Ep 310 Writing for the Male Reader with Henry Brown

Welcome to Pencils and Lipstick. This is a podcast for indie authors. I'm Cat Caldwell, novelist, short story writer, and book coach. Here on Pencils and Lipstick, we're obsessed with bold things story, and it is my goal to bring you the writing tips that you need to make your novel come to life. Back to Pencils and Lipstick.

I'm Cat Caldwell, and this is episode three ten, and it is May 9 as I record this. So May 9 means that May 8 was yesterday, which means that Next Love is out already. And I already have a copy in my hands, which is very cool. I actually ordered it from Amazon. It came within, like, a few days, but the guy tossed it onto my porch and ripped it.

I don't know. Amazon, I don't know what they're thinking. So I was thinking, like, this has made me realize when you're ordering from a smaller boutique store that actually, like, shrink wraps books and, like, make sure that it arrives nicely, that is totally different from Amazon and it might actually be worth the few extra dollars. I know that Amazon right now is probably the cheapest place to do to buy paperbacks. Like IngramSpark and Barnes and Noble is kind of forcing me to have it at, I believe, $18.99, if not $19.99.

I can't really remember. And I think on Amazon, I'm able to have it at $15.99. But, again, like, the rip is crazy. I mean, if this you know, with Amazon, the good thing is that you can tell them and they will replace it, but who knows if the next person will toss it as well? Like, it actually crumpled the back of it, but it's not actually ripped on the back, but not great.

Right? Like, that's not fun. And the weird thing about being an author is sometimes people will get their book like this, and then they'll give your book a one star because of the delivery, because it got ripped, which has nothing to do with the book, but, you know, whatever reviews. So if you guys are looking for the book, it will be in KU until August 9. So if you're a KU reader, go ahead and grab it.

The ebook is at three ninety nine and it will be there. I'm not gonna raise it, but the paperback is on Amazon, $15.99. You can find it at other places which I recommend, you know, if you want your book to look nice, choose from the extra dollars to go to order it from other people. I am actually now going to work on getting it into local stores. Life has not stopped, and so I haven't actually gotten that done yet.

So today we have an interview, and next week we are doing we have the Craft and Connect episodes. But this week I have an interview with Henry Brown. He is a men's adventure, fiction author, kind of like pulp fiction. We talk a lot about, where to find male readers as the episode title says. You know, what's the difference between writing comics and writing books and just sort of like that those genres that are really for men and finding your your readers and finding where they're hanging out and how to sell.

And he has a couple of cool ideas about what he's going to do, possibly bringing other authors like him together. So I I suggest you guys continue to listen and check him out. Go click on his links, especially if you are a men's adventure or pulp, fiction author. Like, go see maybe you guys can do some collaboration. As we say, like in the conversation, most likely collaboration is where we're all gonna have to start moving towards just because it kind of takes the burden off of finding your readers all by yourself.

I have to say, like, I, you know, it it is actually a little bit easier to find readers for contemporary romance, but like the ads for contemporary romance are extremely expensive. I consider doing a bookbub for contemporary romance, but it's double what it is for historical romance. So there are all these things that you have to consider, you know, and where what you're going to put your money into. So next week is Craft and Connect. We're going to continue our conversation on ideal reader.

An ideal reader is something that we all have to constantly even as Henry and I speak today in the interview, we have to constantly be looking for. Right? We have to find out where they are, what they're doing, who they are, how to get our books in front of them, how best to advertise to them. If you know, I've said this several times, but if, you know, like McDonald's and Coca Cola and all that, they all have several different ways to reach each different niche target. And I don't love the idea that we have to do that, but it kinda do.

Like, hate to be the bearer of bad news to you, but we kind of have to do that as well. And so next week, we will be announcing the date and the sign up for the next Craft and Connect live. It is gonna be in June. It's gonna be on a Friday, June, twelfth. Friday, June at 3PM eastern, but we will have we'll announce it again next week.

We'll have the sign up for that. And, again, it's free. You guys can come and bring your questions for marketing and books and all of that. So definitely continue to listen and we are going to have quite a few more interviews coming up, so you won't have to listen to just me. But, again, if you guys love second, second chance contemporary romance, please go check it out.

I'll have like, next love. I will have the links in the show notes below. I don't always say this part, which I should. I should be better at this, but if you are listening or watching, please, you know, click the likes and the subscribes and maybe give a review or a little comment. It helps the algorithm a lot.

There are lots of podcasts out there, lots of people doing lots of things that is all amazing. So any sort of interaction, really helps the algorithm on both the podcast apps and the YouTube app realize that that people want to listen here. And it helps me, but it also helps my guests, be found and find their readers. And so if you're ever looking, you know, it's sort of like paying it forward in life. Right?

It doesn't take much to click a like and subscribe and maybe leave a comment or two. And if you guys, know someone who you would like to to have for me to have on the show, let me know. You can always DM me on TikTok or Instagram. Be sure to follow me there because I am doing a Reels challenge and it's pretty funny. All the things that are working for grabbing your guys' attention, things that I didn't think would work, but I'm having fun doing it and that's all that I really care about.

So, so even if you don't, read or write men's adventure fiction or pulp fiction or comics, I think that you should still stick around to listen to the conversation that I have with Henry about, like, where, things are moving, what ideas we can have, in finding our ideal readers and finding out where they're hanging out because our conversation really goes into kind of just this back and forth of where can we actually it's kind of less of an interview or more of a conversation on where what we can do as individual authors to go find our readership. Also, be sure to check out Henry's Kickstarter. If you've never been on a Kickstarter, you're going to want to listen to how he's done it. It's really beautifully put together. If you or anyone you know loves comics, I highly, I want you to go check out his his Kickstarter.

You're probably really gonna like it. Like, I'm I'm not kidding when I say, like, the graphics are amazing. They're beautiful. Alright. So now that that is I've said all of that, let's get into the interview with Henry Brown.

Alright. I am here with Henry Brown today. I'm excited to talk to you, because one thing about you, you're you're actually a paratrooper. Like, you jumped out of planes?

I did.

Oh my gosh. That's so crazy. How okay. How did you go from paratrooper to rider?

Well, they're more related than you would guess. Both were a both were an effort to find adventure.

They're both scary.

In their own ways. Yes. Yeah. And real life, the the military life, is it's a whole lot of boredom.

Okay.

With punctuated by a few moments of sheer terror. Oh, god. So

That's a great way to sell it. I'm sure the the army will be calling you for writing some props again.

When I was going through the suck, I often said, you know what? I could make something a lot more exciting than this is.

Really?

So yeah.

That's so funny. Because I listened to somebody from the CIA, who had written a book, and they were like, yeah. The books, you know, with agents are a lot more exciting than the actual, like, life of an agent. Like, a lot of it's just sitting at a desk. And I was like, don't say that.

We don't wanna know about that. Like yeah. I mean, you kinda a book is condensing it down, isn't it? So how long were you in the military for?

Twelve years off and on.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Jumping out of like, I think I can see the, like, yeah, the attraction to oh, that would be cool if I could say that I did that, but actually do it like, actually being told to jump out of the plane. I would probably back out and be

like Yeah. I was worried my first one and, of course, the first one is usually, for most people, it's the most scary one.

Oh, is it?

And, of course oh, yeah. And I worried that I was gonna freeze in the door, you know, like some people do, and I didn't. It was actually the one I I mentioned the boredom, but, the boredom includes a lot of extreme physical agony.

Oh my god.

You're really solid dude. The job.

Hey, guys. Join the military.

Yeah. And a whole whole lot of hurry up and wait and head games and, you know, people barking at you. So, actually, my first one was one of the easiest ones.

Okay.

It was like I kept you know, my my cynical nature said, yeah. This isn't really gonna happen. It's they're gonna cancel at the last second for some BS reason or something. But then it finally happened, and I was like, oh, okay. This is how it is.

I guess I'm in the air falling down into the Earth. Oh my gosh. See, I think, I almost feel like you could almost do the first one, but then I'd be like, I'm good. I'm not I I don't wanna do that again. Yeah.

But you still have to. Oh my gosh. No. So, I mean, I guess, Dave Chesson was all was navy. Right?

There's a couple of you guys who who were in the military and got bored and decided to start writing books. So did you start writing when you were still in it?

Well, honestly, I started when I was a kid.

Okay.

And yeah. So I've always had a creative streak. The and my love of reading started with comic books. So that's what got me jump started into reading. And, of course, I graduated the prose later on.

And then I was I was doing both. I was creating my own little comic books as a child. Yeah. And then later on, I I gradually, over the years, stopped drawing and started concentrating more on the the writing aspect of it, which was a bigger challenge at the time. And so when I was in when I was in the army, I I continued writing whenever I had a chance, and I thought, you know, I'd get all this valuable experience I could put into, you know, a war novel or something.

And that's partially true. But I never completely lost the creative urge, even though, you know, I tried to be, I I I tried to do the

Go get a real job like we were all told. Yeah. Yeah.

That thing. And then but, I don't know how much you wanna go into biographical stuff. But, Yeah. I think

Let us know.

So, after I got out, I held a succession of of dead end blue collar work jobs for a long time, but I never completely gave up. And the whole time, I was trying to I finally started, as a civilian, I started trying to, get into track of the traditional way by writing query letters and and all that. Once in a while, one would accept sample chapters, and that went nowhere. I had a couple I had two, I think, experiences where a editor wrote me back. Okay.

But aside from that, it was

all unusual, yeah, that that they write. It's usually a form letter.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in one of them, it was interesting because I was at the time, I was waiting on a call from a lawnmower mechanic, and the phone rang. And I don't I didn't get that many calls at the time, and I assumed, okay. This is about the lawnmower.

And I picked it up, and it took me a couple minutes to realize that this guy was an editor.

He actually called you?

He called me. Wow.

Yeah. I've never heard

of it. And it turned out to be what some authors call a rave rejection.

Oh.

So he's, love your work. It was great. Very well done. Blah blah blah. We can't we can't publish it.

But okay. Yeah. So the thought the the fact that he actually made the took the trouble to call me Yeah. Was was, I guess, my fifteen minutes of fame.

Yeah. That's amazing. Well, was it do you think it's mostly I mean, I feel like lit RBG and fantasy and comics, and they're all being helped a little bit right now. I mean, my kids are back in are in comics now. Like, my 18 year old girl is super into them now, where maybe I wasn't in the field, but it just didn't feel like they had like, they're almost coming back into their heyday right now.

I so I don't know when when that year was, but maybe they were the traditional publishers are always looking for the the dollar sign. Like, they're it doesn't necessarily mean that your work isn't good. It's just, like, they they aren't sure it's not the trend, and so they're not gonna, like, take the

Well and unknown to me, it was a dying industry already then.

Really? They

were they were downsizing.

Was it, like, the early two thousands?

Mhmm.

Yeah. Which is so funny, isn't it? And then it comes back, and it's like nobody stops loving this. You know? Like, we because when we were kid well, when I was a kid, my parents claimed that comic books were not real reading.

Like, that was their Yeah. Because even though it's, like, it's a story, you still have to you actually have to use more of your imagination to fill in the blanks. Right? But I think now, like, you can find more graphic novels. And a lot of kids' books are actually making graphic novels.

Right?

Yeah. Well, manga, of course, is really big right now.

And is that Japanese? I don't know too much about it.

That's Japanese. You read it from right to left. Okay. You don't read you don't read the words from right to left, but you read the pages right to left.

Okay.

And, yeah, it's Japanese. And, the big two, which is Marvel and DC, they're in bad shape, and they've been bad and getting worse for quite a while.

Really?

Yeah. Some people will still try to defend them, but it's it's mostly garbage. What you're seeing probably is an explosion in indie comics Yeah. Independent comics. Yep.

So in all different kinds of genres. Although manga is really big right now, it's got the it's got that funnel system for you know, into bookstores and places where people actually go to buy retail, buy buy stuff to read. And indies don't have that yet. Indies have

Yeah.

Turned to Kickstarter and Indiegogo and Fund My Comic and, venues like that, which turn out to be, in some cases, a good way to get past the the gatekeepers and, get their get their product right before the readers.

I find that odd that the in the trad industry is not picking up on that.

They have started a bit. So so maybe as recently as this year, the big two, like, funded some stuff on In Kickstarter, I think. Don't quote me on that, but I did read something to that effect. It might have been Indiegogo or something else.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

That's interesting. And so are the manga writers, are they mostly Asian or or Japanese?

As far as I know. Okay. Yeah. As far as I know.

So that's even gatekeep that way? Like, you have to be of a certain

Well culture? Yeah. And they're I guess, if you're looking at trad pub manga, it's that way. But there are a lot of manga fans in The States and in other countries who are like, they the artist draw in manga style, and I assume, you know, they they team up with writers who well, I don't know. The the the storytelling I think that's why manga is so popular is because the non western story or the non, without getting political, they don't they don't, insist on cramming the same tropes and narratives in the face of the reader that the big two currently do.

So I think that's one of the reasons why they're so popular now.

Yeah. I can see how the the comic world readers are a little rebellious and don't just wanna don't really want the the traditional publishers to tell them what to read or think. Yeah. I could see how that would be. Yeah.

But I think that will be part of the traditional downfall is that they they're they're actually becoming less accepting of of people in their in different cultures and by making sure that only specific tropes and things are

Yeah.

Very strange. But I think you're right. I think, I have seen a lot of people do comics in the indie space and do very well, especially, like, your that world is pretty small. Like, everyone knows each other, and so that they're they're, like those readers are looking for more. Right?

Like, if you feed the machine of the reader, they're, like, looking for more. So that that is nice if you if you're writing it.

It's like anything else where, finding the readers is the real trick. Yeah. Finding the readers who finding your audience is something. And, Indiegogo, is into canceling, so I didn't even try with them.

Really?

In fact, the first crowdfund comic I backed up, that I was a backer for

Yeah.

It it had funded. It is it met its goal. And then they they canceled it for political reasons, and I got refunded. Now Kickstarter's got its own kind of gatekeeping. They have the ability to choose winners and losers, much like Amazon.

Yeah. Yeah.

And in my opinion, they do that frequently. Fund My Comic is, a free speech platform. And as far as I can tell, they they they live up to that reputation, but they don't have much of a organic audience there. Okay. So no active gatekeeping as far as I can tell, but it's still difficult.

You have to

You have to bring your audience.

Yeah. Something like a cartoonist said that that is obviously true. I'm finding out now as you in order to crowdfund, you have to build the crowd before you try to fund.

Okay. Yeah. Those are, like these are all I mean, so who who is your, artist? Luke Stone?

Luke Stone.

And do do you draw as well?

I quit drawing quite a while back. And for a while, when I was trying to get this this project off the ground, I get had such bad experience with artists.

Really?

Undependable, flaky, would not draw what I was paying them to draw.

That's

interesting. So for a time, I thought, man, to get this done, it looks like I'm gonna have to learn how to draw again myself.

Oh my gosh.

And yeah. But, fortunately, I I I met Luke, and at the time, he was seeking commissions. And, I was parent the whole time, because it's a 100 and 108 page graphic novel. And, I was paranoid the entire time that, man, I I gotta really handle him with kid gloves. I don't wanna give him any excuse to, like, to freak out on me and quit drawing and leave me with a partial book that I paid, you know, thousands of dollars.

That'd be terrible.

Yeah.

Oh, he's a he's very good. Like,

I Yeah. He's he's great with with facial expressions and body language.

He's

really great at that. Are you looking at my panel?

Starter. Yeah. Of the panel. So what's interesting is you think that you'd almost think with all of the, like, talk about, like, anti AI stuff, you'd think that people would be very much into supporting, artists who are doing graphic novels. Like, that that is an art form.

I mean, the detail that he's having to do here and, like, it's just people are funny. Right? We're so finicky. We'll we'll talk a big talk. Yes.

We will walk a very big walk.

Yeah.

But we were talking before this that you graphic novels were not the first thing that you got into when you started writing. So you were trying to sell your trad books, or, like, books to the trad world. What what genre were those?

Well, of course, a few different genres because I don't I like several genres, and I get in the mood to write in different ones all the time. So I tried, I wrote a mystery. I had some science fiction. I and, of course, military or paramilitary adventure. Those were the kind of things that I queried about.

And, but it was in and, of course, I had heard I'd been programmed, been conditioned to believe that Bright Club was the only way to go. If you're gonna be a serious author, that's the only game in town. You can't do anything else. And if if, in fact, someone, in the in the aughts, They knew I was a writer, and they asked me, hey. Have you looked into self publishing?

I was like, oh, no. No. Absolutely not. It's like that's, it's vanity press, all this stuff that are that we've been brainwashed to believe. Right.

And it wasn't until 2009 when I had a talk with myself. I was like, you know, the definition the the the alternate definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Right.

And, yeah, I've been spinning my wheels for years.

Right.

And I said, you know what? Vanity press, stigma or not, whether you know, I'd rather be published anyway, even if I do get that stigma. I I wanna get my work out there. So and, unbeknownst to me, you know, the the publish on demand revolution and ebooks, which I didn't learn about until, like, after, after it had been, like, the Wild West a good opportunity for many authors. Anyway, so I did self publish in 2010 my first novel

Okay.

And started picking up some fans. Not not nothing to brag about, but it was, I was surprised how quickly some people read my work and liked it. And so

I think those were the golden years. I I kinda kicked myself for not having the

Yeah.

The guts to do it back then because I was deep in babies. I could and I was just like, oh, and I was still a little brainwashed. Like, oh god. I'm just trying to sell it. You know?

And I I can't do it all by myself, but the truth is, like, people were desperate for books. You know? They just really the Kindle came out. I was. Like, I it never occurred to me to be like, maybe my reader is the same as me and is looking for

a book series. Yeah.

But what what book was that? Was that, part of the Paradox series? Or

No. That was part of the retreads trilogy. This was my first one. Of course, it had a different cover then, which was not as good.

Cover, though. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. The cover I originally had was one that I thought was cool, but few other people do.

Yeah. I know. We've all been through that part.

Yeah. Right. Because I've been, what do they call it? Mirror marketing, making something that would appeal to you as opposed to appeal to the actual audience.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was that was, like, military action adventure?

Yeah. Mhmm. Paramilitary, technically, but with the genre limitations, it's listed as, military thriller.

Okay.

Okay. In some places, it it it, ranks in war novel, or at least it did for a while.

That's, that's interesting. Yeah. You can't Amazon's rankings are kinda funky.

And then some of my fans, I I wrote that as a one off. I never intended to, you know, use those characters again. It was just like, yeah. I wanna get a I wanna get this kind of story under my belt. Right.

But my fans asked for sequels, and it was only a few of them did. But, so, anyway, I wrote this one.

But that's fun to say because people actually asked for it. That's good.

And this one, they some of them said, you know, it's even better than the first one, and I started picking up more and more readers.

Yeah.

Because it was you said you didn't get into it in time, and I certainly understand that. I actually got into it when I could've had a lot more success. But, you know, like with you, life kept happening.

Yeah. Life happens, man. And there wasn't anything to guide you at that point. Like, it was just, like,

the thing.

I literally the Wild West.

I was totally ignorant about some people are natural marketers, and I am definitely not, and I don't even like it. And every opportunity I had where it, let's say, narrowed down to two decisions, one was one would have caused me to prosper, and one would have caused me to fail. I always chose the one that caused me to fail every time. I made every mistake you could make back then, and so I kinda squandered that that opportunity of those years when it was a new thing. It was the gatekeeping was minimal.

Mhmm.

And, all you had to do is get a get a good book with a good cover out in front of people.

Yep. But you know what? I talked to a lot of authors who they might have even had more success in those years, but a lot of them didn't know why or how. And so twenty fifteen, sixteen happened and just, like, everything changed. It, you know, it was really like it feels like every five years, this industry just, like, does a one eighty on people.

And if you don't know why it's working, it you you know, you'll you'll be left behind

You're like what happened? Over.

Yeah. So

Yeah. My goal is I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No. Go ahead. Yes. What is your goal?

My goal my goal was always to get to a point where I can do this for a living Mhmm. You know, where I could could quit my my dead and blue collar jobs and Yeah. And just write and make money off that. And I was I was steadily building to it up until about 2019, and then my sales just fell off a cliff. Yeah.

And not that and I met resistance along the way even getting to that point, because I had well, all of my novels have been bestsellers. Three of them, these these military thrillers have been Amazon category bestsellers for us in multiple categories. Yeah. But I noticed you after that sales spike was done, like, with other people, it seems like they're you've broken the visibility code. Right?

And then, like, people see that it's there and it ranks on the list so people can find it easily. And, you know, they the reviews start coming in. They get, like, a thousand reviews or something. And with mine, it didn't like, as soon as my sales spike was done, it fell off a cliff, and it was buried, and no one could find it again. Sometimes I would search for my own name in a specific title, and that was the only way to find it.

And even then

That's frustrating.

It didn't rank first on the list.

Yeah. You know?

Yeah. So I was going somewhere before I got off on that tangent.

On 2019. So you were, like

Oh, 2019. Yeah. And I think that might might have been when Kindle Unlimited hit or something. I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure out in retrospect.

A rehaul happened?

They had a rehaul of Kindle and because they got came out with the paper white at that point. 2019 was a funky year, and then COVID hit, which was really funky, like, in more ways than one.

But would think people would be buying more books than ever during the lockdowns. Right?

I think they watch TV, honestly.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty much what they did.

Honestly, if they what people should have done is bought comics for their kids to keep reading so that our reading scores wouldn't apply to America.

Right.

And, honestly, since COVID, everything's gotten harder. Real like, visibility is very difficult now. I think what happened in COVID is everyone thought that they could write a book. And so

And then did.

And then did whether it was good or not or whether they knew what they were doing or not. But I think it has been a bit of a a shock to those of us who've been around or of, like, oh, now I have to like, it's, like, trudging through mud. If you're not if you don't have that marketing, like, knack, it's gotten a lot harder a lot harder. Yeah.

And, reluctantly, I've I've been trying to learn what I can about marketing, but, of course, we have different problems now in addition to the old ones. Whereas the gatekeeping's still there, but we also have, you know, endless hoards of of slot being dumped into Amazon all the time

All the time.

Helping to bury your work.

Yeah.

And, yeah. And most of it is well, even before AI came along, most of it really was just mediocre to abysmal in quality.

Yes. That's why it's like I I understand people's anti AI. I think that I was like I don't know who said it the other day. I was like, the human slop is is pretty. Like, I'm

Just as bad.

It's just as bad as

with more typos.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I know. Because you're if you try to go on, men's adventure so marketing to men, I find, is very difficult. So I have one book that I wrote, bended loyalty where it's about a man, like, trying to get out of a small town, out of that sort of mindset and, like, just turn over constantly and, like, basic generational curse.

Right? Like, trying to get out of that. And he's in boxing and music, and it has all the things. And to find the category for men, I was like, these poor men, all they get is thriller or mystery. Like, they don't get because you go to men's adventure, which I was like, well, that makes sense.

Like, men's adventure. And it was it's just weird. It get it's kinda weird. Like, some of it looks like lit RPG. Some of it looks fantasy ish, but not like if you like to read a good story, I don't the book covers at least don't don't really say that.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, and something should be said well, you're absolutely right about that. So some authors have figured out how to game the system, knowing whatever the current algorithm is or something, and they're able to put their their lit RPG or whatever that's not really men's adventure fiction, but, maybe it's the closest genre they can find out of all the choices. And, they've they've incorporated all the tropes and gimmicks that are necessary, and, I guess, maybe they got AI to write their blurb. I think they get AI to make their covers, and they always have, you know or not always, but quite often have well endowed females on there who Yes.

Who may or may not have something to do with the plot.

Exactly. That's what's so funny. You read the blurb, and you're like, where's the well endowed woman in the blurb? Yeah. Yeah.

But trust me, it's just as bad when she is in there.

Yeah. Probably. Yeah. So, like, trying to write for men, have you found that difficult to find? Because I I mean, I would assume they're, you know, you can't go to the same social media places that I go to to find romance readers.

Like, Instagram is probably not full of men looking for books.

Yeah. Well, you might be sorry you brought up this topic.

Okay.

I'm gonna I'm gonna try not to rant. But, yeah, writing for men, I don't have I I think I'm able to do that pretty competently.

Mhmm.

But marketing to men is is our whole culture

Okay.

Is I call it dino centric. It's all geared toward pleasing female consumers and especially in the book market. Yeah. I I And people have talked about the reasons for that. So if I really if if money was my if money was my primary motive, of course, I wouldn't be a writer anyway.

Okay. But Let's put that out there right away.

If, if we succeed at the highest level above all other considerations, I would probably write romantic or some kind of romantic subgenre or something geared toward women.

Like, under a pet name. Yep. Yeah.

Or at least, you know, I would I would write a bunch of girl boss of, you know, warrior women Yeah. Because that's what the world

has to be. Yeah. Yeah.

But I don't do that. In fact, I refuse to do that, and so I'm in this self perhaps self built visibility prison.

Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah. And men's adventure, it's hard to find the old school stuff or or as you mentioned earlier, a better word for it might be pulp. Okay. It's hard to find something with the spirit and the magic and the energy of that old pulp. There's a lot of writers talking about it now and a lot of writers trying to put it out.

But, again, I haven't, and believe me, when I when I look for something to read, I don't look for something to complain about. Right.

I

want something that's that's gonna, you know, satisfy me.

Right.

And it's it's really hard to find. That's interesting. Authors who can do that are pretty rare.

I feel like, the no. I haven't talked to a ton of of men who write in that, genre, but they seem to it seems to be as, like, person to person, which is very difficult. Like, that you're at a disadvantage because it's very much, like, Russell Knowlty found his by going to events, like Comic Cons, you know, smaller things like that. But, like, that takes money, time, a life that allows for that. You know?

So it it I think before when you like, that pulp revolution, it was the small comic book stores. Like, those used to be very good businesses that, you know Right. Right. Young boys up to men, like, that was kind of a hangout place. And if those go away, like, where do you find your readers?

That's the ultimate question. Right?

So Yeah. Well, when I went to my first convention, last year

Okay.

September, and I might go again this year, but it turned out to be pretty much like every other place you go looking for readers. Mhmm. It's a bunch of authors pimping their books to each other.

Yes. That is one thing that we should just be so clear about. There's so many times, writers are are talking to other writers, and you're like, that's not

actually your audience. And they're the easiest I mean, you you you go on social media, and you don't even have to look for you you don't even have to try to build your audience. All these other authors will, like, show up in your feed, you know, follow you, all this stuff. And and don't get me wrong, I do I do have some friends online who are authors, and I'm really glad to have them as friends. They're

Mhmm.

They're good folks, and, and I commiserate with them. You know, we're all trying to do the same thing. Right. And competition isn't we can compete with each other without trying to, torpedo each other's work. Mhmm.

You know? Because there's room for all of us. Just because someone reads one author doesn't mean he'll never read any other author.

Exactly. Exactly.

So I do wanna make that caveat. But still, it's like every time another author follows me, it's like, yeah. He's a freaking author again.

I know.

Where are the readers?

Where are the readers? It it is one of those things. When I got back it's like I'm trying to learn marketing as well because I I I'm just I don't like putting myself out there, but trying to figure out marketing in the right way. Right? And that was one of the biggest I remember just staring at my phone and being like, oh my gosh.

We're all talking to each other, writer to writer. And just, like, sort of that that realization and now trying to pivot and being like, but where are the readers? Like, I understand that we are also readers, but that's not actually what we're looking for is right. We have to go find them, and I would imagine finding male readers is very difficult. I mean, I have my one

sub where

it's it's very difficult. They are not in the same spot. I have so I read on Reedsy. They sent out I forget his name. He's oh my gosh.

I can't remember his name, but Reedsy, he sent out a a newsletter, and Reddit is becoming a big place that people are finding readers. And I was like, gosh darn it. I avoided Reddit like the plague. No. So if you're on Reddit, it might be the place.

Of course, Reddit has its own social rules. And if you go in there spamming, you're going to get kicked out. So, again, trying to do it, like, slowly. You have to build it. You know, you have to be part of the community and not we don't always wanna be that.

We kinda wanna come in as an author and be like, read my book. Like, that's

Right. Yeah. Stop everything you're doing. I have just completed the best novel ever known to man.

Exactly. You

must read it. Yeah.

And there's a whole series, so please read the all of them. Yeah. Like, I I sometimes I I'm embarrassed at the desperation level that we have as authors where I'm kind of like, oh, guys. Come on. But I think like you, a lot a lot of people want to write the the stories that are dear to them, you know, whatever they are that like, that's and and we don't want to even if it's exchanging it for not many as many sales, we don't want to write something that's just for that's popular right now.

I think that comes with its own issues because if the popularity changes, man, really fast.

Yeah. And I I see the wisdom in it, I guess, writing to the market. But there's so much the market changes, like and you can't always predict when it's gonna change. Yeah. And, also, it's like well, if I wanted to be an artistic prostitute, you know, I would have gone to work for

I would have done that before.

Yeah. I would go over work. I'd I'd be writing for a mag an online magazine or somebody else's blog or or something.

Right. Right.

And, like, back to marketing for men, there's so many problems with that. And one is less and less men, especially young men, are reading all the time. They're becoming less and less literate. Really? Some of them not good.

Yeah. So you haven't heard about this? No. Yeah. And it's really bad with the younger generations.

So so many of them the the schools are failing them. The more money we put into the schools, the less you do the job they do. And they're functionally illiterate, most of them. Oh my gosh. The new audiences, once once your existing audience age ages out, the pool to market to the pool to sell your books to is gonna be even smaller, at least for the men.

There's competition from video games and, obviously, you know, TV has been competition for reading since I'm sure there were high school teachers in the fifties complaining about television. How is, like, kids weren't reading as much because of it. Well, it's worse now. And

Yeah. I think video games more than anything. Scrolling, video games, the amount of wasted time that we have. I also think, like, weirdly I mean, it's I really think it's good to read literature. But when you've had COVID and we're two years worse off than we were before COVID, which is already not great, if you compare it to the other western worlds, you might as well get books in there that kids will actually read.

Right. Well and that's so I can speak to this angle too, and that is, like, as a reader myself, some somebody like to read. I don't know what you got, well, men's adventure fiction, pulpy stuff, you know, stuff that appeals to red blooded heterosexual men. Yeah. I found, like, in the early nineties, I used to love going to the bookstore.

And I do, like, 80% window shopping, and I might pick up, you know, a couple that I could afford. Well, in the early nineties, my trips to the bookstore became less and less fun. Mhmm. There's, like, gradually well, not gradually, but all within the space of a couple years, stuff that was written to readers like me just disappeared.

Yeah.

And I imagine I imagine that's why a lot of male readers have migrated to video games or or whatever other other ways to spend their leisure time.

Yeah.

And and they won't give books a chance anymore because every time they go there, there's you know, it's all, it's all geared and targeted toward a female market.

Yeah. And

Yeah. I can see that. Someone will read that, but a lot of us and I have. I got so desperate. One of my jobs, I was on the road all the time, so I go to the library and get audiobooks.

And some I was desperate enough sometime I'd I'd listen to romances. You know? Mhmm. And there were some good ones, but it didn't take long for me to get tired of that genre. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean yeah. Because it's not it it's really not written towards, something that you would like and but that is true, especially well, now there's no real excuse for it except I think men went to video games for story because we like story anyway. We need story. But if a video game can feed you the story you know, like, my brothers used to love the choose your own adventure books in the eighties. Remember those?

Like, those are so fun. But fantasy used to be written, you know, like, I don't know if they specifically wrote it for men like Lord of the Rings, but I know that my brothers loved those, and I was like, as a child.

Well, see, back then, it wasn't gender politics. It wasn't in a workplace like it is now. So

You were just supposed to read and be educated. You know?

They wrote fun adventure stuff, and it happened to appeal to men, much like LitRPG does today, I guess Yeah. Of what male what male readers there are. But, yeah, when you when you when every trip to the bookstore, every trip to Amazon online results in, like, you get you drown in estrogen, basically. If you're less stubborn than I am, you give up, eventually.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you go if you type in men's adventure and it looks like it's gonna be slop for it eventually, that adds up. Right? I mean, I'm willing to try out new authors, you know, for at a certain, like, price cap.

But if you keep hitting, you know, spending $34 on an on an ebook that and it's just not anything you're interested in, eventually, you'll stop that too. Right? And people have lives, and they have stuff to do. So this is so Kickstarter does help a little bit with that. Right?

Like, it it is at least these Kickstarters have a lot more arts, I guess. It's it's different than going to Amazon. It's actually a really fun place to just, like, find things. Really, like, it you know, Amazon is just filled now with everything in the entire world. It's like going to a Walmart or you know?

But if you're looking for comics, especially if people don't know this, I would go to I would send people to Kickstarter before I would send them to Amazon. Amazon, I would feel like they get overwhelmed. But I think the average person thinks the only bookstore in the world right now is called Amazon, which is a problem. Not for them, but it is for us. Right?

Yeah. I mean, like, remember Dick Tracy? Like

A little bit. Yeah.

Like, that was I I remember I I didn't read a whole lot of comics. My mother was one of those gatekeepers. She

Oh, okay. But that one was in the something called the newspaper.

I know.

My grandpa

my grandpa would buy me the Calvin and Hobbes. I loved those. He would let me read those.

Do. Yeah.

God. They were so funny. And you'd almost be sad when you would you know, the newspaper comics would be, like, that whole page, and I would read all of them. And they'd be like, oh, no. I have to wait till tomorrow.

And then nothing until next week.

I know. I know. So it it is interesting. I think, like, Kickstarter is trying, but I think, again, like, it had it just needs to keep trying. Right?

Like, it has to keep competing, but you gotta get these companies to actually keep going. You know? Like, I feel like Barnes and Noble gave up. I think they're maybe they're, like, making another run for it, but we need more places for people to find books, not just Amazon. But

Which is

Go ahead.

Well, I've been hearing for the last several years that authors need to build their own platform because you can't put all your eggs in the Amazon basket. And I didn't. I diversified Yeah. With, you know, you can find my books my ebooks pretty much anywhere. Mhmm.

Paperbacks if you what I found out with paperbacks is, like, even if you go through some other company to publish your paperbacks, they use Amazon's CreateSpace or KDP now.

Yeah.

But oh, crap. I really keep confusing myself going off on these tangents.

So you I think you were gonna talk about your your own store.

Yeah. Yeah. So and that's something even before I started hearing people talk about it, I thought it would be really cool to have my own store Yeah. My own online store, at least, you know, where you could at least sell ebooks for digital download. And, I kept hearing people talk about build your own platforms, build your own platforms.

And so it's something I've been making and do for years, and I've finally done it. And now I have it. And I'm selling my books in, you know, a couple couple other authors, and hopefully, I'll be adding another one on soon. And the problem now is, like, I've I've created the Amazon gatekeeping for Google gatekeeping, which is in some ways even worse.

I know.

But, really, I don't have any choice. I have to do this Yeah. Because Amazon is becoming less and less viable every day for for an indie author who, you know, writes their own work instead of having AI, you know, squirt it out.

Yeah. They don't have see it all. Have, yeah, a prob they don't have a problem publishing the AI stuff. So

Yeah. Well, not in the the literary slot from human authors that we talked about also. And that combined with the gatekeeping and I don't think a lot of people are talking about how we have to go to a neo patronage model now.

What is that?

They're really so that's like using sites like Patreon or something where people people give you money for extra content, I guess. And they're they're not necessarily buying your books, but they're just giving you money and keep you know, kinda like in in the Renaissance period where an artist would was patronized by some wealthy Okay. You know, some wealthy aristocratic woman or something. And that's how they were able to cons they were able to make a living at their art, or they were able to do that without holding down a regular job. And so I that's I think that's where Patreon got his name, actually, is from Okay.

Patronage. And some of the gurus out there now are saying that that's the model of the future, that you have to do that. And I really freaking hate hearing that, but they might be right.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

But that doesn't solve the finding the readers problem. I mean, nobody goes to patreon Patreon just to see who they can support that day. So while they have these, like, I mean, that's kind of Substack had its, like, burst on the scene last last year too. You know? It was like I was telling my fellow fiction writers, like, why are why are we getting on Substack all of a sudden?

You know? Like, well, people can support us and, like, okay. I get that. But the when I thought of it, I mean, I opened my own Substack, and then I was like, I'm still not getting found. Like, it's still not solving that problem of the reader.

But I think I think you working with other writers is more, like, beneficial.

Well, hopefully. And, like, my idea I have a couple different ideas, and I I don't know if I should mix them together or not. And one is, well, if I stick only to only to my books on my brand, it's gonna be a limited selection. So people are not just not gonna come there because there's not a big enough variety, or they read all my books and now what? Well Right.

And they they go somewhere else and they forget that my site exists.

Right.

So I do wanna bring some some people on, but if they're gonna wear my brand, the virtual pull brand, then I'm gonna do some gate keep keeping of my own.

Yeah. It's gotta be in in It's

not gonna be LGBT stuff. Yeah. Not too many romances. You know, I there there's I want the kind of stuff I want my brand to be associated with the kind of stuff that I would enjoy reading myself Right. And that I that I would not be ashamed of.

Yeah.

So

Yeah. That's where it comes. Like, there there's not necessarily anything, I mean, wrong per se with gatekeeping. Like, a brand is a brand. You know what I mean?

Like, so virtual pulp has to I have to know what I'm getting when I go to virtual pulp.

Exactly. Exactly.

Right? So you're kind of becoming, like, that that corner comic book store on the Internet more than like, in you know, your grandmother wouldn't have gone there to buy her romances. It's just that

And I can live with that.

Yeah. That's how it should be. Right? I mean, I think, weirdly enough, the world tried to become, like everywhere tried to become everything to everyone, and that's just how humans work. You You know?

I mean, that is what Amazon is. It's everything to everybody right now. Right? But

everything store. Yeah.

Now we just get lost in it. So I think you're right that the the authors are gonna have to find these different places. So you is this your first Kickstarter that you've done?

My very first one. Yeah. If I had known well, again, my ignorance got in my own way, because a friend of mine suggested over a decade ago, I think. Yeah. Over a decade ago that, hey.

You should try you should, look into this crowdfunding thing for for your next book. And in my mind, I'd heard of, GoFundMe. And so so Crowdfund to me was charity.

Yeah. Yeah.

People's charity. Yeah. I didn't want people just giving me money just because. I wanted them to give me money because they wanted to read my book.

To read the book. Yeah.

So I poo pooed the idea. I just didn't even investigate it. Nothing. And it turns out all these years, and as as Jonathan's been Tom's been saying in the program, Kickstarter was a way, a way to kinda to make an end run around Amazon's algorithms and gatekeeping and all that.

Okay.

But yeah. So you could've and, actually, as I think about as I as I was getting up closer and closer to my Kickstarter, I was thinking, you know what? I I should've started out small. I should've started out, like, funding, like, a hardback edition or something on one of my existing books or you know, and then gradually build up my audience there until, but or I should have made little floppies, you know, like, 28 to 48 page comics and started small so I didn't have to ask for such a big amount right out of the gate.

Oh, these are all things that we, like, we learn from. I I've run one Kickstarter, and I even investigated a lot on it, I thought. I'll say that. I'll caveat. I thought before I started it, and then I was just like, oh, I should have done this differently once I got into it.

Because it's it's certainly, it's great, but it's not easy, I would say. It is. It's Yeah. But the one thing about it I I think the one thing that we always have to remember as creatives is even if something doesn't work out exactly how it should be, to do it again is is really like, it's only a big deal in our own heads. You know what I mean?

Like, there are new people on the platforms all the time. I mean and if people don't know Kickstarter, you have to fund in order for it to, like, in order for you to get any money. I think there are some platforms where you well, maybe not. Oh, I think you always have to fund. Right?

You have to actually make the goal.

Yeah. Well I think even on On my comic, for instance, they have a different it works differently. And, unfortunately, there's no, like they don't have a thousand videos on YouTube telling you how to do it.

Okay.

But, they allow you to either keep everything you've earned or choose the all or nothing. Because if you don't meet the fund, then it all gets refunded.

But Kickstarter is all or nothing. Like, it's basically just holding it on your credit card that you don't get charged until I don't even think it holds it. You just don't get charged. So that that is one of the anxiety inducing things about Kickstarter. It was like, you still have to find it, but I would it it is I think it is something for everyone to check out.

But

Yeah. So I think the the path to success might be easier there for prose authors, than the way they've been trying to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's possible.

You mentioned Substack, and I think again, my timing is horrible. I I think if I got on a a year or two, three before I did, I might have had a lot more success than I did. But I got on there because I heard people talking about it. And long story short, it's I don't think it's a good place for fiction authors I don't think so. To try to pick up readers.

No. I don't think so. It So I I don't it has I mean, every every platform becomes its own culture, and so it's not it's not necessarily wrong for us to to have to try stuff. I literally have accounts probably everywhere just trying new places.

Yeah. Me and me both.

But I think the one thing that I've come like, the one thing that kinda turns me off of the Patreon idea is the the the journey like, the path to burnout is trying to make new stuff for people constantly because you feel like you're you're paying them back for it it almost puts me personally. I feel like I'm in the position of owing them something because they're they're paying me. You know? And and I hate that feeling. So, you know

gotta come up with special content to All the time and oh my god. Make their subscription worthwhile. Yeah.

Right. And I really don't like that overwhelm feeling. And so I think that would only work almost like what you're doing with, with your press, with virtual pulp. It's just, like, you would have to get together with people. I I don't know who can actually make that much content.

Like, people who are doing well are, like, musicians or podcasts. You know? I think Thomas Umstead's on Patreon or you know? Because a book takes forever to write and and just, like, you know, somebody mentioned to me to do it like The Martian. What?

I can't I'm blanking on his name. He's very famous.

I can't remember either.

His name, but, you know, how he did it on the blog of, like okay. So No.

I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah. He wrote it

That's how

he by chapter on his blog. It's very it's a very, like oh, you should look that up. Yeah. He Okay. But that's very brave, and it's not very usual.

Like, who that that is somebody who plans it all out, is very comfortable, and it was a time in life where people were, like, addicted to blogs. I don't know if you were like, I was addicted to blogs because I was like, oh, you know, you can read something quickly and be part of, you know, a community and, like so he he got on that bandwagon. It's very good. Imagine just, like, putting out a chapter these days that's barely edited. Could be just because, like, you gotta give something to your Patreon

people. I know.

Yeah. That's insane.

I know. Well, you mentioned earlier you didn't like showing your face.

Yeah. I I don't

like it. Either. It was just, like, three years ago, I find okay. I'll take this I'll take this selfie, and I'll use it. So I didn't like to do that.

And then, of course, now I'm appearing on podcasts, you know, when I can.

You got it.

But also, I just I I feel icky if I consider, like, sharing my work before I've edited it, you know, before I've made it, you know, ready for showtime. I'm just not comfortable with that.

I know. And and these days, people will probably take it from you. You know, like, he like, you can't always go back to where you can't always replicate somebody's success either. Like, he had a great idea that worked for him.

But I did. I didn't I didn't know about that off I didn't know, that that author had started sharing it on a blog. But I tried doing that too and, didn't didn't work out for me. I tried sharing chapters in in, substack. And I I followed all the rules, all the prevailing wisdom about how to do it, and it still Yeah.

Yeah. I brought more, of my readers to that than I gained on Yeah. Platform myself.

Yeah. Exactly. It didn't necessarily broaden your readership.

So, absolutely, what might work for someone else, you know, it's it's does not work for you

Yeah.

For whatever reason. And I assume a lot of it is because other people are just better at marketing than I am.

Yeah. That's what I always assumed. Like, people just know it. So if people if there are listeners out there who write pulp or who like reading pulp, like, what are your I mean, we we will send them to, virtual pulp press dot com. But are you are you sort of handpicking people at the moment to be part of this venture, or how how do you do that?

Okay.

So I I mentioned I had two different ideas. And one is to, like, bring other authors who who, you know, who I approve of to write under the book virtual pope banner.

Mhmm.

And there are a couple so far who are interested in that, but a couple's not enough. You know, I I need a lot of books. And the other idea is maybe just make my own, not necessarily build up a stable of other authors, excuse me, but to build a a bookstore that caters to a certain audience that gets lost in Amazon like you were talking about.

Yeah.

And those, I would not necessarily need to gatekeep as hard.

Yeah.

I would allow stuff you know, I'd allow the the, you know, 40,000,000 girl boss authors out there, you know, could could put their stuff up there, and just have a place where, it's books, you know, and and other forms of of reading entertainment Yeah. Comics, graphic novels, whatever that and it'd be an alternative to Amazon. I'm never gonna try to be in an everything store. But it would be a place where people who like the more pulpy kind of, adventure stories would come to and be able to and, of course, the more authors I had there, the more new books would pop up regularly. So customers would have a a reason to come back.

And and if authors brought their own fans to the site, then those fans would discover other people's books. And so then and, of course, the more fans there are, the more people visiting, the more visibility the site would have.

Right.

And the more readers would hear about it word-of-mouth or something and and come and check it out themselves. So, getting that off the ground, getting it out of the out of the groundswell would be the hard part. But

Yeah.

So that's another idea. A

great idea. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that might be more, more than Patriot. You know?

Like, I always find it easier to promote when somebody else is with me. You know? Or I'm like, I'm not just talking about my books. There's something about, like, oh, get all of our books. You know?

Like, I think there's a lot of authors out there that we there's just we're not great at marketing and talking ourselves up. That's something that every, sort of marketing class that I've been part of, that part of the exercise is like, tell us about your book in one minute or less because most authors are like, no. I will talk about other people's books. So so if people are kind of listening to you and they're like, oh, I don't you know, I kinda write that kind of stuff. Is there a place that they can contact you and maybe

Yes. So Okay. I not only have virtualpulppress.com, which is where my where the online bookstore is, but I have a blog at virtualpulppress sorry. Virtualpulp.net.

Mhmm.

And there's a contact form there, or they can just look for me on on Substack. I I've been putting myself out there. So, my handle on Substack, on Twitter, on Gab, on most places is Machine Trooper.

Okay. Yeah. And that's the thing too. It's like, men are in different social media than women. It's like Yeah.

More Twitter things and more yeah. So that's

I heard

Go ahead.

Sorry. Go ahead and finish your thought. Sorry.

No. It's just interesting to see the difference there.

I heard, someone said that they built an audience base, an author built an audience audience base using Pinterest. And so that's one of the things I tried. I got on Pinterest, but I just I am just not motivated to keep on top of that.

I think that's a female oriented place too.

Yeah. I'm I'm just getting that idea too.

Sounds like trying to find all the all the places. Oh my gosh.

Years ago, I tried Goodreads because I thought what a more perfect place to go, you know, because readers are already there. And that what? It's clunky and not intuitive at all. No. And I just did not aside from joining groups where, once again, a bunch of authors went there and tried to market their books to each other, I just couldn't crack the code there.

I didn't know how to make it work for me.

Well, also, all the Goodreads readers who actually review think that they are, like, a well informed, highly educated critiquer. And, I mean, you'll have books that are there's nothing wrong with them, but they'll take a personal offense to them and give them, like, a one star. So it's very strange. The culture of Goodreads has changed a lot.

Speaking of that, so I've been put in a I put in one star jail. Oh, no. Or, actually, it's three point something stars because, there's this woman at least she got a female name. I don't wanna call her a reviewer, but she posted a review Yes. On Amazon, which where she took, as for my paradox series, which and it was this book specifically.

There was a character who I led people to believe might be dead or at least missing, And she was so freaking offended by that. She said she called it disgusting. It was like a short little one star drive by with, like, one sentence. And, anyway, I pissed her off. She said, you know, she explained why she thought it was disgusting because she assumed that I killed that character off.

And, she was so pissed off. She went to the next book in the series and dropped the one star bomb there, but all she said on that one was, disgusting. Don't buy it. And that was when I barely had two two ratings for those for those two books. And so now she dragged it down to to three point something for each of them.

And I hate this social proof metric that we have to worry about. So so people go there and see, well, it's only got three reviews, and it's apparently, it sucks. That's why no one else reviewed. And then they they never give it a second thought.

Yeah. The I I will have this argument, and I will die on this hill. There there's this idea now that reviewers are giving reviews for themselves, that it's, like, it's for them to be able to remember, and I hate that they think that that's a justifiable reason to give out one stars. Like, if it's poorly written, if there's no paragraph breaks, if it's slop, I get it. If you just didn't like it, that is not a one star, and I will die on that hill.

And I and I've Yeah. I will no longer argue with people about it, but I have a one star, because she didn't like a sentence. I think it it's like a historical romance, and I have the her, you know, the click of her heels echoed against the the empty hallway or something something like that.

Mhmm.

And she didn't like it. And what people don't know is that one one star will drag your rating down. And I'm sorry. Psychologically, you go see a new book, and you will see less than four stars, and you'll think twice about whether you write that book or not. Just the rest

of the consider it all. Yeah. It must be slop.

Yeah. You will be like, I don't and very few of us will actually go to the reviews and see, like, oh, okay. Like, it really it drives me crazy.

I'm pretty good about that because some books I decided to read because of the one star reviews.

Right. Because we know what

they hated.

Yeah. But, you know, when they just say disgusting, what does that mean? Does it mean that it's violent? Does it mean that it's, like, horror? Does it mean like, what does it mean?

That doesn't say anything, and so people will just see the stars and and not buy it. And Yeah. I I think it's a very that makes this world all the much all that much harder. Like, people in their car will complain about Taylor Swift, and I'm sure that people have their opinions of Taylor Swift and whatever. Like, I just use her because she's so famous.

But very like, no one goes on to Spotify and brings down her you know, like, there's not the same equivalence of trying to get those stars. It just makes our life a little bit harder. It's just like, oh god.

Yeah. One of many factors.

Just remember that when you're reviewing the books, you know, like, I tell people all the time, just because you don't like the book, was it well written enough that someone in the world, like

Right.

Even if it's not that well written, I just avoid.

I used to do a lot of reviewing myself. And number one, if it was a really bad book, if if if it sucked, I was less likely to post any review at all. Yeah. There were a couple times when an author was so confident. You know, they they approached me to review because at that time, I was reviewing pretty regularly on Amazon, which is a thankless job, by the way.

Yeah.

At least if you try to do it right and if you try to judge the book based based on, you know, those those normal factors, you would you would, like, is it well written? Do they know how to plot? Are the characters believable? Stuff like that.

Right.

Which most reviewers don't even don't even touch on those.

No. Most reviewers are just emotional. Yeah.

But so some some authors insisted, no. No. I, you know, I I I want you to redo it even if it's not good. And then I I did for those people. But then there's times when when I I would I would take the trouble to leave a very detailed review, why I liked it, why I didn't like it, because those can be just as effective for people who disagree with me Right.

As people who agree with me, right, for that offer. Anyway, I got nothing but flack for that. Because back in the day, you could actually comment on someone's reviews. And I got all these little ankle biters swarming around me, critiquing my review. And then one time, somebody complained to Amazon and said my review is abusive.

Oh my god. Talking about that stuff that you mentioned that that you know, I was judging it based on what they wrote. Not,

not Not like insulting. But

I wasn't insulting anyone.

I wasn't, trying

to speculate about the character of the author themselves. None of that. And about that time, I was like, okay. This is, like We're done. First of all, it's a

thankless job.

And Yeah. I'm only gonna do this now if I think it's a spectacular book or Yeah. If it's a friend of mine who, you know, needs help getting reviews and stuff. Other than that, I'm done.

Yeah. I'm I'm with you on that. But well, the nice thing about Kickstarter is there's there's no stars reviews there. Like, we you know? But we will have the links in the show notes below.

You have quite a few. With the Kickstarter. As people listen to this episode, it's the week of May 8, and so there are a couple more weeks left to your Kickstarter so people can go check that out. And if

Appreciate that.

Yeah. The I honestly I just love perusing Kickstarter every once in a while. So I definitely I I encourage you guys to go check it out. The graphics are amazing. I'm sure the story is is as well.

So and then if you want to contact Henry, if you like pulp or men's adventure, whatever genre they're going to eventually make for this, I encourage you to check out his books, and maybe you'll find some people who can, you guys can rally around and go find those readers somewhere. But thank you for coming on and chatting with us. Just keep keep going. Keep at it. We're gonna we have to keep writing.

Right? There's no other other thing for us to do. I don't know why even if it's hard.

Yeah. If it wasn't a compulsion, I'd have quit long, I guess.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you.

Having me on.

Thanks.