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Overview
Catherine joins me from Houston Texas where she lives with her husband and kids. She is a recovering lawyer, though she still does writing for a hospital.
Her book is a medical thriller about a person who’s immune system can cure cancer. The book is timely in that it talks about bodily autonomy.
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Transcript
Today on Discover Wordsmith, I have Catherine Devore. Catherine, how are you doing today? I’m great.
Catherine: How are you? Thanks
Stephen: for having me. Yes. It’s great to have y on. I’m doing well. Thank you. Before we get rolling, talking about your book, the Panacea Project, tell us a little bit about you, yourself, what you like to do where you live, things like that.
Some of your hobbies.
Catherine: Yeah. So I I live in Houston, Texas. Grew up here mostly. Although I was born in Chicago and then made my way down the middle of the country down to here I am a former lawyer. I like to joke that I’m a recovering attorney. And now I work part-time at a large children’s hospital as a writer and editor.
Nice. I have two kids. I have a 14 year old and a 16 year old. They keep me really busy. I what do I like to do for fun? I I love to do stuff with my kids. I’ve got one who’s a theater kid and one who’s an athlete. So between rehearsals and track meets, I’m pretty busy. Yeah. Of course I love to read all the time.
Houston has a really great restaurant scene, so I love to go out and eat with my husband. And I also, I’m obsessed with coffee, so I’m almost every day you’ll find me in some Houston Coffee house probably trying to write or. Or reading something
Stephen: Great. Nice. Love that. You’re actually the third or fourth recovering lawyer that I’ve had, so there must be something with that needs to push people in the, it also seems to be big.
Seems like a lot of it people go into writing books. Yeah. Yeah. And being busy with your family and that we’re gonna talk a little bit about that later in some of our author talk in finding time. And that I love hearing that because that was the goal of the podcast is to show other authors that you are not the only one with a full-time job, with a family, with other commitments, that there are others like that.
Out there that not everybody is sitting in a cabin typing out words and getting three books out a month and making a million dollars a month and stuff. Not everybody’s like that. I think that’s great. You’re right in there to show people, hey, yeah, this can’t be done. So yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about your book.
Why did you, oh, wait. Before we even do that what do you do for the Children’s Hospital to write?
Catherine: So I’m in a small team of, there’s three of us actually, and ironically enough, we’re all former lawyers and writers. And so we do a variety of things, but when we help edit grants and manuscripts, we don’t have a science background.
But I think coming from a legal background, we’re really good at. Kind of synthesizing complex ideas and helping people to just write as pers persuasively and succinctly as possible. And then we also just do other various writing projects for the hospital. Like a, on from a marketing
Stephen: perspective.
Okay. That’s an interesting gig. It really is. That does, do you find that doing that helps your fiction writing? You
Catherine: know, I haven’t, I’ve only been doing this job for about a year and a half now and I haven’t actually done any creative writing since I started that cuz I was, trying to transition back into being in the workforce.
It remains to be
Stephen: seen. Okay, great. You were a lawyer and now you’re doing some writing and other stuff. Why did you want to get into writing and why did you wanna write your book?
Catherine: I’ve always, ever since I was a kid, I’ve just been obsessed with stories. I used to stay up late at night and get rug burns on my elbows cuz I’d lay in the hallway reading, trying to sneak books.
And just been obsessed with the idea of how stories are crafted. And I think once I started working as an attorney, I realized I really needed a creative outlet. And I guess I was talking a lot about a book. And about writing a book. And so one day my husband came home, we live near Rice University, and they have a great continuing education program, and he brought home a pamphlet and he had marked a course, like a one day course for novel writing and was like, you need to do this.
And I realized I, how much I had actually been talking about it. So I just jumped in and. Started writing a novel and went to that course, met a really great group of people, joined a writing group, and it took off from there. And that was the beginning of my writing journey and it was 12 years ago.
So
Stephen: it’s been a long journey. So you started when your kids were really little because you said you have teenagers.
Catherine: Yes. So they were two and four when I
Stephen: started. Yeah. And we’re, again, we’re gonna talk about time. I’m sure there’s some, there’s a
Catherine: reason it took 12 years.
Stephen: Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about your book, the Panacea Project.
Tell us a little, without giving it all away tell us a little bit about the book and what it’s all about.
Catherine: So the Panacea project tells the story of Calla Hammond. She’s a young woman who discovers that her immune system can cure cancer. So she joins a medical study to help translate that into treatments for other people.
But word about the study leaks out and when it does, obviously she becomes the focus of really intense attention from. All over the world and everybody starts to try and take advantage of her because of what her blood and her bone marrow
Stephen: can do. Nice. So it’s a medical type thriller.
Catherine: It’s a, it crosses some genres because it, it has some.
Aspects of women’s fiction, but if I had to put it into one box, I’d say medical thriller
Stephen: for sure. Okay. Is there any other writers or any books out there that are similar to yours that if people liked it, they’d say, Hey, let me read Catherine’s book.
Catherine: A absolutely. I the books that immediately come to mind aren’t necessarily medical thrillers, but so Jodi Ultz my Daughter’s Keeper was a huge influence on me, and that’s a story about a girl who is born to essentially save her sister’s life because she is an exact bone marrow match with her sister who has leukemia.
And then another book called The Farm by Joanne Ramos. Not a medical thriller, but it’s about Surrogacy farms. So it both of those kind of address the issues of autonomy and who owns what comes out of our bodies. And then from the non-fiction side the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Slut was a huge influence for me.
Stephen: Nice. And I think Robin Cook does a lot of medical, right? Yeah. And I, and actually Michael Creighton started with that a bit. I was
Catherine: just about to say, that’s I u I’ve been a thriller, a lover of thrillers and medical thrillers my whole life, and I’ve, yeah I adore Michael Creighton, so Yeah, for sure.
If you like medical thrillers check him out.
Stephen: Nice, nice. And is this a standalone book, or do you have plans for a series?
Catherine: It is a standalone book. Yeah. I don’t have plans
Stephen: for a series. Okay. Are you working on another book?
Catherine: I am. I am working on an idea for another book. It’s completely different.
Like my reading habits. I’m all over the place, and so when I write books, as a matter of fact, the Panacea Project is the second book I’ve ever written. The first one was Pure women’s fiction. It was a mother-daughter story. So the new one that I have rattling around in my mind is more of maybe speculative fiction.
So it’s about a woman who kind of dies by mistake and ends up having to navigate this very bureaucratic afterlife too, to try and get
Stephen: back. Reminds me of dead Like Me, the TV show. Oh, I haven’t seen that one. It’s reapers and their afterlife and as they go to kill other people.
And the girl that. They focused on died because a toilet seat from the i s hitter oh no. Yeah, it’s a quirky, dark humor book or story. Yeah, definitely. I’ll have to check it out. Cool. And so what type of feedback have you been getting from people who have read your book?
Catherine: So far mostly really good.
Yeah, people have, I people have especially loved. It’s a fast read. They say it’s a page turner. Most people finish it really quickly. And I think there are, and I, a lot of people tell me that. They get mad at me cuz they’re like, and now I’m crying. So they say the ending makes them cry, which I understand because the ending makes me cry every time I read it.
Even one of my, one of my editors we had to read, we were read, doing a last copy edit and she emailed me at one point and was like, and now I’m crying again. So I do think it moves people to think about the topics that I really wanted to. To make people think about in the book, which is like bodily autonomy and who owns our bodies and the things that come out of
Stephen: them.
Nice. Okay, good. That’s, I made people cry. That’s actually, not a bad thing in this instance.
Catherine: I hope it’s like good cry. It’s not. Yeah, it’s They like, the, they loved the characters and they were really invested in them and were moved by the ending.
Yeah, that’s good.
Stephen: Trying in a good way, right? Yes, exactly. So if you were given a choice, someone had came up to you, would you rather turn this into a movie or a TV show?
Catherine: I think this would make a good movie. Yep. I think it would be, yeah. It’s perfect for,
Stephen: for that. Yeah. I, listening to you, I would agree though if you had a series following a doctor and, these type of things, that could be a good series.
Thank you.
Catherine: Yeah. I have had a few people ask, ask Are you gonna write a sequel or a prequel? And I, like I said before I feel like it’s a standalone book, but to your point it could be interesting to, take some side roads and explore what some of the the, not just the main character but the other characters in the book.
Their journey. As they go through this process.
Stephen: Right. Great. Katherine, do you have a website?
Catherine: I do. It is cd johnson author.com.
Stephen: Nice. That, that getting harder to get just your name for website know.
Catherine: And my name is too long, like Katherine Devor Johnson author. It’s just, it’s too long.
So we had, I had to. Had to smosh it
Stephen: down. Yeah I’ve had people, I’ve had to adjust mine. I have a secondary website that forwards to my main website cuz somebody’s no one’s gonna know how to spell Schneider. I’m like German people will. So anyway so I wanna talk a little bit about the time and the writing the other stuff.
But before we go, anyone listening. If they said Catherine I like thrillers and I heard you wrote a book. Why should I get your book and read it? What would you tell ’em?
Catherine: I would tell them I’m gonna, it’s gonna, I’m gonna repeat a little bit of what I said before. If they want a fast read that kind of grips them right from the start and doesn’t let go, then this is the book for them.
And also, if they want a book where. They can fall in love with the characters and really be provoked to think about some deeper issues. Then this is the book for them.
Stephen: Nice. Great. It seems to fit today’s world quite well.
Catherine: I know. Not on purpose, but it worked out. It worked out that way.
Unfortunately,
Stephen: this book took you 12 years to write. You’ve, you had a career, you had family. What were some things you learned through that long process that maybe you were doing different at the end than you’re doing different for the new book?
Catherine: Actually this book, so the whole, my writing pro, my, I guess my writing journey took 12 years.
Okay. Okay. So I started out writing that first book. Okay. That women’s fiction book. And I, if nothing ever happens with that book, I learned so much from just the process of writing that book, which took I. I wanna say eight years from start to finish, because I had, the two-year-old, the four-year-old, and
Stephen: and the husband and I husband.
The hu Yeah. Husband. Husband should be a bit. I know I’ve been one.
Catherine: And part of the inspiration for the Panacea project was our family’s cancer experience. So in the middle of all that, my husband got cancer. And that definitely shut down creative writing for a while.
And the good news is that that he’s doing fine. He had surgery and then it came back after 18 months and so he had to have radiation therapy. But I. But he is doing great. It’s been over five years, so he’s actually, with the type of cancer he has had considered cured. And my mom had two strokes five years ago, and so I am now her primary caretaker.
She doesn’t drive anymore I do all of that. It’s, there’s just, there’s been a lot. So it was a slow process. So I wrote that first book, rewrote It, worked with an editor. And started the process of trying to get a literary agent. And I sent 197 query emails. And finally, and of course at the end, that’s when everybody, I started getting full impartial requests and had to play them all off each other.
But I did end up with a great agent and we tried, we pitched that book, we got it on the desks of some big publishers and some smaller ones, but it didn’t take, and so in the meantime, all of that, Cancer stuff had happened and all the medical things with my mom. And so I had come up with the idea for the Panacea project and I pitched it to the agent and he was like, Ooh, I like that idea.
Go write that book. And like I said, I think the experience of writing that first book made it easier to write the second one. So the Panacea project came out of me in a year, which is fast for me after the eight years writing the first book. And so we pitched that again and again. It just wasn’t getting traction.
So I had some friends who were, are also writers and had the same experience with their agents and publishers, and they had decided to go with hybrid publishers. So I submitted the book to two hybrid publishers for consideration and I got accepted at both, but went with one that’s out of Austin called Greenleaf Book Group, and they’ve been.
Absolutely phenomenal and I couldn’t be more happy with the experience.
Stephen: Nice, nice. Great. And our discussion is about writing and time, and you mentioned a couple things in there. A lot of people that wanna write do it because they’ve got they, they’re stay-at-home moms or dads. They’ve got little kids, but they wanna write.
They’re not their old career. How do you write when you have little kids?
Catherine: Oh, let’s see. You write when you can and even then, I would get these snatches of time to myself and I’d end up just spending the whole time just staring at the wall, maybe just working through a plot point or how I wanted to develop a character and I wouldn’t write a word.
And so it was just something that happened in fits and starts pro. Even if it was just in 15 minute increments, if it was 200 words a week. So you just have to, at least from my experience, I’m not telling anyone what to do, but. You just can’t give up and you’ve gotta find time when you can and not beat yourself up if when you do find that time you don’t write anything.
Cuz I think anytime you’re working through a story, even in your mind, you’re making progress. And then you, sometimes you just have to get creative. I, I was lucky enough a few times I could take a weekend day or even two days. My husband would stay home with the kids and I might have checked into a hotel room and just.
Done nothing but right for a day or two days. And like I said before, I was in a writing group, so we would meet once a week and that, that was nice cuz you can create accountability for yourself and you’re surrounded by people who are doing the same kind of thing. So I would just say do whatever it takes.
Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t make the progress you wanna make. And certainly don’t
Stephen: give up. I would agree. And I think that’s important. Don’t beat yourself up. I told you one of the reasons I started the podcast is because a lot of the groups and a lot of the other podcasts, you always hear the same people that are like, oh yeah, my career took off and they’ve bought five dip books that I’m working on, and I get to write for six hours a day and walk my dog.
And I have, a chauffeur. Now it’s just and then all these other people I’m talking to are like, yeah, I can’t relate to that. That’s not me. And it. Made people feel like I’m not a real writer, I’m a failure. I, but everybody’s situation’s different. And like you just said you gotta take what you can get.
This is what you got. Keep writing. It. Doesn’t mean you’re not a writer, doesn’t mean you can’t get the book done. You just gotta do it differently and keep going at it.
Catherine: Yep. I couldn’t agree more. I think persistence is the key. And also just being flexible, it wasn’t even, obviously it took me a long time to write the book, the first book, and even the second book.
I know some people can get books out, in a month or two. And for me it was a year. But then you have to be persistent about. How you get it published, how you get it out in the world. It can be really hard to break into traditional publishing. And and also, so there’s that. And then I think that the way that we consume media is changing so much so that you’ve gotta be open to other pathways to getting your story into the world, like hybrid publishing or self-publishing.
And I love that the stigma that was attached to those things is it seems to be going away. And I love that. It’s not great hybrid publishing. You have the resources of a traditional publisher, but you’re paying for it yourself as the author. So that is definitely a roadblock for a lot of people.
And I don’t love that. And I know I’m certainly really lucky that I. Get to utilize that option. But my hope is as we keep moving forward and the industry changes, all of that’s gonna become more accessible to more and more people.
Stephen: Agreed. And it’s been changing even over the last couple years.
And you mentioned that little fits and starts. I know. Some of the tools now out there allow you to work on your desktop, on a laptop, on your phone, on a tablet, anywhere you’re at. With little kids or like you said, your husband going to the doctor, going to the hospital, you might be waiting, who knows, 10 minutes.
You might be waiting an hour and a half quite often, and you pull out the tablet and even if you get a couple sentences, it keeps that flow going because one of the problems I found is, Like you, if life happens and writing becomes the lowest priority that you don’t do for a while, when you do get back to it, you gotta get going again to get in the whole thing going, what was this story about?
And now I’m, I. Several months different and my feelings and thinking on the book. So I don’t wanna change the whole book or the tone or anything like that. So it takes, sometimes it’s even more work than if you were able to sit down for three, four hours a day and just write, because you have to catch back up and that’s very difficult to do sometimes.
Catherine: That is so true. I’ve had that experience so many times when. I’ve had to take a break for a few weeks or even a few months, and you’re absolutely right. You, it just, there’s, you’ve gotta ramp back up into it. And that’s some of that, what feels like that dead time I was talking about where you’re just thinking, but it’s absolutely necessary to the creative process.
And you might not be writing down words, but But you’re doing work. And the other thing that I, what you said, it triggered a memory for me is, so much of both of my books are emails that I sent to myself because I learned the hard way. I’d be on a walk or something and I’d have a great idea and I’d think to myself, oh, that’s such a great idea.
I won’t, there’s no way I will forget that. Absolutely. Forgot it every time. Yeah. So I just learned, it was like the second I had a thought. Just shoot an email to myself. Yeah. Love that. And also, yeah, in terms of tools I’m a big fan of s Scribner. I don’t know if you’ve ever used
Stephen: that to write I, but I use, I discovered it early.
Oh. It’s just
Catherine: so great because you can create little documents for each chapter so you’re not just scrolling through an endless Word document. Yes. But then you can still look at everything together. I just, it’s so powerful. So all the writers out there check out s
Stephen: Scribner. And it’s funny you say that because they’re really Are two different camps.
I’ve talked to a lot of writers and I hear, oh, Scribner’s way too hard and complicated words fine. Then I hear others are like, oh man, Scribner is so easy to use because it does everything I want rather than word, which is just maddening. And it’s so interesting to hear that because I discovered Scribner because I was writing the first book that very few people have ever seen and probably ever will see.
Of course. And very quickly I’m like, oh my gosh, this is mad mean trying. I realized, oh, this chapter goes better here. And trying to move a chapter, but with Scribner, you just drag it around. It’s a lot easier. It’s great.
Catherine: Yeah. It’s so modular. It’s like little puzzle pieces. It’s just, it’s, I don’t even use all the functionality of it, but just that is enough for
Stephen: me.
Yeah, and I’ve tried to explain that to other authors. I’m like, look, my car, I can pop the hood and it’s got this little sensor and I can check this thing. I didn’t use that for the first week. I drove it. I just got in, hit the gas pedal and steered the wheel. Just get on Scribner and type some stuff.
Figure out the rest as you go. Don’t, yes. Overwhelm yourself. And, but it does like we’re talking about does take a little time. And I’ve discovered more features as I’ve been using it. Yeah. And. What was it like when, don’t I’m not trying to pry. When your husband had cancer and you were dealing with all that, I’m sure the emotional level was just out there and you’re writing a medical thriller.
So once things calmed down a bit with your husband, what was it like going back to the book, which I’m assuming you really hadn’t visited much probably for months. And now you’re done with a medical crisis and now you’re talking about a medical crisis almost. What was that like?
Catherine: I actually didn’t start writing the book until after we got through that.
Okay. But it was definitely hard and emotional to, to put myself back in those those moments. Sorry. No, I still get emotional about it. It was, when someone asked you like, what’s the worst day of your life? I can pinpoint that day, I bet when he came home and was like, so something’s wrong.
But I, I’ve really tried to channel all of that into the book. And the unfortunate truth is that so many of us have had cancer or know someone who has cancer and they’ve been through this in some way. So hopefully I’ve done that experience justice and people can connect with that.
Stephen: Nice. Good. That’s a positive thing to come from it. Yeah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you upset on that. No, it’s ok. I,
Catherine: I, it’s just, yeah, I’m just a super emotional person. Sorry.
Stephen: But I love how you used that into your book and I you said it made people cry at the end. I would bet.
There was a little therapy in writing the book, and I bet that knowledge and just the feelings came out in the book and probably made it way stronger, which is one of the things you can do with writing is you aren’t joking all the time. It’s yeah, piss me off. You’ll be dead in my next book.
That’s the author joke. But how often do we use our emotions and take ’em out on the page? In one way or another you get mad at somebody and you jump and you write that fight scene in your book. You had a great moment with the kids or stuff, and now you’re writing something similar in the book.
You, you, it’s a way to get those emotions out. And me personally, a lot of authors are introverted, so sometimes getting the emotions out is a little difficult and this is a way to do it, I think. So I, I. I, I’m just saying I think you may have learned a lot about writing, but I think the emotional part of it probably came from that a
Catherine: lot.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and there was actually a part of that, that, that experience that I didn’t even mention, which is that made it even harder or, and more, more emotional. The day I brought my husband home from his surgery two of my friends called and said that another friend from high school was in hospice care with stage four gastric cancer.
So it just felt like cancer was everywhere. And I was able to see her, but she died four days later. And she actually plays a role in the book. And and yeah, to, to your point to what you were saying, I really hope that I was able to infuse it with all that emotion that you can see from me right now.
And also it’s a tribute to them. And it’s my like, No, sorry for the bad language, but Fu Cancer fantasy, which is, I’m gonna wipe you from the face of the earth. Killing that, killing off that character. But for me it was
Stephen: cancer. Nice. Got it. It. And there’s a really good video game out there with the same type of premise.
I think it was actually their kid got cancer and they created a video game to help them. Deal with it during the treatments that the kid could actually go in to shoot at and fight cancer. And I love that. Leave it out for a charity thing. So now we’re talking the time. Now your husband’s better.
Glad he is. And that you can now concentrate on the books. Your kids are a little older, teenagers, so mom, we don’t need you around as much. I remember that stage quite well and so does it. But you’re working for a hospital and stuff now, but does it free up, not just. The time, but your mind, you’re not having to think about the kids as much, not having to worry about your husband as much.
You got your job, but you put that aside at the end of the day. So do you find that your writing feels different now or you have more time for it or anything like that?
Catherine: Man, I wish that was true.
As of this moment I don’t feel that way and I, it’s just been such a busy time. My daughter just went through the process of, I. The way she’s at school, she had to apply to high school and did this whole thing to apply to a magnet program here in Houston. And it’s just been I don’t know.
I I feel like every second is filled with either work or kids, even though you’re right. My son is driving now and that’s taken a huge load off, even though I just feel like my heart is traveling outside of my body every time he gets in his car. But I do have hope for, I think very soon it’s gonna all settle down and I.
I do hope that I’ll be able to get back to being creative with my writing.
Stephen: Good. Good. So when do you think this next book, what’s your expectations on completion and getting it out?
Catherine: I’m not setting any expectations on myself so that I don’t get too stressed out. Yeah, I’m gonna, I think my goal is to get through the end of school.
I have my site sent on June, and that’s when I’m, I’ve got, it’s on my to-do list. I’m like, I’m gonna start trying to write every day. I’d love to finish it within a year of starting it. So maybe that’s a soft goal. There you go. Great. Check in with me June, 2024.
Stephen: Okay, great. We’ll look for that.
All right. Katherine, it’s been really cool talking to you. I appreciate it. But before we go, do you have any last minute advice you would give to new authors out there?
Catherine: Let’s see. I think in addition to the, don’t give up. Be persistent and be flexible in your approach. I think one of the most important things I’ve learned, and I hope this doesn’t seem strange, is to be really judicious about who you get to read your work.
Pick a few people, maybe three or four. I wouldn’t say. What I’m, I don’t wanna give people hard and fast rules, but, I, I found with my first book, I got a little overwhelmed because I gave it to so many people and I had two experiences. One, I got a variety, such a variety of feedback.
It was hard to really sift through it. And then the other thing was that a lot of people will say oh, we wanna read your book, but then they don’t. Yes. And then you’re sitting there and you’re like, Ooh, do I poke them? Do I not? And I think it’s really just some people are afraid to. They say they wanna read it, but then they’re afraid to read it cuz what if it stinks and they have to be honest with you or they have to lie to you about it.
So that was one of the biggest lessons I learned. Be careful about who you give it to. Give it to someone else who’s, is gonna be honest with you, but also constructive because I don’t think that feedback that tears you down. It’s just not
Stephen: helpful. Correct. Yes. I have several people that have read my stuff and they’re like, oh yeah, I’d love to read it and give you some feedback on that.
And then their feedback is, oh, I liked it. Yeah. That does not help me. And, and I talked with a couple people and I, they were like I, if I don’t like it, I don’t wanna hurt your feelings. And so I’m like hold on. Don’t you think it’s worse that if. I get told it’s good and then I release it and then people gimme one stars and rip me apart online.
That’s way worse. Aren’t you like setting me up to get hurt more? I’m like, it seems a little vicious to do that actually, and people are like, oh, I. I just personally can’t hurt your feelings. I’m like, okay, then I don’t need you to help. I want people to tell me when they got bored or what they didn’t like about a scene or a character or parts of the book so I can improve it and get better.
You don’t have to hate me. You don’t have to hate the book. You don’t have to rip it apart completely, but give me the. The feedback of, yeah, I, my, my son’s good at that. Eh, I just didn’t care for that scene. I didn’t like that character. And, he was too wishy-washy or whatever it happens to be. I love that way more.
Catherine: Oh yeah, me too. I’ll take that any day of the week. But I think people are just they’re just afraid if they’re your friend. Or a family member, some of them can be really afraid to do that. I’ve even had that experience. Now that my book is out, I’ve had people tell me I’m struggling with to write in my review cuz I want it to be perfect and I don’t wanna hurt any, hurt your feelings.
And I’m like, listen, I’m probably not even gonna read it cuz reading this review stresses me out. But it’s just been such a surprising phenomenon that people. Even once the book has been out, have been afraid to give feedback sometimes. Most people have, but I’ve encountered a few are like, I’m just scared to write a review cause I don’t know exactly what to say and I wanna make it perfect.
Stephen: You can call ’em a little bit and say, most people out there won’t read the review either. And if they really wanna help If they give you a four star, it’s probably even better because when they, the studies and things I’ve heard is when people look at a new book and there’s not a whole lot of reviews, but they’re all five stars and they all happen within a week or two.
It’s oh yeah, all their friends and family went on there and they ignore it. And actually people are more impressed just by the number of reviews and as long as it’s not super low. So a four is. A four without, a lot of writing is probably just as good as anything else. Or better.
Catherine: Exactly. Yeah. It’s so interesting. All the things that go into writing a book, marketing a book, all
Stephen: of it. So yes, absolutely. All right. Catherine, thanks for taking some time today. I appreciate having you on. I wish you luck on your book and hopefully we’ll hear about you when the next one comes out.
Catherine: Thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure to talk to you.