In this bonus episode (a live event at the Nantucket Atheneum!), beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand interviews Zibby about her bestselling debut novel BLANK. Zibby describes her journey in the literary world, from this podcast’s humble beginnings to breaking into publishing and opening a bookstore—always with a desire to treat authors like rockstars. She also delves into her trajectory as a writer, reflecting on the rejections she faced at the beginning, the personal losses that inspired her memoir, BOOKENDS, and the relentless determination that led to the publication of BLANK. Finally, she and Elin discuss the realities of being an author in today’s market—from the emphasis on marketing to the importance of social media (and BookTok!).

Transcript:

Elin: Welcome to Nantucket. 

Zibby: Thank you, Ellen. So fun to be here. 

Elin: It is so fun to be here. We've had this on the books for months and months and months, and I've really been looking forward to it. So, Zibby is a force in the book world in general, but specifically in New York City.

Now, the way I met you is I'm trying to, I'm, I'm going to get, I'll, I'll get it wrong. I noticed a post on your Instagram possibly about Jane Rosen's novel, Eliza Starts a Rumor. And in this novel, there is a scene that makes fun of Upper East Side moms and Jane was slated to do a book group. In on the Upper East Side and they canceled her because they heard it was somebody read it and thought it was snarky.

So I was so outraged that I immediately followed Jane, bought her book, read it, posted about it, and then I started following Zibby. And I'm going to say that was January of 2020 before the pandemic. Does that sound right? 

Zibby: I think so. I was also outraged by that and immediately offered to host a book club for her instead of the snarky Upper East Side group.

So it ended up working out really well. And it got me here apparently, so who knew? 

Elin: Yeah, exactly. But, um, tell the audience like how you got started with this monumental sort Project life that you have going on everything you have going on. 

Zibby: It sounded so funny to hear my bio being read because i've just gotten back from a week long Family vacation with those four kids who just escaped already from here and we've been like living out of suitcases and I feel like i'm only mom and i'm like wait there are actually other adults here and I I do have a job and anyway, so it was nice to hear I I got into this after I had stayed at home with my kids for 11 years, but prior to that, I had been writing my whole life and always wanted to be an author and had gone to business school.

My background, I always wanted to also start a business and I didn't know how anything was going to mesh, but somehow eventually it did. I ended up getting a divorce from my first husband and had all this extra time every other weekend where I could get back into reading and get back into writing and remember sort of who I was after all that time.

And so I did, and I got back into all of it. I tried to sell a book that I thought was so clever, 'cause I was gonna call it Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, the book. But nobody thought that was funny except me, or maybe other people who weren't in publishing at the time. So I didn't have a platform at all, and it's very hard to sell a book for those who are authors out there or wanna be authors without a platform.

And a girlfriend suggested that I start a podcast, so I took that name of my rejected novel. Moms Don't Have Time to Read books. And I said, okay. A friend said, start a podcast. I was like, why not? What's the worst that can happen? So my first episode, I sort of hunkered down in my bedroom and just recorded it into my phone after I Googled like, what's the easiest way to start a podcast.

So it started with that. I interviewed, we have a mutual friend here tonight, but I, my first guest was Lee Carpenter, who I went to business school with and I interviewed her about her book and I realized, oh my gosh, I love this more than anything. I get to just sit and ask all these questions of authors that I always want to know.

And I used to go to book events. I mean, I still do, but I used to go to Barnes and Noble, I would have the calendar on my fridge and I would always go, but then I would leave sort of wanting more, like somehow the questions asked weren't what I wanted to know. So now I can ask like, okay, so where do you get your hair done?

I mean, they're not all superficial, but like things like, okay, well, seriously, how did you come up with that? Or what is it like being famous or just whatever I feel like asking? I can ask. And usually people are curious about those things too. So it's ended up working out well that inspired the rest of it.

And one thing has just led to another over the last 6 years and everything that seems like a good idea I test out and try, not everything has worked, but this is what's led me to become a publisher, which was designed to make the author experience better and have my own bookstore, which has been amazing.

Elin: Okay, so let's dig in a little bit on the podcast. So you, Tim told me this, I could, did not believe it because Tim and I have a podcast and we have, how many episodes do we have, 12 per season, 13. You interview a different author every day. Is that true? 

Zibby: So for four straight years, I interviewed. I had, I released seven episodes a week.

Then I thought, okay, maybe I should go back to five a week. But now I, that's very frustrating because I keep interviewing more people. So like, we just did a huge blast with like 30 interviews this month. So it all evens out basically the answer. Yes. I interview somebody every day, although I don't interview them every day.

I interview like five people in a day and.. 

Elin: That is just so crazy to me. Now there's no way. You're reading everybody's book. Is there? Is that possible? 

Zibby: I can't read them all start to finish. Okay. But I've learned how to prep everybody's book. 

Elin: Okay. How do you do it? Cause I want to know. 

Zibby: Okay. Let's get into it.

So first I have to schedule it all and then I schedule it so that I can pace out like how much time I'm giving myself to read each book. And then some books I know I'm going to want to linger on every page and those I give like two weeks of time to read and I read them at night and I'll read them like for an hour at my desk during a workday.

But I speed read a lot of them. 

Elin: Okay. 

Zibby: I can't always like relax with a book. Some books, I'm more interested in the author. So I'll read the first 50 pages and then get into a conversation about the author. So it depends on if it's a novel or if it's a memoir, if it's self help. Sometimes I have to throw in a children's book because I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't, I can't do my week.

I have to do a children's book to make the, make it all work. But yeah. Sometimes, like your book, Swan Song, I had this whole week that I allocated to read the whole thing. And I read every word. And actually, my daughter, who was just here, was like, you guys, don't bother mom. She hardly ever gets to finish an actual book.

Elin: Aww. That's so cute. 

Zibby: Which I did. Oh my gosh. So I do different amounts. But if I know I'm going to love it, which I can kind of tell, you know, you can kind of tell if the first, the first page or two, then I give it extra time and I read really quickly and I read every night at least for an hour before bed.

So it all adds up. 

Elin: And how long does the, how long does your podcast conversation last? 

Zibby: 30 minutes. 

Elin: And what are your favorite questions to ask? 

Zibby: I have some standard questions that I ask, you know, tell the audience about your book, blah, blah, blah. But my favorite ones, I just, I come up with them as I'm, as I'm going the way you would at a conversation with a girlfriend or something like,.. 

Elin: Yeah. 

Zibby: I don't have prepped questions.

I started when I started out doing it, I was very nervous and I was overprepared as if it was like a school final and I would type out like 12 to 15 questions per episode, including quotes with like the page numbers in parentheses. And I did that for like two years until finally an author was like, why do you send everyone the questions ahead of time?

And I'm like, oh, you know, cause I'm prepared and I would have like seven printed out things on the floor next to the books and everything. And then I realized, wait, I don't have to do that. And once I got good enough at doing it and practiced enough and relaxed enough, I realized, wait, I don't need these questions.

I can just be prepared and then see where it goes. So that's what I do now. 

Elin: And is there one or two authors that have stood out of all these, I mean, I, my mind is blown, but is there, because that's a lot of authors, you guys, are we all agreeing? That's that's a lot of authors. Like, how do you even remember their name or remember the.. 

Zibby: 1900..

Elin: No. Okay. 1900.

Zibby: Yeah. 

Elin: Tim, are you back there? Okay. 1900. We are so slacking. 

Zibby: Chop chop. 

Elin: Has, have there been one or two that have stood out like sort of above the sea of 1900? 

Zibby: I mean, there's some where I've been particularly nervous and 

Elin: Such as? 

Zibby: Like Matthew McConaughey, where I was 

Elin: Okay. 

Zibby: Sweating almost as much as I'm doing right now.

And like Andre Agassi, who was actually my second guest. 

Elin: Oh, oh my gosh. 

Zibby: Alicia Keys. But to be honest, for me, the more exciting thing is interviewing people. People I've had sort of author crushes on forever, right? And then I finally get to talk to them, like someone like Jojo Moyes or ..

Elin: Right. 

Zibby: Marion Keys or Sophie Cancela or you.

And that's so exciting to me. 

Elin: Yeah. 

Zibby: It's like, oh my gosh, they've been in my life for so long and they've just been a flat name on a cover. And now they're like a 3D person. And it's so exciting. 

Elin: I know. I totally agree. Because Tim and I, we've had a lot of slip. Well, we've had a lot. We've had, we've had, you know, a handful of celebrities on our podcast.

Zibby: Yeah. 

Elin: And but the people, I think the person I was most excited about was Maggie O'Farrell, who's one of my, I think is the best writer in the English language. And we had her on at the end of season one, and we're having Ina Garten on at the end of season two. And that will also be so exciting for me. 

Zibby: How do you prep for your podcast?

Elin: Oh, Tim does it. I obviously do nothing. I just show up. I don't have time. Moms don't have time to prep for podcasts in my house so Tim does the prepping and I do nothing. The, the moms don't have time to brand is so ingenious and I was so drawn to that after our initial introduction, how, I mean, I know how, but can you talk about how you came up with that idea?

Zibby: I came up with it because I had started writing a lot of personal essays, which I used to do. I started writing for 17 Magazine when I was 16. But then I was deep in mom life and I started writing for a scary mommy and the today parenting team and all these outlets all the time and after a while I had a lot of essays and my husband Kyle who's here tonight said, you know you should really turn all those essays into a book and I just I said moms don't have time to read books and I was like, that's so funny.

That's So that's how I came up with it. 

Elin: Okay. That's amazing. I'm just like, and then, and then what you did was you, you took the idea moms don't have time to, and then you did an anthology. So can you tell us some of the chapter titles of the essays in that book? 

Zibby: So during the pandemic, I had, when the pandemic hit, I had started the podcast, but I started with one a week and at the time that felt almost insurmountable, like how was I actually going to do one a week?

Uh, so I had started with that and I had also started doing these pop up, uh, podcasts Book fairs and salons in my apartment in New York City, where I would just invite everyone to come over. And I would have an author to kind of like this, but it would be at home and they would talk and everything. And so I, and so that was sort of an informal book club, if you will, and a precursor to the bookstore.

So I had been doing all that and when the pandemic hit, I felt like I was in a really good position to quickly pivot, whereas the bigger, publishing houses and organizations needed to, like, think about it and make strategic decisions. And I was like, Oh, no, I'm just going to start interviewing anybody who needs help.

I couldn't believe what was going to happen to all these authors with their book releases. The whole thing so well. So I started this Instagram live show where I would interview four authors a day. And I started this online book club and did all these other things to sort of draw out the authors and give a platform to them when the world was so unpredictable and one of the things that I thought would be fun is getting them to write original content, which I had sort of thought about before the pandemic, but then when it hit, I was like, well, come on, they're not really doing anything else.

Like I can ask these authors for as it like, what are they going to say? I'm too, I'm too many events. So anyway, basically I guess preyed on these authors because of that and said, would you mind, you know, writing for this website? I'm going to put an, uh, an essay up every week so that people have things to read and original content.

So I did, I put them on my website. Right. And then after the first three months. I was like, gosh, I've released a lot of books by these authors, which was so exciting when I had like a word document in my email from Lilly King. I'm like, oh my gosh, no one's even read this except me. It was cool. So I realized I really loved that and I loved working directly with the authors.

After three months, I was like, I have a lot of these. So I copied and pasted them all into one big document and I was like, oh my gosh, it's a book. It's long enough to be a book. So then I went out to this one publisher I had met with before the pandemic who said that they could get a book out in like two weeks. And I was like, no way, that's awesome. Which of course is not true. But they did get it out in about eight months, which was not bad. 

Elin: Right. 

Zibby: So in that I asked authors to write about, the first one was about five things moms didn't have time to do. And so one was like, moms don't have time to read. Moms don't have time to work out. Moms don't have time to have sex. Moms don't have time. I mean, we don't run. Anyway, I thought these would all be really funny topics that would inspire moms. Don't have time to sleep. Moms don't anyway. And they wrote essays inspired by these topics. So I got that whole anthology together, but I didn't mean, I didn't mean it for it to be an anthology.

So then I thought, well, now I want to do one on purpose. So I went out to a whole nother group of authors, picked another five things moms didn't have time to do. And release that as a second anthology. 

Elin: Amazing. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Elin: Absolutely amazing. And then after that, you called me and said that you were starting your own publishing company, company imprint company house, house, your own publishing house.

So tell, tell our audience about that. 

Zibby: Yeah, it seems crazy looking back, but I loved working with the author so much. And I kept hearing about author dissatisfaction and how disappointed people were and people would show up at my apartment and show up really nervous and like nobody is I don't even know what I'm doing and I only have a couple things or I'm so disappointed or this out of the other thing and I felt so bad because meanwhile at the same time I still was trying to be an author myself and had not succeeded in that and I've been writing forever so I knew what that feeling was like and wanting to get to the end of the road and then the idea that they would then.

Be served dropped or not. Celebrated when I feel like every book is like a cause for celebration, sort of devastated me and everybody was like, Oh, what was me? The state of the publishing industry, like enough already. There must be something we can do, which is sort of my attitude towards most things.

Like, come on, like, what can we do to fix this? So, uh, I started gathering information, talking to lots of people, thinking about it. Is there another way? Why is every, why is it insurmountable? And because I hadn't been in publishing, I didn't see as many roadblocks, probably as someone who had worked in a publishing house, who at the time, by the way, all those people were like, you cannot do this.

Like, that's hilarious that you want to start your own publishing house. And I was like, no, I, maybe I can. So I sort of tested it out. I spent a year doing a fellowship with just a couple authors. Cause I thought, well, maybe instead of a publishing house, I'll just work directly with authors and mentor them and I'll pair them with editors and see how that goes. But it didn't quite scratch the itch because it didn't address the biggest problem, which was sort of author treatment, if you will. Um, and I, I actually had a call with this distributor at the, at the beginning of that year, a fellowship, and I had a call with them and they were like, Oh, Hey, well, what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. Obviously I cannot start this publishing house. So I spent the year working with the authors, getting more information, getting really well educated on everything, partnering with really smart people and coming up with the whole business plan.

And then I just did it. And I was like, what's the worst that can happen? I fail at trying to help authors. I fail in celebrating the great work of people I think are amazing and deserve to be celebrated, and it doesn't work. Okay. Well, if I fail at that, that doesn't sound too bad. I'll try. 

Elin: So for those of you out there who are thinking like, what kind of terrible treatment are the authors undergoing?

I will tell my own personal story. Okay. So my first novel, The Beach Club, which is bought, I'm pregnant with Max, so it's bought in 1999 and I get an advance of 5, 000. And I'm like, okay, you know, my, my agent promised me lots and lots of money. I didn't think 5, 000 was lots and lots of money, but we did not have any other authors.

So I took it the advance for 5, 000 and then they would send me out on, it came out, my son was six months old. They would send me out on like a, to a book event, but they would not pay. Any, anything. So I'm on Nantucket. I have a six month old. I had to fly. This is back in the day of Islander. I would pay my own ticket for me and my lap child to fly to Hyannis.

Then I'd have to rent a car, get the baby, put the bucket seat in it, drive max to the bookstore where they would not have advertised and like three people would show up. And this happened to you guys for five years for five books. And I would cry, call my agent and cry. And my publishing house just did not care about me or my Nantucket books or any of that and then you're saying to yourself Why are you sitting here Ellen and it's because after book five I switched publishing houses I was sitting on a novel called barefoot and they deemed that my breakout book and my agent moved me to a different publishing house who then took over and and really said, we're going to make you a superstar, which they did.

Now it did not, it was not overnight because they took me on book six. I did not hit number one on the bestseller list until book 23. So it was a 17 book, very, very slow climb for five books. And the years when the kids were very little, I mean, I was just treated terribly, like so mid list, it was bottomless, really bad.

Zibby: Yeah, I didn't realize that publishers picked like, okay, we're picking this is the book we're going to make into a bestseller and the other ones by the time they get to bookstores, it's been predetermined. 

Elin: Yeah. 

Zibby: Maybe bookstores don't even take that big a quantity. 

Elin: Right? 

Zibby: The whole system is sort of, you know, not rigged, but predetermined in a way it is predetermined.

It's not, it's not because of the people who work in publishing. This is nothing personal. I really do believe that most people I've met who work in publishing love books and want the best, but structurally the organizations are not set up for success. 

Elin: Right. And a lot of times they'll take too many books.

So when I was at my first publisher, they had a list of like, I don't know, 53 books or I don't so many, maybe 200 and then little Brown would have only 50. So they had more assets to allocate to each author. So it really depends where you end up, but a lot of it starts with the agents and the hype and you know, how much money the advances, I got a 5, 000 advance.

They're not going to spend a ton of money on my book. 

Zibby: So why, why did you not give up? 

Elin: Well, John Irving. When I was at Iowa and John Irving came to speak and he said, if you can do anything other than write, do something else. And I realized that I just could not do anything else. I was going to write regardless.

That was just what I wanted to do and what I was driven to do. And so I just kept, I just kept doing it. And I would love, I would love to say, like, I was so ambitious and I was so driven. It wasn't that. It was just like a second nature, like I was just going to keep writing books. And then if they sold great and if they didn't great, but I mean, I was so happy, obviously the book six broke out, but think about, I have a lot of authors come to me with one book and they're like, I can't sell it.

And I'm like, you have to write a second book, dude. Like you have to. And they don't want to because they're so attached to the one book. But my best advice for somebody like that is write a second book, write a third book, because it took me six books to get even launched. 

Zibby: But this is what happens in Swan Song too, is that someone writes a screenplay and finally gets up the courage to show it.

And the man who she shows it to says, You know, good job. Way to go. But no, like this is going nowhere and it's too small. She's like, my life is too small. It's based on my life. Like I thought I was mining my pain for, you know, having some end result. That's great. And he's like, no, no, just keep writing.

Maybe in five years you'll be better. And she's like five years. I know it's true. 

Elin: Yeah. Um, so I want to turn our attention to your novel Blank, which I thought was absolutely phenomenal. So many. So many things to talk about in this novel. So it's about a mom, a wife, a writer who has had a very successful first novel that was made into a film and now she's on the hook for the second novel and she has no ideas.

You guys, you cannot imagine, like for me, this is a thriller. Is she going to get it done? Is she going to get it done? And I'm like sweating and, and like turning the pages as fast as I can and thinking, Oh my God, she doesn't have any ideas. And literally like, this is me up at night. She starts ideas. She leaves the, you know, one of them gets stolen and I don't want to give too much about the book away, but for me it's a complete thriller and I'm like, Oh my God, Oh my God.

And it really, it addresses a lot of the issues that we just talked about in the publishing industry. But tell me how you came up with the idea for blank. And I don't know how much you want to give away about this. So you, you, you say.

Zibby: I'll say. Okay. So as I mentioned, I kept trying to sell books all the time that I was launching the podcast and then doing the book club and all these other things and I kept getting rejected.

So I would get a rejection letter, close my email and then like click over to zoom and interview somebody about their book and which is great. I was so happy for them But I was like, okay Well, I know everybody says don't give up don't give up but like maybe it's just not gonna happen for me like maybe i'm just never gonna have a book sale and that's okay and i'll just be like I'll just write for fun and I'll be the reader that I am.

And that's okay. I guess I'll have to come to terms with that. But I kept trying because every time I would give up, I would like pick myself up off the floor and be like, well, this is really what I still want to do. Like, even if it doesn't work. So I kept trying different ideas. I sold eventually. Through so a lot of luck and at different attempts bookends and memoir of love, loss and literature, which is when I told my life story about a lot of losses that I had gone through.

I lost my best friend on 9 11 who had worked in the North tower and she had been my college roommate and my best friend came on all our family vacations. Her name is Stacey, which bifurcated my life forever. And there was a before and an after, and I just couldn't get past wanting to tell the story of what that was like because it happened two weeks when I was Two weeks into business school and just even the juxtaposition of like all my classmates caring about the section group deals for fleeces.

And yet I was like bringing DNA strands to the armory to try to identify her, which no one ever did, by the way. So it was not to bring down the mood of this discussion, but I just, I felt compelled, I had to get this story out. I had to tell the world about her. And just like process the fact that someone you love so much can just disappear in a puff of smoke.

Like all that was left, it was like a strand of her hair on a sweater I found in a box. Like, how is this possible? We were 25 years old. So I, and I, then I had a lot of other people I love die in a short period of time and all while I was struggling to like figure out accounting, which on a good day, I can't figure out how to do.

So I wanted to tell that story and I kept going back to it. Finally, I wove in books and I told it through the books that it had been in my life forever. It was something everybody could relate to. So I sold that memoir, which was thrilling and amazing. And I felt so good to finally Get that story out for many reasons, mostly personal, but just very excited.

But then all of a sudden I had this editor who was wonderful named Carmen. And I told her that like my lifelong dream was really to write and sell a novel. And that I had written several novels that hadn't sold. I wrote a book after business school called off balance that didn't sell. And many others, I wrote a book called 40 love about falling in love.

Again, at 40 with my former tennis pro, who's now my husband, Scandal. Read all about it in bookends. Anyway, anyway, so I kept pitching the whole time we were doing gearing up for a publication of bookends. I would pitch Carmen all these different novel ideas, like, okay, what about Lover's Leap, a book set in the competitive backgammon world, um, about, you Which I thought was so clever and still do, by the way, because Lover's Leap is a move in Backgammon.

You know, when you get a six and a five. But anyway, it doesn't matter. So, I kept pitching her ideas that she didn't like. And I kept going and kept going. And then finally she was like, Okay, well, Bookends is about to come out. And if you're going to do a novel with me, I'd really like to be able to announce it.

So that you can talk about it on your book tour and all this. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And so I went to my family dinner with my, you know, my family every night we have dinner or whatever. And I was lamenting this and being like, you guys, what am I going to do? Like, I have to come up with a good idea.

And I just like, keep looking at this blank page. Like what, what other ideas can I come up with? And my son was like, well, why don't you just hand it in blank? Just like, and I was like, wait, that's such a good idea. That's what I could write my book about. I could write a book about someone who hands. Her book in blank is a commentary on the publishing industry and how it's all about marketing and it doesn't even matter what the book is.

You could make a bestseller out of nothing and that'll be the book. And so that's the book I wrote and that's the book my character in my book wrote. So it's very meta. 

Elin: It's very meta. Yeah. And also I'm thinking to myself, I wish I could get away with that. Just handed a blank book. Yeah. Nothing in it.

Just, it's just, it's empty. 

Zibby: The character did think about contractually the 60, 000 words, copying and pasting the word blank 60, 000 times, but ultimately she just handed it in blank. 

Elin: Yeah. So one of the interesting things about this novel is that it does mention like the marketing and the advertising and the, and the publicity.

I do a, well, this year, most every year is I do 14 or 15 events in 12 days. Yeah. And I just get it out of the way. Now there is an, it is unreasonable for publishing houses to expect that someone like myself who is sitting in a room or in my case out by my pool or at the beach writing a novel for a year to be also able to go out and talk to people and meet and have events with, you know, three or four or 500 people because those skill sets are so, so different.

And yet that is what every author is expected to do. So can you talk a little bit about that? 

Zibby: I've never had the 300 people in a room problem. This is a big crowd for me. Let me just say, 

Elin: Oh, good. Well, I'm happy. Thank you. 

Zibby: Yay. It makes me feel really good. Thank you. No, but it's true. You do have to, and actually this is one of the things I really like about it because I am comfortable in, in, in.

I am almost more comfortable in the marketing of the thing as I get having worked in marketing and doing that and I feel less sort of vulnerable than I do when I'm trying to like put my heart and soul on the page and, and like, you know, hand show somebody. That, but you definitely have to put on two hats and it's, you know, today I was, say I flew home from Dublin, which I have never been able to say in my life, but there you go.

If I can say it, I must. So anyway, I, I was like, this is great. My kids will be on their iPads. I'll have like eight hours. I'm going to just get like 10, 000 words done on my next novel, whatever, it's going to be amazing. I did like nothing. I read 60 pages to try to figure out what I was writing and then I fell asleep.

It was much easier for me to then go to my emails and think about the marketing of another anthology that I have coming out in October and making those plans and emailing those authors and making visuals and whatever. So I, I think it helps when you have that, when you think that part is fun, but most authors not, I would say half and half do not think that's particularly fun.

And you have to, because even the best publishers, like, all it does is help if you are willing to go the extra mile. I mean, for my, for Bank, I went to like, what, 45 cities or something crazy, crazy town. It's crazy. But I thought that was so fun. And I'm like, when am I ever going to get to do this again?

I'm going to go to Minneapolis. It was great. 

Elin: Okay. Because that's not how I see it. Cause I also went to Minneapolis and I think I probably texted him and I'm like, I have to go to Minneapolis and then I'm going to Denver. And then I'm going to St. Louis. 

Zibby: You've been to these places a lot. Like some of these places I've never even been to and I'm like Mall of America.

How fun. 

Elin: And also like, I mean, I don't know, you maybe have a little bit more time because I'm on such a tight schedule that people will be like, you know, I'll have friends that live in Minneapolis and they'll be like, Oh, do you want to go to dinner? And I'm always like, I, I cannot, I can't do one single thing.

I can only go to the event. Like sometimes I'll get my hair done, get my hair done, go to the event, go to the hotel and do room service. And then. 

Zibby: Yeah. See, I don't ever do my hair. So that saves me all that time.

Elin: I don't have the energy. But I don't ever have energy to cycle. 

Zibby: I dry my hair in five minutes and I have lunch with someone.

So there you go. 

Elin: So you do like to do that. You like to go see your friends in like all these different cities. 

Zibby: I mean, I did not. Can't at least spend the night in Minneapolis. 

Elin: Oh, okay. 

Zibby: I flew in that morning and then I left at like four o'clock. 

Elin: That's a lot. It's a lot. Okay. So let's talk. 

Zibby: How do you feel about the marketing of it?

I mean, you barely need to market anymore. Right. But like, how do you feel about having, like, I mean,

Elin: Yeah. 

Zibby: You have a built in audience, which is like the holy grail of publishing, like become an author where you just announce you have a new book and it immediately sells. 

Elin: Right. But I do a fair amount of like a ton of marketing.

So like this year, I mean, it's of course out of proportion because it was my last day on target book, but I did all kinds of interviews, all kinds of podcasts. I had CBS come to my house. That was an all day affair. You know, I'm always on CBS this morning, which is so nerve wracking. I don't know how you feel about Good Morning America, but you're I'm on live and they never tell you what they're going to ask you.

And that's. It's so nerve wracking. I have a lot of people do send me Q and A's and I'm constantly, and then you have to do extra content. Like if you're me, you have to do extra content for the big retailers. So this year it was Walmart. Who else did I do extra content for? I can't remember, but Walmart has its own edition.

Oh, Nantucket Book Partners has its own edition. So I was doing extra content for that. So it's like this whole other job. 

Zibby: So it doesn't end. 

Elin: It doesn't end. No, I mean, does Stephen King tour? Probably not. But I mean, I'm not, I'm not. 

Zibby: Well, I think about that too, because it's like Nicholas Sparks's person is always like, okay, like, have you booked the pot?

I'm like, Nicholas Sparks does it really needs beat? Sure. Like it's still Nicholas Spark. Like the biggest deal authors, in other words, still want to get on a podcast, right? You think that it's like in the bag. 

Elin: I'm going to say this, and this is probably going to be really scandalous, but this is true. The very big authors, and I'm not saying it's Nicholas Sparks, I'm not saying it's Steve, Stephen King.

I'm just saying their advances are so enormous. And they have to earn them out just like we do. So they have to sell millions of books or hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books to even make a dent into their advance. So they need, because a lot of times I think, and also when you're looking at a Nick Sparks, what do you guys do?

You go to the bookshelf and you're like, I think I've already read this, right? Because you've, they're all exactly the same and you, not his necessarily, but like, let's say they're my books. I think I've already read this. Like you have to make the effort with each book to make it different. And, you know, I'm friends with Jim Patterson.

He puts out a book every nine weeks and he does, he puts out a book every nine weeks. That is, that is a true fact. And, Yeah. 

Zibby: He's been on my podcast like six times and I just got another pitch. I'm like, wait, seriously? 

Elin: Yeah. He's always wanting, he's, he is still, he always wants to promote the book, whatever it is that's in his nine week window.

He's always out there promoting because people will look at it and say, I can't remember if I read this or not. They just see his name and they don't really pay attention to the book. So I think that most authors are out there podcast yesterday and she's an introvert. Right. And she does not, she does not go on tour and I'm so envious, but she, I mean, she sells a bajillion copies.

Um, what do you think about, this makes me wonder, what do you think about like social media and book talk? 

Zibby: Yeah. I am grateful that whole new generation of people are reading. I think that's amazing. I think that although now I feel there's a backlash, there was something recently, I guess a lot of people, well, I won't get into it.

But now people are saying book talkers and book fluencers think of too highly of themselves and really you have to be deeper into the book. Now there's some sort of backlash happening, but in general, I think it's great that there is a new way for books to get a lot of attention because it is virtually impossible to stand out in a crowded bookstore with like thousands and thousands of books.

How do you do it? So the fact that people are being so creative and this one book talker. Who I interviewed, um, Betty Coyote, for instance, like she acts out every book and she'll like even put on like a little hat and costume or sunglasses and like pretend to be a character and like she did Blank and I thought, I thought that was the coolest thing.

She's like, I'm Pippa Jones and here I am typing and I was like, that's so fun. So I don't know if it sells books. I think it's great. 

Elin: Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, whatever, I don't, I don't, I don't look at any of it. And I think that the titles they pick are sometimes strange, but, or by, by, by strange, I mean, random, like you don't, you don't know what's going to catch their fancy.

And these are people that are way younger than me, but they, they. They move a lot of copies, which is like super exciting, like Emily, like Colleen, first Colleen Hoover was like an enormous recipient of BookTok love and, and look at her, she's, and I love Colleen so, so much. 

Zibby: And are you on TikTok? 

Elin: Emily? Oh God, no.

Way, way too old for that. Wait, wait, wait. 

Zibby: She dances and my kids have not forgiven me. 

Elin: No, I know. No, that's definitely not happening. Can we talk a little bit about owning a bookstore? So then on top of all this is to be open to bookstore in Los Angeles. 

Zibby: Yes. I did. 

Elin: Crazy town. 

Zibby: Crazy. Particularly crazy because I live in New York City, but I don't, I don't like anything to be easy.

So the reason I even did that, well, I've always wanted, I mean, every book lover, like, well, not every. Many book lovers always think, wouldn't it be amazing to own my own bookstore? I think that I used to think that all the time, but I didn't actually think that one day I would have my own bookstore until the moment, basically that I had my own bookstore, but I had told my husband about it over and over again.

And I had looked at spaces first I looked at some spaces in New York city just to like dream. Would this even work? And then I like found out the rent and I was like, this will not work. And then I thought, how is any bookstore in business in New York city? Like, this is crazy. There's just no way, but anyway, so I put the idea away and then we spent a lot of time in LA.

My husband's a producer, my brother's out there. He's also a producer. So that's like our happy place. And when I don't have my kids, when they're with my ex, we go out there a lot and have like all of our friends. And I lived there after college. So when I'm there, I, I'm like a different relaxed person, even though I'm working all the time.

But anyway. There was an Amazon books store like in the Pacific Palisades where we have a place and spend a lot of time and Amazon closed all their bookstores. So I was like, Oh, Hey, now's your opportunity. There's no bookstore there anymore. Why don't you just take over the space and open a bookstore?

And I was like, Oh, that's really funny. And I barely even had time to call the broker, but it was like a Saturday and I was like, just for fun, I'm just going to call and just see how crazy it would be to like operate that space. Anyway, the broker laughed me off the phone. It became an eve selling around.

So. Anyway, it wasn't gonna happen, he said, but I do have this really cute place in Santa Monica on Montana Avenue, and the owner is dying to have a bookstore there. And I was like, no, no, no. It's too far. Meanwhile, I lived in New York City, but it was too far from the Palisades, which is 20 minutes away. But anyway, so I refused to look at it.

And I was like, no, no, no. It's too far. And then he kept following up with me. And then finally I was like, well, I'll just go see the space. Like what's the harm. And I went in and it's this it's 823 square feet. It's like the size of the stage. Practically. It's not that big, a little bigger than the stage.

And I walked in, there's windows, like the corner location, windows everywhere, and I could just see it. And I was like, this is amazing. It's like out of a movie. But I have to renovate the whole place because at first I thought, Oh, I'll just do a pop up. But I was like, well, I can't do a pop up cause I've got to deal with these walls.

And like, you know, the ceiling is terrible and I'll just, and I'd love like renovation. Anyway, so I decided I'll try it. I'll do a short term lease and I'll do it. And also I wanted to address another part of book discovery, which is that it's so hard because finally I did have these books of my own and I'd have one book like on a very high shelf in a giant Barnes and Noble, which by the way, is like a miracle that's when Barnes Noble even takes your book.

But I was like, I can't find my book in Barnes and Noble. How is anybody going to just like happen upon it and think this looks great if it's completely hard to find. So for my bookstore, and I, I do a lot of roundups, like these are books that are great for this. These are books that are great for that.

So I thought I'll just have the shelves be based on mood or based on fun theme. So when I'm not even here, people can walk in and instead of having 18, 000 books, I'll It'll be curated for them. So there's one book, like one bookshelf called Reeling from Divorce because so many people are coming in being like, I have a friend.

And I'm like, yeah, okay. And you know, books that make you laugh, books that make you cry, motherhood malaise, feeling really anxious. So all these fun shelves so that you have a tiny place where you can start out and then you end up finding the right book for you. So I thought it would be really fun. And it is, it's really fun.

Elin: And is it really fun and it's not a headache. 

Zibby: No, I mean, I have a great manager. We have a fabulous team. We have like seven part time booksellers and our manager used to work at an H and M, but as an author, actually half our team is authors and we all just love books and it runs really well now. And it's great.

I'm going out. In a few days. 

Elin: Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. I'm so, I'm so happy. Okay. One more question. Then we're going to take questions from the audience. So start thinking of your questions. You're obviously a working mom at this point. Your kids are younger than mine. My kids are grown up. They still live at home, but, um, well, two are, two are in college and two have graduated and now live back at home. It's so great. 

Zibby: There was, there was such a funny line, by the way, in swan song where there was a retirement party and yet the daughter Casey was home and he's like, I never thought that like we couldn't have our moment because the kids are home at my retirement party. 

Elin: At my retirement party.

Yeah. I mean, that was a good one. That's also me. 

So how do you manage the life work balance? No, I also want to preface this by saying that a lot of. Women writers don't like this question because it's not asked to men, and I do agree it's very annoying that this question is no one asked John Grisham how he manages his work life balance with his kids because what's the answer?

His wife doesn't, but I will ask you how do you manage your work life balance? 

Zibby: I'm not offended in the slightest. Uh, I was a stay at home mom for 11 years. It's fine. I, I'm very, very invested in the kids and I'm around them all the time. I still plan my work days around the kids. So my team knows, like I leave at 2 30 every day and I go pick up the kids.

And then I work from home in the afternoons. I'm online all the time. I'm working until after they go to bed, but my appearances are like what I try to do is around their schedules and I was just invited to do an event like the second day, like their second day of school at six o'clock and I was like, Oh, that sounds like fun.

I was like, you know what? I think they're probably going to need me at home. I'm like, I can do an event another time. Like, I don't have to go do that. So I tried to plan everything around them and what I anticipate their needs being. That said, They're on their iPads a lot. I try to involve them in everything.

So, like, for your book, for instance, like the whole time I was reading it, I was sharing things with them. Like, oh my gosh, like this is happening. This is happening. And then they get into it. Like, well, what happened? Did he die? Who did it? Like, what happens? You know? So they, so they feel like they're experiencing it with me.

Also, they've become really huge readers, particularly my younger two kids, my older kids. I don't know. I lost causes, but the younger kids are, are, you know, they, we, on our trip every night, they would, like, bring a book to dinner. And I'm like, maybe this is a bad thing, but I kind of think this is an awesome thing.

So, I involve them with everything. I try to make them see that what I'm doing is not like a random work call. Like, I would never say that. I'm like, I'm going to interview the author of, you know, whatever. Book and this is what it's about. So I think transparency and inclusion and you know, I'm stressed out a lot.

I won't lie. Like I'm always doing something, but also I have two kids who are in boarding school, so that helps because they're 17 and my two younger kids happen to be very self sufficient. Well, not very, a little. Well, okay, fine. Well, anyway, and I'm divorced and remarried. So I have every other weekend without the kids.

So essentially for most of the time at home, there are two kids part, you know, 80 percent of the time or something like that. 

Elin: Okay. 

Zibby: So does that make it better? 

Elin: It does. It makes it, I mean, it makes it a little bit easier, but it's still hard. And, you know, the famous line that when you're a working mom, when you're at work, you always want to be at home and when you're at home, you always want to be at work.

So you can't win, but yet we're doing okay, and you're doing great. 

Zibby: You too. 

Elin: Thank you. All right, you guys join me in thinking Zibby Owens. This has been so great. 

Zibby: Thank you. 

Elin: Thank you.