Callie Hart: How to Write a Best-selling Book (Quicksilver)

0:00This was a six-week project for me. I was in my 11th hour. I was having my existential crisis moment.

0:10Ben Hanlin: This week's guest is author Callie Hart, most well-known for her romantic series Fae and Alchemy, which features the books Quicksilver and recently released Brimstone, which has just gone to New York Times' number one bestseller. If this is your first time listening to What's the Trick? Hello, my name is Ben Hanlin. I interview the world's most creative people to try and understand their creative process. And this episode, we dive into the genre of romanticcy. So you are listening to this. You're probably one of three people. You're either, number one, a massive fan of this genre and you know all about this genre.

0:45Ben Hanlin: And that's why you're here because you love Callie Hart. Hello. Or number two, you're like me and you live with somebody that loves this genre. So you've been keeping an eye on what's been happening in Romanticy and all of these types of series of books, and you're learning it all through osmosis, which is what I'm doing. Or you're the third type of person, and you've got no idea what I'm talking about when I say Romanticy. In which case, that's fine. I've got you. Let me bring you up to speed. Romanticy is the book genre that is a combination of romance and fantasy. So when you think fantasy, you've got your elves, you've got your dragons, and then romance, you know what I'm saying there.

1:21Ben Hanlin: Basically, think of it as swords and spice is how I'm summing that up. And this genre has hugely been growing over the last few years, mostly as well through social media, people sharing their finds and their books. And authors have been going absolutely bonkers. So we're going to explore that as a whole thing. And also, Callie herself has got a fantastic story. So I don't want to give too much away because we do unpack it all. But just to give you a bit of a glimpse, this was her 43rd book and her first book in romanticcy. She was an established romance author before that, but she'd really kind of lost her joy for writing.

1:58Ben Hanlin: And she was thinking about giving up. And then she went, actually, let me ignore my audience, ignore what everyone's telling me to do, and let me do what's going to bring me joy and passion. So that's what she did. She took a risk and she released Quicksilver, which was huge. But at the time when she released it, massive, massive flop. It was really, really bad. It went high up the charts. Nobody was buying it. She stressed out and then she pivoted and she used social media to help create an interest and she launched it all off the back of that using BookTok, which is another thing we explore, which is really interesting.

2:31Ben Hanlin: And what else do we talk about? We talk about her journey through all of that. We talk about her overall thoughts as an author and a writer and how she actually does that from a day-to-day point of view, which is really interesting. I think there's lots we can all learn there. and also we talk about king fisher's voice you know what i'm talking about you know if you know and uh also just to summarize we recorded this in our end of october i was at home uh in my home studio and i say studio it's just my office and we set up some cameras and things and you can watch this all on youtube she was live from her house over in california and where we'll pick up this conversation is starting with the genre of romanticy so enjoy

3:15so romantsy has been having quite a popularity surge at the moment which is very very lucky for me and a lot of other authors that i know um it is the the marriage essentially of the romance genre and the fantasy genre uh the best of both worlds the two things that i love and i'm really stoked and excited that i get to write in in that field um i've been writing romance for a long time and now getting to be able to incorporate the fantasy world setting back into my writing has been really fun. It's such a unique vehicle for inviting people to read books. You know, there's a lot of romance readers who normally wouldn't pick up fantasy and fantasy readers who wouldn't pick up romance who are coming to the table and picking up these books because they have a familiar element that they recognize and enjoy and they're learning along the way that they really like the other aspect of it too, which is just so fun.

4:09Ben Hanlin: Yeah, and I think the thing you hit on there, actually, you said it's getting people into reading that maybe wouldn't. So my wife, big fan of the genre. She's into all of the different series and all that. But she's getting other people to start having a look and a read. And we've got friends that have gone, I didn't read before this. And now they found the genre and they are just consuming it. It's so fun. Let's talk about, so why do you think it's having its moment? Why is it absolutely booming right now? I think, you know, it started during COVID. I think that's when we really started to see this steep, sharp, you know, incline of readership in this genre.

4:47Because people were at home, they didn't have anything to do. Especially people who were not normally readers. They were like, man, you know, I'm going crazy staring at this television screen. I want to like disappear from the world itself, you know, because we were all going through so much at that time. it was quite dark um and I think that people found these books around that time and it was such a great escape from what was happening in the world and all the scary stuff that was on the news every time you turn on the television um and they were a captive audience as well they couldn't they weren't going down the pub and they weren't they weren't going to the movies and they weren't going to work and they weren't you know doing all the things that normally take up all of our time during our day so they had these moments where they could sit down and do something different that they probably wouldn't normally do um and they found this particular genre just you know it really

5:37Ben Hanlin: caught steam it was really remarkable to watch yeah and i mean let's there's is would you say there's a certain demographic that it speaks i mean i'm thinking about my wife and all of her friends and how they are all loving this genre yeah yeah there's definitely you know it obviously appeals more to women you know where if we're gonna look at statistics it's gonna say 18 to 35 female but the beautiful thing about it is that now when I'm at signings and you know people are coming to see me at my table I'm seeing all different age ranges of women and men too which is really really cool and that's what I was kind of referring to with the the fantasy readers who are predominantly male driven the same sort of age range but male um you know they're now trying something new and something different because of the buzz and the hype um they're like oh man I see everywhere I you know I I wanted to check it out to see what the deal was and some of them do it to like kind of they want to kind of poo-poo it and uh you know have something negative to say but then you know the beautiful thing is that they actually come back and they say you know what I really enjoyed this and I got my mate to read it so yeah well let's let's talk about you let's dive into I mean obviously you've released many books but I think the easiest way to maybe shape this chat right is let's I guess rewind to not too long ago to 2024 when Quicksilver came out um so let's start with that and Quicksilver and if you can can we go to the beginning like where did you get the idea for Quicksilver I suppose also and moving into this genre yeah so I was writing predominantly in dark romance contemporary romance and kind of dark academia which is a very different you know setting to be writing in than then romanticity and fantasy um I've been writing that for the past decade but my stub when I started writing I actually was writing under my real name and it was all YA dystopian and paranormal romance and there was a lot of world building and a lot of fantasy involved and a lot of magic and all of that fun stuff but I just wasn't um you know I wasn't cut like making enough money to do it full time uh and I desperately wanted to be a full-time writer and I looked at what the market was devouring at that time, which was dark romance.

7:52So I made that leap and took the set the step to to do that. And it and it really took off for which I'm very, very grateful. But it did lead me down this road for 10 years. And coming up on 2024, I had just gotten done with a long series. I had just had like a kind of like a revisitation book, like, you know, an epilogue come out for a book that didn't do very well. you know it's hard in those scenarios when you've had a series finish and then you do like a kind of revisit and I was just feeling really kind of like jaded about what I was doing and I was really I had quite honestly lost my passion for writing which was really really hard you know and I was I felt like I was staring down the barrel of something scary you know like am I gonna have to make a decision here where I walk away from something that I've worked very hard at and spent like all of my creative energy and time working on for so, so long since 2012.

8:52And I was like, what's going to give me back my passion? You know, where am I going to find that joy to sit down and write again? Because that had been missing for quite some time, you know, it turned into quite a, it's always hard when you turn your passion into your job, you know what I mean? And it becomes a business. And it had definitely felt like that for a number of years. and I'm like where did that go at what point did I kind of lose that momentum and the joy to sit down and write um and I was like you know it's kind of when I I felt like I was having to continue series because the readership was demanding it and I didn't want to let anyone down but it wasn't really what you know in my soul I wanted to be writing so that was the moment by the way and as

9:34Ben Hanlin: a writer someone who's got to sit up sit down every day at this computer or whatever and write thousands of words about these characters if you don't love the story yourself and where it's going that must be quite must feel like a job right at times it absolutely feels like a job and even with quicksilver and with with things that i'm super passionate about there are still days that that happens because it is my job and there are days when i wake up and i'm tired and i don't want to do it you know what i mean but but it is my job and i have to do it so but but yes absolutely it was not you know the creative juices were not as as free-flowing shall we say um so yeah when I was getting to the end of 23 actually 2023 I was like what am I gonna do um and actually Quicksilver had been playing out in my head for since 2017 and it had always been that book in the back of my head I know I know I regret now very much so not writing it then but so let's talk about that let's talk about the 2017 so you had this idea in 2017 and it and it's like percolating do you remember where it started was there a particular moment or a book you'd read or something that triggered the oh here we go yeah no I think I I think it started with like I've always been fascinated with alchemy and I've always you know had my nose in a book with regards to that just for my own enjoyment because I'm really actually fascinated by it and I was like man this would make such a cool like magic system I could do something really fun with this but at the time you know I was deep in like high school romance and stuff like that and I was like oh man you know it's going to be a million years before I get to ever think about writing fantasy romanticy and so I have a folder on my on my laptop with ideas my WIPs my work in progress file and everything gets noted down in there like if I have an idea and I'm like okay I'm gonna at least give myself the time to kind of shell out a document to store these ideas as they come to me because I know this is like going to turn into something.

11:32And over the years it did, you know, like, and I would, the alchemy was the basis. I knew I wanted it to be portal magic. Then I started thinking about the characters and who they were and what their conflicts were and how they interacted and, you know, what would drive the story forward essentially.

11:47Ben Hanlin: All of that, you reeled all that stuff off like it was second nature. And is that because you're a fan of the genre and you've just accumulated all of those worlds and they've all smashed together in the back of your head kind of thing. Is that how it works? Yeah. I primarily only read fantasy, high fantasy, like epic saga fantasy and science fiction. So I'm not a huge romance reader. I've always, you know, wanted to keep the romance that I read, you know, as my own stuff so that I'm not getting like burned out on it, essentially, because it's such a through line for every story that I'm telling right now.

12:23Now, it might not necessarily be that case in the future. I may decide to do stuff without romance. But for the time being, you know, everything I write has the element of romance in it. So I don't want to, like, be colored by someone else's, like, storytelling or that kind of thing. So I typically always stick with fantasy and sci-fi. And also because I just really, really love the genres. Speculative fiction, like, it's my bread and butter. So, you know, I have these moments playing out of my head. My mind is very visual when it comes to like storytelling. And it's not a case of me sitting down and going, OK, now I'm going to think about what happens here.

13:02It's these like weird flashes and bursts of things cropping up when I'm in the most mundane task, you know, and I'm like, oh, my God, I've got to write that down. I've got to write it down.

13:11Ben Hanlin: So when you're like adding to this document and this, that's quite interesting, you get these ideas. Is it like literally like you say, oh, OK, alchemy is a big thing or alchemy there. And then portals is a thing. And then you have a female lead and a male lead. And then you're about to tell me about Kingfisher and I interrupted and I can tell the listeners probably going, don't stop. So go on then. So how did how did Kingfisher start to form? um the often actually the female main character is the one that comes to me first because she is often the the the driving force of the story and in the books that I write and and that is certainly the case with Quicksilver but with this book it was definitely Kingfisher and you know he was a very persistent kind of niggling voice in the back of my head and I I always laugh when writers you know talk about how their characters are real to them and they are like having conversations but it feels that way you know maybe we're all a little unhinged I don't know but all like you know split personality or something but you know he was very he became larger than life in my mind very quickly um which was an interesting process because in Quicksilver you don't actually get to see very much of his you know personality or inner monologue um for very specific reasons so in book two that's now coming out next month is I'm very excited because I finally get to share his point of view and a lot more of his history and who he is and who who this person is who's been bothering me for so many years um but you know his drive and the secrets that he's holding and the elements of who he is at his core were the first things that kind of developed.

14:55His look, you know, like his appearance was the last thing. I wanted to know exactly who he was, what was driving him, what secrets he was keeping, how he was going to interact with the female love interest. And that part was really fun for me because, you know, I'd carved out all of these pieces of him that were very angular and sharp and not very friendly at the beginning of the first book. And I was like, wow, who's the person who's going to, like, crash up against this individual and survive? And not only survive, but, you know, hold her own and stand up for herself and be, like, who is she going to be to handle who he is, essentially?

15:35Ben Hanlin: So in that, you see, then you have one character really clear and then you off the back of having the clarity there you that then forms the other character as a result yeah that makes okay yeah yeah yeah um and then with the world world building where does that come into it so obviously all these books in these genres are set in in different worlds do you then sit and then just start writing out essentially a bible for the world you're nodding that's it yeah is that how that works yeah um it's a really fun process and i hadn't done anything like that in quite a while because I'd been writing contemporary stories and, you know, we're familiar with those worlds.

16:16And I, you know, there's a lot that doesn't need to be explained when you open a book like that, you know, but with fantasy elements, literally everything down to like the monetary system and the weather and what the landscape looks like and what the architecture looks like and the religion and all of these little pieces that come together to build this tapestry that really, you know, hopefully the end goal is to transport the reader and make them feel like they're in this strange place that they've never been before but make it feel like they know how it works and and and not just be completely on the back foot all the time scratching their heads going wait a minute i need to go back to page x to to remember how this works you know um and it's the real small details that you pepper into a piece like this that kind of give it the the really the minutiae give it the detail that kind of help transport people and it's so much fun

17:07Ben Hanlin: so much fun and how do you just sit down one day and go right I'm going to work on the world today and just start putting those bits in or does it again how yeah because I'd imagine you can't can you can write the the you know person walks down the street or you know what that is if you know what the street is but until you've got a street or a location that you've invented quite hard to do the other things right I think you know I spend a lot of time staring at walls which sounds crazy but like my mind really takes me to these places and I feel like I'm walking the streets and I'm understanding the the way that the the city affects the mindset of the people that live there and their daily lives and all that stuff so I'm living it before I'm writing anything down I think uh you know I I try and get a real solid feel for what's happening in the world that before I sit down but I think you know I'm very lucky in some regards because I wrote 40 42 books before this one and I think that that really armed me and equipped me to be able to you know there's definitely huge chunks of this book that I I did not have um a very clearly defined road map for with with like the with the minutiae but because I'd written so many books before this one I had learned the skill set I needed to be able to sit down and kind of do it as I went you know what I I mean, I don't think I would have been successful at writing this book if I'd written it, even in 2017.

18:35So, you know, there's good in the wait as well. You know, like it's good that I waited because, you know, in that five year period, six year period, I wrote so many books and that taught me a lot. So I think I did it when I was meant to.

18:49Ben Hanlin: Yeah, you had time to percolate. And then when you started going, right, this is this next series and I'm going to do this series. And obviously we can talk about how eventually it came out. but the do you when you sit down to write any book do you create any rules for yourself of like right before we get to the end of whatever this draft is this book has to contain this this this and this do you do you work like that or is it a bit more free-flowing than that yeah absolutely before i start there's normally scenes that i've already like imagined in my head that i that i'm like favorite moments that i'm looking forward to it's like the greatest hits of the story you know and they're associated around like maybe some of the larger beats in the story like how you're like telling the story and the bones the foundation of it sometimes but sometimes they're around small like emotional moments or emotional beats between the characters or you know the big reveals are always fun like if there's a plot twist or um so those moments are always like absolutely burning at the forefront of my mind I am a chronological writer I write everything sequentially and I know that I am so fascinated by this I talk to a lot of other authors and I'm like how do you do it like because everyone's got such a different process um and some people are like oh I you know I write the end first because I need to know where I'm going and I'm like you're a crazy person you're an animal how could you how could you do that to yourself because for me personally I have to write every scene as it happens on the page every page nothing out of order like and and that's torturous sometimes to me because i have those moments where i'm like these have to be in the story but they feel so distant and they're it's like a reward as well once you get to those moments and you're like i i got to ride it it's really exciting so when you eventually sat down and said right this is what i'm going to dedicate my time to now so you had like a handful of scenes in your head or noted down of like right this is going to happen and this is going to happen so those are our landmarks on the journey if you will but day one hour one it's page one go that's how it works right yeah and and page one is my favorite like page out of any of them closely followed by the end page whatever number that ends up being right the first page of a book is real magic like you really get to you have to be very creative you know there's a lot of information that you subtly have to give to a reader and hook their attention you know there are so many brilliant books in the world and that first page is crucial to you know getting getting them onto the second do you know what I mean it's very easy to close a book and go okay that doesn't look like it's for me you know um so I it's like a game to me to like write the best first page I possibly can and it's it's I I go but that's probably the one I only edit you know So I obviously edit the story throughout, but that's the one I go back and I really finesse and I spend a lot of time on that page because it means, you know, it's crucial.

21:56It's fundamental to the whole series. Yeah.

22:00Ben Hanlin: Right. Everyone listening is going to go back and reread that first page. But so when you let's talk about the writing process, you've talked about it a bit. So once you committed to do it, how I mean, I know you wrote this quite quickly, right? It kind of once it came out, it was good. So how long to let everyone know, how long did it take from when you dedicate your time to sit down to finishing the draft? And then we'll talk about what that looks like on a day to day basis. Yeah, this was an exceptional story. So I don't want people to think that this is this is the rule and not the exception.

22:32But this was a six week project for me. And and that's very unusual. You know, I'm not trying to sell that as as the norm in any way, shape or form. And normally, you know, when I when I sit down to write a book, it would be probably three months, four months. And that's a that's like a hundred and twenty thousand word book. But this one was two hundred and five thousand. And yeah, it really it felt like I'd been holding this breath for so many years that I was finally getting to let it go. So when I sat down, it was just this really weird experience. You know, I was in, I was all in. And I started, I think it was the weekend after Thanksgiving.

23:17And I have my birthday and obviously the holidays in December. But I just, my head was down, you know, I was so excited. to and that was the beautiful thing about writing this book because I found my joy again and it was just like so exciting to sit down and you know I was losing sleep over it because I was just like oh man I'm at such a I'm at such like you know we're like the foot is on the pedal right now it's all gas I've got to keep going and it was hard to walk away from actually it became you know a little tricky to to navigate sometimes because you know you've got family and friends and And people who still care about you being in their lives.

23:56And you're like, I'm sorry, I got to dip out of reality for the next month and a half.

24:00Ben Hanlin: And they talk about flow state, don't they? That once you get into this state and it feels like you hit it and it just stayed the whole project, right? It really did. Yeah, it was remarkable. And, you know, it was very cathartic because once I had finished, I had hit all of those beats and moments that I've been, you know, cherishing and imagining for so long. all of these like various so many moments in book one that when I it felt like you know I'd I'd purged all of this stuff um but but then my immediate reaction was but I didn't just imagine all these scenes for book one you know I've been dreaming of the whole series for so many years that you know I immediately picked up my pen and started writing book two or my laptop I should say because I still had that momentum and I still had the desperation to get it all out.

24:52Ben Hanlin: So with this series, three books, isn't it? Is that right? Three books? Well, that might be a moving target, but we'll leave that up to the fates, I suppose. But initially we were looking at three books. So when you came to sit down and write the first book, had you in your head, have you already got the ending of the whole series? Yes, you have. yeah okay right so that's the you work of this is where we're going between and now i've got to get you there okay interesting yeah and that part was really fun obviously because most stories are a structure and a trilogy especially really leans into that um so when i sat down to write the first book i was really looking at the overarching beats of the story and like the side character development and you know where all these pieces that you know the b story and c story parts were fitting in too So it was really fun to actually sit down and go, OK, well, you know, where do I end book one?

25:48What is the most important moment there? And that one was easy. With book two, it was a little more difficult. Book twos are like, you know, the second book in a series, especially a trilogy. They're really hard to write, actually. They're like the hardest book out of the three. But like kind of moving all of the puzzle pieces and getting them into position and figuring out where everyone else's story is taking them. is just the best fun. It was a really good time.

26:17Ben Hanlin: And when you said you were in this flow and you were kind of writing every day, just because, again, people who listen to this are not authors, does that literally mean wake up, go to your desk, and just type all day? Or do you procrastinate? Do you jot some things down first before you type? Do you review yesterday's work? What's the kind of process for you there? I like to think that I am improving as a more organized human being. But the truth is I'm probably getting worse. I don't know. I have very bad ADHD. So I am a huge procrastinator and my attention span is that of a goldfish. So it's tough.

27:00I do procrastinate, you know, and I probably during that period spent a good chunk of time at my desk that I didn't need to because I opened up the internet or I was looking at social media, those kinds of things. And those, those are my biggest, like, you know, time wasters, the time sucks that I'm desperately trying to, you know, carve out of my day. I don't need those there. And social media is just so, oh man, it's really good at its job. It just really pulls you in. So it's very, it's a very dangerous thing to have on my phone during a, you know, a deadline. But typically I would sit down and I would, you know, I would say to myself, okay, I'm gonna put the kettle on, I'll put the kettle on to make a cup of tea.

27:44And I'll go and answer a couple emails while I'm waiting for the tea to for the kettle to boil. And between that time, and you know, it's midday by the time I've remembered that I put the kettle on. And I'll have answered some emails, but I've then immediately got swept away in the story. And I'm like, there's definitely a clock a counter in my head going like 10 more minutes 10 more minutes just uh get this bit down get this bit down um and then you come up for air and you're like I'm in my pajamas my hair looks like a bird lives in it I probably you know I haven't brushed my teeth I haven't had any tea or water I haven't been to the toilet you know I had to set alarms to remind myself to get up and move my body and and to go to the bathroom and to drink water and things like that because it became quite you know a problem uh you know I was just really in into what I was doing I was deeply engaged and and very very present for it which was unusual for me with my ADHD so do you have to

28:43Ben Hanlin: like remove other distractions you say to people don't call me don't speak to me I am I am an artist and I'm working or you or you actually you know if the phone rings and you can you you'd answer it yeah i used to i used to have to i would put my phone on silent and turn it over that was the thing because it's like the best video game in the world your cell phone you know like it's you you could just waste your entire life do you have any golden rules or two or two one to three golden rules that you would say about writing that if anybody listened to this was thinking do you know what i've got an idea in my head i'm going to give this a go what are your golden rules that you like to share with people?

29:24I always say, you know, first things first, like we've got a million different reasons and excuses we can make for ourselves to not sit down and write the book. You know, we can, you know, everyone start, everyone's a debut novelist at some point. Everyone writes their first book at some point, you know, if they're going to go down this journey, we've all done it. So you have to sit down and do the work. You have to just start the work, regardless of the fact that, oh, I'm, you know, my time commitments, you know, it's such a long process. It's a daunting prospect. I'm never going to be able to see it through.

29:56I don't have the patience, da-da-da-da-da. You know, like, oh, it's going to be expensive. Like, there are so many different reasons. And at the root of them all is this idea that we're not good enough to do it. But the way you get good enough to do it is to do it. You know what I mean? You have, it's one of those it's a skill set that is you know is learned and you um some people are blessed with you know they're off they're given a bit of a head start but it's a learned skill set and you can learn it and um it's the process of sitting down and writing every day that that helps you get there and one page a day at the end of the year you've got a whole book it mounts up really quickly so sitting down doing it um and then my granddad told me when I started I've said this so many times so apologies if you guys have heard it before but he said you can only fail if you give up and that one has stuck with me he made me a very stubborn woman um and a third gosh read always read of course without reading you can't write

30:58Ben Hanlin: hello it's me i'm just taking a 30 second commercial break i'm gonna say a break there's no sponsors it's just me talking to you um but this is cali what a good interview so far i thought And something after this interview that I've been thinking about is how this was her 43rd book and that she'd got all of that experience under her belt before writing this. She'd mastered her craft. And it reminded me of something that Simon Squibb said on episode one, which was in terms of content creation, exactly the same as a YouTuber, a TikToker. You don't want to be overnight success. You want to come up slowly and learn your craft.

31:35Ben Hanlin: So I thought it was kind of interesting. two totally different creative people that really appreciate coming up slowly and doing the work. Anyway, right, what I want to tell you about very quickly, if you are enjoying this, you know this is a new show. I'm building this up. I'm trying to make this one of the biggest podcasts in the world about creativity and the creative process. I need your help. This is the simple question here. Can you press like for me on these or follow? Subscribe makes a difference. If you can leave a review on these podcasts, it really, really does make a difference. help get these early podcasts up and running.

32:07Ben Hanlin: But here's my question for you. Is there somebody in your life, a friend, a family member that you think would like this episode? Maybe they read these types of books. And if so, all I want you to do is just pop them up on WhatsApp and share or wherever you send your messages and send them this link to this pod and say, hey, I think you might like this. That's how I'm gonna get this podcast out into the world is your help. So if you can do that for me, that'd be amazing. Right. also drop me a dm on instagram because just tell me what you think about any of this anything you want to talk about i'll dm you back because i want to have chats about all of these lovely conversations we're having let's start back let's jump back into the episode we are going to jump into how she got this book published she was previously self-published all her other books and she we picked this up where she'd made the manuscript and she'd sent this to a really well known publisher that was interested in working with her and what happens next is really interesting so enjoy but with this one I was like okay I'm changing genres I don't have an established readership here and it's a huge book it's a huge time commitment you know I'm really rolling the dice on something here it would be very beneficial to have the stability that a traditional publishing deal offers um so I'm gonna try I wrote the story and I sent it to this poor woman who's been waiting like over a decade for a book from me and she's like I don't do fantasy I don't do romanticy you know she's she's strictly contemporary romance sweet romance that kind of thing um so she said I'll pass it over to my colleague who does um and she did and her colleague kindly read it and she said you know I love the story I love the book but it's too long um and I would change x y and z and you know I just uh I think that you need to to cull like about 70 odd thousand words here uh and change quite fundamental parts of the story and I was just like no I was so certain of what I had written that was it was the story that I wanted to tell and I was just like no I'm not gonna do that thank you so much I really appreciate your feedback and she was so sweet and kind about it too you know she was a really lovely woman um but I just I was really dead set on what I wanted to do with this book so I was like screw it I'll just do it myself you know she's like okay I just don't think I can market it with the length that it is and and everything else and I was like fair play um I totally get it so I was like I made the decision to to self-publish it I I was more patient than I normally was I probably finished it you know like I I went back and re-edited it to death you know which is something I wouldn't normally do but because this one was so important to me um and I I had a couple of eyes on it beforehand which is not my normal uh speed either um and then I decided to finally pull the trigger in June which was a long lead time for me and I knew it was you know I would I had already spoken to my readership about it in my Facebook group you know I think I had about eight eight thousand people in there at the time and I did a poll and I've spoken about this at events before so apologies if people have heard it but um I said to them you know would you guys what do you want from me you know like what do you want to read you know would you would you be open to reading a romanticity story from me um or do you want me to like write another zeth mayfair book who's another of my characters who was very popular and the resounding answer was we absolutely do not want romanticity from you we want more of zeth mayfair and we'll be really mad if we don't get it so i was like you know i this was a real indication to me of the fact of what i was going to expect when I released this book.

35:58I kind of knew that it wasn't going to perform the way that a lot of my other books had performed and I was okay with that because I had spent so much time with this story and I was really proud of it and even if it didn't do anything I was still so proud of it. So I pulled the trigger, released it and it did not do well. It died a death immediately you know and I was devastated I'll be honest you know it's never easy when you kind of like throw something that means so much to you out into the world and it doesn't do well um with nearly all of my books that I'd put out before nearly every single one of them had broken into the top 100 on Amazon um which was always such a huge mark of success as an independent author you know um and this one got to 101 and I was devastated I was absolutely gutted well well not for long yeah I know well you know six weeks then followed where it kind of languished and those were the longest six weeks of my life because you know I went through every emotion under the sun that you can think of thinking about okay well you know I'm gonna I'm absolutely gonna write the sequel but it's gonna be on my own time I'm gonna have to get a job I'm gonna have to like you know I need money to pay my bills and support my family so you know all these things had to be taken into consideration and it got it really you know disappeared into the thousands on amazon and i was just like okay well that this is it i guess you know um which must be weird for you because as well it seems

37:27Ben Hanlin: like the thing you you feel is probably your best you know piece of work in that sense that you were super proud of it you're like this is brilliant i know good literature and this is great why Like what is going, that must be so frustrating when you know you're sitting on something that is brilliant, you know. Well, that's the thing as well. Unfortunately, there are so many amazing, brilliant self-published books out there that are just, you know, potentially, you know, award winning worthy books. But they just don't reach the market, you know. And it's so hard for people to find an audience these days because the market is so saturated.

38:06Ben Hanlin: so let's talk about what changed there yeah and book talk right yeah I was laying in bed and I was very like you know I was I was in my 11th hour I was I was having my existential crisis moment and I was like you know what screw it I'm gonna give it one last chance the social media thing because it's not my wheelhouse it's not something that I've ever like you know properly focused on or developed, you know, into something productive or successful for myself because I just, I'm not good at it and I don't enjoy it. And, and I was like, screw it, I'm going to do it. And I had a couple of friends who'd, you know, TikTok had changed their careers, the trajectory of their careers just, you know, on a dime because it's, it was such a powerful tool.

38:51And I was like, well, you know, I doubt it's going to happen for me, but I can damn well try. And I was, I threw back my covers and I got up out of bed and I went and sat on the couch And I researched 30 odd people who are on TikTok, had BookTok accounts, were talking about books like mine in this genre, who had engagement on their platforms and were like, you know, interesting platforms. And I reached out to them. I did some sleuthing and I found some email addresses and I reached out and I said, this is my book. You know, you don't know me, but I've written this book. I think you might like it.

39:26I think it's up your street. would you be interested in receiving a special edition copy a physical copy uh and the physical copy in in the indie world is a is a you know it's a real selling point to a lot of reviewers so and I was like you know it's got foiling and it's pretty and this is the cover and half of them got back to me and said yes absolutely and about three or four of them said feel free to send the digital copy first if you like I'll get reading right away it sounds great and I was blown away by that and I did and with like you know I think I sent that on like a Wednesday to those three or four people and by Monday they were posting about it and talking about it and and it was going viral and I was just like you know I was truly one of those moments where I was you know opening my phone and going what's happening you know it was crazy to witness It was really remarkable.

40:21And then all of a sudden I've got publishing houses in my DMs on Instagram saying, oh, we would love to publish your book. And I'm like, this is not real life. This can't be this isn't how it happens, you know. Yeah.

40:37Ben Hanlin: So I've heard of I've heard of book talk and I hear it, but I didn't really. But essentially, it's people who are in your genre who have got an audience that are into that. you if you can get them to review your book like you traditionally would get reviews and this is the new way of doing it and like you say it's instant and they've got their their audience that go out and buy it and that's how we can get it out there it's amazing the beautiful thing about book talk is that there's a real sense of community there too which is great you know it's not just people who um have large platforms who you know are talking about books like it's everyone you You know, it's like a mom of three who like, you know, has a day job and does it because she just has such joy and passion for reading.

41:21And she loves, you know, talking to people and about books, you know, and you've got like the smallest accounts and then these huge monster, like monolithic things that have got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers and huge, huge, huge engagement. But at the root of it all is this, you know, sense that books bring us together, which is so lovely.

41:41Ben Hanlin: yeah and it's great that you could you know i guess previously you'd have had to get a publisher they would have had to convince the big uh you know bookshops to stock it and and you're you know you're in the hands of these giants right but now actually the communities can essentially find and choose their next artist which is pretty cool all the time that way now it's lovely it's really really cool um and from a business perspective from the publisher's perspective it's like proof of concept too you know what i mean like they know that they're they're going to publish a story that that is people are clamoring for you know and it's happened a whole bunch on on from tiktok you know what i mean because people find something it catches steam and it's and then suddenly it's got this army of readers who are already engaged and won the book So, it's a powerful tool.

42:34Ben Hanlin: It's a great story. And we're going to start wrapping things up. But do you know what? We're talking about social media. Callie, I could not do this chat without talking about the audio book and the social videos. We all know, I mean, literally, me and my wife spend a lot of time seeing these social media videos. So, to sum it up, obviously, the book got turned into an audio book. let's talk can we just talk about kingfisher's voice for a start did you have any say in this i did i did um the publishing company that the audio producer they are now a publisher as well they are doing physical um but i've been working for with them for a long time so i i had already sold the rights to them before i finished the book essentially they had already bought it um and and i've been working for them with i trust their judgment now like when they read a project and they come to me with, say, three different narrators.

43:32And they're like, OK, this is our preference, but you can choose. You know, they they give an audition. They read a couple like a couple paragraphs, you know, nothing crazy. But they were very clear about who they wanted to read this book. And I was like, OK, I see what you're saying here. And then I listened to Anthony's performance and I was like, OK, like I don't need to hear anything else because he is so good at what he does. He is just a consummate professional. He's a very, very good actor. and it comes across in the audio.

44:01Ben Hanlin: Yeah, and it's also obviously creating a whole buzz for audio books as well as a result. People are wanting to hear the characters that they've been reading about. And then, so when you see these going viral, what are your thoughts when you're scrolling Instagram and then a random creator has taken the sound and made a video about it? Do you love that? Because it's another way of hearing about the book as well, isn't it? I absolutely love it. And it's so, so cool to see how creative people get with things too. You know, a lot of the sounds that are up there now, like that people have taken were from videos that I made.

44:37You know, like I took with their permission, I made like a clip, you know, and put it Anthony's voice on there. But they've taken the sound and made their own and like and they've taken other little bits and pieces from the audio book as well. And I love all the lip syncing that they do and they put it to like silly memes. And there's there's one sound, actually, that's probably the most popular one. That's like the the most serious one on TikTok. And that was the only part of the first book, Quicksilver, that I went back and added in. It was it was like three lines. And it's the part where he says, don't call her sunshine.

45:13She's moonlight and explains why. And I that part wasn't in the in the finished book. And I went back and I was like, I want to show his hand a little bit here. I want him to say something that's going to have her like scratching her head a little bit and show that he's like quite a vulnerable, like he could be a little poetic if he wanted to. And now getting to see people like run with that and take that and turn it into other things. And it's so special. It's amazing.

45:41Ben Hanlin: It is good. It is good. Right. We are going to wrap things up with my fast five, my final five questions, Callie. Right. Right. So, by the way, first of all, thank you for taking the time to really dive into that and pick your brains on how all that came about. And I know we've already got Brimstone on order, by the way, in our house. It's pre-ordered. So there you go. Right. Let's start. My first of the five questions is you actually mentioned Quantum Leap, a good 80s, 90s reference. Do you remember the film Highlander? I do. Yes. Good. So in the film Highlander, this is my Highlander question, they kill other immortals and they steal their expertise and their knowledge.

46:23Ben Hanlin: So, Callie, you could kill. Well, you'd have to kill. If you could steal anyone's expertise and skills on this planet, they can stay alive. They're safe. Okay. Who would it be? oh gosh um oh shoot I mean the first person that immediately comes to mind isn't going to be very exciting to anyone else but my agent Caitlin Mahoney at WME is just the most ferocious fearsome woman I've ever seen at work and I just admire her so much so her confidence and her ability to like just knock it out of the park but I don't know I mean if if Christopher Lambert was like you know around i'd do him because he's already stolen everybody else's powers ah there you go see you're already thinking about it like a character in a human right uh time capsule question so we are creating a times capsule we can only ever put one of your projects into the time capsule to keep forever all your other projects will be forgotten about or evaporated from the planet i think i might know the answer to this what's going in the time capsule it would have to be quicksilver but i will say it's a very close second first um a very close second sorry there's another book i wrote back in 2012 called halo under the name frankie rose uh which was a why a dystopian book that i'm very very proud of so it's very close there okay all right thank you and also one thing we didn't mention is obviously quicksilver's coming to netflix yes just so right i mean how much how involved are you in this process yeah i mean everything in hollywood is pretty you know it's a slow grind it's very glacial the progress is you know sometimes you're not you're not used to that you want it quicker than that as i said very impatient woman but um you know they'd be very collaborative uh i had a number of meetings before i chose netflix to to make this movie um and they were the ones who had the clearest vision and wanted to be very collaborative and that was important to me um so I do have a say uh you know we're we're at script stage we have a script um I chose the producer that's working on the project now her name is Elizabeth Quintillin and she just did um she did Alien Romulus which I loved um so it really showed me she could make a kind of gritty dark edgy story um and she's also just done The Love Hypothesis uh from Ali hazelwood so um she can do both i love that uh yeah we're getting to a point now where we're going to start talking about directors and casting the casting is obviously the the part that most people want to know about and and me too um we're your friends just keep sending you photos of actors and actors and go oh there you go what about this yeah yeah i i got a someone sent me an email a couple days ago i get a lot of emails saying oh you should cast this guy and i'm like if only I had the power.

49:20Ben Hanlin: Yeah. But someone said that I should cast one of the guys from Slow Horses, the main character, as Carrion. And I can't remember his name, Max somebody, I think. Okay. And I was like, great, yeah, I'd love that. I'll let him know. Okay. Right. My third question, going back to the five. Culture Vulture. So what is the book, film or TV program that you've watched recently that you've loved? Oh, man, it's hard to not pick a book, but I'm going to say Foundation on Apple TV because I'm such a sci-fi nerd and I love Asimov, who wrote that series. And normally I would be outraged because they took a huge amount of artistic liberties with that series.

50:09They created whole new characters and through lines and stories, but they did such a phenomenal job with it that it actually was very complementary to the book series. And the actors were amazing. Lee Pace is the main character and he's phenomenal. And I'm just a sucker for sci-fi. Can I get two? I'm also going to say Project Hail Mary as well.

50:30Ben Hanlin: Well, do you know, Project Hail Mary is on my to-read list because the film's coming out, right? Is it coming out next year? Yeah. Yeah, so Project Hail Mary, that's already on my list. That's a good one. you're going to have the best time I'm so jealous that you're getting to read that for the first time because the book is excellent itself the audio book is phenomenal like if you have a big drive coming up I highly recommend it it's it's so so good and the movie looks phenomenal too so yeah every single one right um fourth question penultimate question of the show uh magic wand I give you my magic wand um Callie and you can see you're like yeah this is fine this is this This is my world.

51:12Ben Hanlin: So you get my magic wand. And with that, you can vanish anything from the world. We'll keep it literature, I suppose. Anything from the world of books, literature, being an author, anything that you... It could be a genre. It could be a type of thing that you read and you're not a big fan of. Not specifically a particular book. But what would you vanish from the world of literature? From literature? Oof. I think I would vanish the miscommunication trope. I hate it with a vengeance. The miscommunication trope is where, you know, if we're going to say romance, for example, she's walking down the street and she sees her beau hugging another woman.

51:57And she's like, he's cheating on me. I'm going to go and burn the world down. And that's the cause of the conflict in the story.

52:05Ben Hanlin: Is her just getting the wrong end of the stick. And it's applied to so many different scenarios and reasonings, but it's like, oh, that could have been solved with a simple question. That, like, who was the girl? Oh, it was my sister, you know? Yeah. And that's the climactic moment where she realises that she's been such a fool and it was his sister. Yes, yeah. That's not my favourite. Fine. Okay, it's gone. And then my final question of the show is, what's the trick, Callie? What is the trick to becoming a professional author? You can reiterate something you've already said, but yeah, how would you answer that?

52:48I think a voracious love of books is the first part. You can't do this without loving to read. Obviously, it sounds like, you know, common sense, but, you know, sometimes not. um yeah and then just obstinacy like stubborn sheer stubborn force of will because it's a long road sometimes sometimes some people get lucky and you know they they capture lightning in a bottle on their first try but sometimes it's the 43rd try so you just gotta stick it out you know keep yeah keep doing it because you love it no well great thank you so much thank you thank you for having me this was really fun

53:31Ben Hanlin: so there we go that was callie hart author of quicksilver brimstone is out now if you haven't read them you've got a lot of reading to do off you go thanks for listening to what's the trick we'll be back next friday with another episode this is your first time go and check out our previous episodes as well remember to like subscribe and i'll see you next time thank you