t like therapy, you know, whether you’ve benefited. Okay, you know, whether you benefited from it by doing it. Yeah. I feel like publishing a book is not an experience good for authors. And they know

K 

that they benefit when the check clears. Right. But their advanced clears they have made every every personally a pain advanced to that is the most amount of money that ever made from their writing. Yes. But I think I already know that they have succeeded with us.

C 

Yes, but I think that most authors, including myself, have dreams beyond money. And the money is like, Oh, this is value

K 

I have gotten you. Everything except the bestseller that you wanted.

C 

Yes. I am not complaining about what you’re doing. Yes. You do complain about what I do. I am not complaining right now. About what like, exactly. On the mind. Exactly.

K 

So chat and rest are my two most difficult. By far, and I think that’s the difference is I’m working with family in a way that I not being recognized as the boss of everything. So like at the therapy practice roster, completely understood that I was the boss, because I’m the therapist. Yeah. So I was a therapist, he was there to support my work. At this on we’re in two completely different lanes. Yes, doing two completely different things. So at work for the press, doing a great job. As an author, he is he sucks. He sucks to deal with as an author, like every step of the way, like on the editing. He’s just like, yeah, whatever the editor says. And I’m like, did you have to go through and read the editing knows? Yeah, because it may change your story. You have to do this. And he’s like, I don’t really feel like being I’m not in an author space today.

C 

I’m like, you’re talking about rasa? I didn’t do that.

K 

I don’t get you on the cover. And like the cover, he didn’t take any of my advice on the cover? I didn’t. He didn’t take any of my advice on the presentation. You told me

C 

you said, here’s the budget. If you can find a cover artist for that budget, go ahead and run your cover.

K  

Because everything no till? Yeah, I did. So I think today I’m hating my job because it’s still with bring work for your family today. Yeah, like working for our family. I don’t like working for you. And I don’t like working for Roscoe because you both treat me like someone you can say no to. And I’m like, but I’m the one that has to market the book.

C 

Yeah. And I don’t feel like I’m saying no to you. I feel like I’m trying to explain my artistic vision.

K 

Oh, God, make me puke. I am so sick of authors in the artistic vision.

C 

I am I will admit that I am not nearly as good a visual artist as I am a writer.

K 

You are not. And your artistic vision is down to like you want to decide on what genre your book is. You want to decide on where and who is marketed to. You want to you want to make every single decision and I’m and micromanage everything I do. And that’s not appropriate.

C 

And thank you appropriate. Thank you for facilitating that.

K 

You’re inappropriate.

C 

Sometimes I

K 

am now. Yeah. roster, on the other hand is like you want me to work?

C 

Can’t you just decide for me interviews,

K 

once you fill out your interviews, and like, but I send my books off to be reviewed. And I’m like, yeah, now you need to finish your interview and your guest blogs for your tour. Like get on it. So yeah, two of my least favorite authors to work with Chad music and master music. What do they have in common?

C 

They both are awesome books.

K 

So I don’t know maybe next month I won’t hate this job as much.

C 

Yeah, you’ll be working with a different author. Next month.

K 

We don’t have a book coming out.

C 

Yeah, but your work is primarily way before books come out.

K 

Yes, I already started to transition to working with two other authors right because I’m current Working with four authors,

C 

right? Because from the lighthouse is complete, it’s got to cover it’s it’s not complete, all of the steps are not done. But the book itself is complete. There’s additional work to do on action.

C 

Yes, exactly.

K 

Just report. Yes, exactly. It says in the report phase, and rasters book will be, and just the report phase by the end of December, I think. And so I won’t be shackled. But then I have a working with one of my favorite authors this month. And I’m, I’m working with, like, in the upcoming months, I’m working with authors that I absolutely adore, that I just absolutely, like it thrills and delights me that I’m going to be working with them. They’re just dream authors. Well, that’s cool. Yeah. So there’s so I am trying to not have favorites. As a therapist, I didn’t have favorite clients, right? I had way more compassion for each person. But I find that the author’s journey is not that unique. So I guess for me, I need to look at it. I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to conceive it. Like I don’t know how to conceptually cuz like, and I know you and roster. Yeah. But I don’t know how to when they tell me their story. And their story sounds exactly like another author story. I don’t understand how to conceptualize them as someone completely different. And that’s weird. So

C 

when you have when you had clients, was every one of their stories completely different? Yes. Interesting. Because I would think there’d be themes. Like, I’m an abuse survivor, or I’m,

K 

like, I worked with a lot of trans clients, and all of them are trans and transitioning. But that transition journey is so different. So maybe it was the intimacy level. Yeah. Maybe I’m missing intimacy.

C 

Yeah, maybe because I know, not my record is a book about trauma. And it’s a lot of my trauma, and you know that, but

K 

but you’re still my most difficult All right, right. And I know you the most intimately, yeah.

C 

And I think that maybe when my story is translated into a book, you don’t see the intimacy in that. Because you know that the underlying story,

K 

I think, because when I write I’m so not attached to my writing,

C 

yeah, that’s so odd for me, and no professional authors who are not attached to the writing, who are like, yeah, I write 10 books a year. Like, but how can you do that and just let them go. They’re like, it’s a job. I just sit down with the formula. I come up with names I come up with what sport they play that made them fabulously rich. Like Hello. And I write my billion I romances What?

K 

I feel like it’s a job like, yeah, I and I do get into the books. I do care. But

C 

my Yeah. And for me, it’s not a job. It’s a calling. Oh, my gosh.

K 

And I don’t get that. I don’t. And I do questions to authors on Twitter. And like, I am shocked, shocked by some of the author’s processes. And I’m trying to understand authors in this questions. And that’s why I’ve been on Twitter because I get a large swath. Yeah. And it’s not just authors we work with as authors that we don’t work with as well. And I guess that if they feel like they’re opening a vein and bleeding on the page, one, like, why are you doing this as a job, but they just feel compelled. They feel compelled to write. So I think I need to understand authors better because I understand the processes the process of publishing really well. But I don’t understand the process of being an author. And I’ve

C 

seen you do other art, too. I’ve seen you do visual art. And you just sit down and you make a piece and you’re like, what it’s done.

K 

Yeah,

C 

do what you will with that. Yeah, I

K 

don’t care.

C 

Yeah. So I think for you, you just have a disconnect between your work and your identity. Yeah, I do. And I’m not saying it’s better to have a connection, just that I feel a connection between my work and my identity.

K 

Is I did an a really nice art piece because you like, you say you can do art, but I’ve never seen it, but and so I sat down one day and made an art piece and like, That’s amazing. And I put it on display. And everybody was like, this is a gorgeous piece of art. Who’s the artist? Now? It’s like me, and they’re like, and I’m like, No, it’s nothing really. And you see me write stories. And I’m just like, Yeah, I don’t care. Like how

C 

long does it need to be? Yeah,

K 

how many words? Is it?

C 

How long do I have to write it?

K 

Yeah. And you were shocked that in the anthology, this two stories I have in the anthology, I literally wrote both of them in a day. Yes. I sat down and wrote them. And that was it. And you’re like, these are both two very different stories minds, I guess they are thank you for noticing.

C 

Right? Like, how did you shift your entire soul to be the kind of thing that would write that story? Like, why

K 

are you talking about? I just had an idea, and I wrote it down? what you’re doing? So yeah, I think I need to understand our history. Maybe I need to join like, a circle group of artists talking about being writers talking about writing, like writers on writing.

C 

Yeah, that might be helpful for you. Cuz I think you’re really good at the business part. Because it doesn’t affect how well you do the business part. So you’re like, why should I bother?

K 

Yeah, I don’t know. But if you want to know what I really think about authors, you can follow 72. And we’ll be talking about some of the different things that why I don’t get some of the different reactions we’ve heard from authors and why don’t understand them. And if you become a patron, you can help us improve our sound quality. Chad needs a new mic.

C 

I do, I had to fiddle with it for 10 minutes to get it to, I hope not click and pop the entire time so

K 

that we appreciate and love each and every one of our music notes. And I save mentioning putting for the very last part of the transcript because step Control F in the transcript, listen to the episodes like you used to, you have time. So thank you so much for giving us your time and attention. And we hope you follow us on over if you become a patron there’s over like 100 Yeah, there’s hundreds of uptake teas, and you can spend the whole day with us, you can see our writing and you can listen to more of us talking about talking about the publishing house. And next week, we’re talking about something completely different. We’re talking about the how grant being a grandparent or not being a grandparent the difference of how those are viewed in Japan and the US so we’ll get back to the US versus Japan next week. Talk to them. Bye bye.