Brooke Bentley & Julia Whelan, SIDELINE CONFIDENTIAL
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[0:44]Brooke Bentley and Julia Wayland are authors and audiobook narrators of sideline confidential,
[0:51]a novel.
[0:52]Brooke is a former television anchor and award-winning sports reporter.
[0:56]After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Davidson College, she received a master's in journalism
[1:01]from the University of Southern California.
[1:03]Brooke then spent two years working for the Houston Texans as a media personality and over
[1:08]a decade working in sports journalism.
[1:11]Brooke now devotes her time to championing local nonprofits, including Homemade Help,
[1:15]where she served as the development director.
[1:17]She and her husband, Livin Houston, and are raising two young boys.
[1:21]Julia Wayland is the narrator of the audiobook of sideline confidential, having narrated
[1:27]over 600 audiobooks in all genres, Wayland is, by industry standards, consider one
[1:34]of the top narrators recording today.
[1:36]I agree.
[1:37]She's repeatedly featured on audiophile magazines annual Best of Lists, and is a Grammy-nominated
[1:42]audiobook director.
[1:44]Julia has acquired multiple oddies and sovas, Society of Voice Arts Awards, including
[1:50]for the performance of her own novel My Oxford Year.
[1:53]She has won dozens of earphone awards, the audio award for Best Female Narrator of 2019,
[1:58]and was presented with audiophile magazine's Lifetime Achievement Golden Voice Award in 2020.
[2:03]Julia recently received the Society of Voice Arts Legacy Award, which was presented
[2:08]to her by author Taylor Jenkins Reed.
[2:10]Julia attributes her distinctive style of narration to her ongoing passion for literature,
[2:15]fueled by her decades of acting experience.
[2:18]And by the way, this is her second time on this podcast, so if you want, you can go back
[2:21]and listen to her talk about her own work.
[2:24]Welcome to two fabulous women here together today.
[2:27]See, now this time my intro is better, Julia Wayland, and also Brooke Bentley, author
[2:33]of sideline confidential and Julia, audio narrator extraordinaire, and founder of Literati
[2:40]Spirits, too, which is amazing.
[2:42]I actually know.
[2:43]I didn't found literati spirits.
[2:44]I didn't.
[2:45]No, I did not.
[2:46]I was just to brief as a friend of mine, and we collaborated on doing a reading of
[2:52]Pride and Prejudice to launch her line through audio berry.
[2:55]So I wish I could also add vodka tycoon to my list of accomplishments, but that's
[3:01]not that bad.
[3:02]But that's more like vodka booster in a way.
[3:03]Yeah, exactly.
[3:04]Right.
[3:05]Yeah.
[3:06]You gave a lab partnership.
[3:07]In the sports terminology, like an assist, you gave an assist to the vodka.
[3:11]Yes.
[3:12]Okay.
[3:13]Well, we're here today to talk about sideline confidential.
[3:16]Brooke, congratulations.
[3:17]Why don't you tell everybody about your novel?
[3:19]Well, thank you, Libby.
[3:20]Thank you for having me on.
[3:21]By my confidential, it was a long birth for this book, because it really started when
[3:27]I was working in a fellow.
[3:29]I worked for the Houston Texans, and I had this idea to write the devil worst product that
[3:34]said in the NFL.
[3:35]But then I kept working, and I was in it, and then I had children, and it really kind
[3:40]of, I would write bits and pieces, and in 2020, I took a step back for my career
[3:45]and decided I was going to make this book happen.
[3:48]And I really wanted to write about how it's so hard for young women to jump into the
[3:52]sports media world.
[3:54]It is a very much a man's world, and it's just tricky for young women to navigate.
[3:58]And so yeah, I wrote sideline confidential between my career and having kids, and it came
[4:04]out, and it felt like my third child.
[4:06]Oh my gosh.
[4:07]I'm so excited about doing that.
[4:10]Thank you.
[4:12]So in the book, Blake is the new PR person for a sports team and gets hired by Johnny, who
[4:18]is immediately putting her in her own category.
[4:21]She gets the Blake bus where she can't even run the bus with the players.
[4:24]She's not allowed in the locker room.
[4:25]And basically, he's raising as many obstacles as humanly possible while still giving somebody
[4:29]a job.
[4:30]Did you feel like that was your experience in professional sports?
[4:35]Well, yes, so the book is not my memoir.
[4:37]It's not my story.
[4:38]It's very much fictionalized, but it did draw from my experiences.
[4:42]And when I started working for the Texas, I was the first female to travel with the team.
[4:47]And at that point, they didn't know really what to do with me.
[4:50]And so I started writing my own bus to games because they were worried I might distract
[4:54]the players, which I thought was so strange because they play in front of 70,000 plus fans
[4:59]and next to cheerleaders.
[5:00]And I was like, I am in a gap suit and I really don't even know what I'm doing right
[5:05]now.
[5:06]How can I be distracting them?
[5:07]So that really gave me the impetus to write this book.
[5:10]Like I wanted to start with that scene, which the book does start with when Blake finds
[5:14]out she can't write the bus with the rest of her coworkers.
[5:17]Then what happened to me was very different.
[5:20]They decided to put me on the bus with everyone else and everything worked itself out.
[5:23]It did not, it was not dramatic like it is in the book, but in the book, she keeps encountering
[5:27]these obstacles with her boss, which were very much drawn from real life from other women
[5:31]who worked for other NFL teams.
[5:33]And you really saw what happened with the Washington then Redskins, now they're the commanders.
[5:39]And their owners basically forced to sell the team because of the culture of toxicity there.
[5:44]And cheerleaders were proposition, there was a note writing scandal, a lot of that I incorporated
[5:49]into my book.
[5:50]So some of it is based on my life, but I will say it is highly fictionalized.
[5:53]And a lot of it is based on other women who worked for other NFL teams.
[5:57]And headed the two of you team up.
[5:59]That was a good question.
[6:00]I think broke emailed audio berry, my new company, right?
[6:04]Yes, actually, Vibby, you have a part in this.
[6:07]You may not know this.
[6:08]I saw a post about Julia on your social media.
[6:12]And so then I love Julia as a narrator and I found out about audio berry through your
[6:18]post, Vibby.
[6:19]And so I just reached out and I've been a long time fan of all of Julia's audio books and
[6:25]I thought this would just be a dream for her to give Blake a voice.
[6:29]And I thought she may not know about football, then may not be an interest her, but maybe
[6:32]somehow I can sell her on this book.
[6:34]And it came together very quickly actually because as soon as I think this was sometime
[6:40]early summer and we decided that it would, I read it and I fell in love with it.
[6:45]And I can talk about that why this book really resonated with me.
[6:48]But I thought we should try to get this out in time for football season.
[6:53]So scrambled and got it done and got it out there and it's really resonating with people
[6:58]and I love that.
[6:59]And what was it about the book?
[7:01]Are you a football fan?
[7:02]First of all, I'm not a football fan.
[7:03]Broke had to explain a lot to me so that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about
[7:06]in the audio book.
[7:07]But what I loved about it is that you could tell this was a writer who had a very specific
[7:12]story that she wanted to tell and she wasn't getting pushed into making it one thing or
[7:17]the other.
[7:18]So we've talked about, Broke and I have talked about this a lot, but I love it as a kind
[7:22]of standalone coming of age story.
[7:25]And all of the usual pitfalls that you might find in a book like that of like a woman
[7:29]making terrible decisions, self-sabotaging decisions that don't actually make any sense.
[7:34]Don't really apply here.
[7:35]Blake is incredibly smart.
[7:37]She prioritizes her work and the goals that she wants to accomplish.
[7:41]And she doesn't really get way laid, but she is challenged.
[7:45]And so it was refreshing for me as someone who has narrated 600 books and done a lot
[7:49]of these kinds of stories to see a refreshing female main character who was young,
[7:55]but driven and didn't let herself fall in with the bad crowd or something was just making
[8:01]the right decisions at every step, but learning from the situation that she was thrown
[8:06]into.
[8:07]So I found that really fresh and exciting.
[8:09]I liked that it wasn't a central love story.
[8:12]This could easily have become a romance and that would have distracted from what the
[8:16]story is actually about.
[8:17]So everything that made the just unique and its own thing was everything I was totally
[8:23]in for.
[8:24]That's amazing.
[8:25]And explain the new company, your company, audio berry, how that works.
[8:30]Why you started it?
[8:31]Oh, thank you.
[8:32]Yeah.
[8:33]So then this is, this is the other thing is that Brooke and I think we connected because
[8:37]having come out of very difficult kind of male driven fields, we saw each other in that.
[8:44]So audio berry is seeking to fix kind of two problems in audio publishing as I see them.
[8:49]One is that narrators don't get royalties and that's an antiquated holdover from back when
[8:54]audio books were basically just servicing a library market and that's not the case anymore.
[8:58]Publishers made two billion dollars in audio alone last year and none of that is trickling
[9:02]down to the narrators who helped build the industry.
[9:05]So I have a problem with that personally and that's why I need to create an audio publishing
[9:09]company that would give narrators royalties.
[9:12]And the other thing is we are a direct to consumer distribution channel.
[9:15]So all of our projects, including sideline confidential, will be available on other retailers
[9:21]early next year.
[9:22]I've spent time putting those agreements in place.
[9:25]But when you purchase through audio berry, you're really directly supporting the artists
[9:29]because distributors aren't taking a huge percentage off the top.
[9:33]And you're getting bonus features like Brooke and I didn't interview at the end where
[9:37]we talked about the book.
[9:39]So it's our way of supporting artists and trying to create a sustainable model for audio
[9:44]publishing moving forward.
[9:47]And Brooke, did you know all about this?
[9:49]Was that an appeal to you or just Julia because she's awesome?
[9:53]We'll both.
[9:54]I mean, I have a gateway drug though.
[9:57]Yeah.
[9:58]I mean, I'm a huge fan.
[10:00]and of all of Julia's work,
[10:01]but then when I got to know audio brewery and its model,
[10:04]I think that drew me in even more.
[10:06]Because like Julia mentioned,
[10:08]I was really frustrated when I was going through
[10:11]my traditional publishing queries
[10:14]and then talking to agents.
[10:16]I was really being pushed to write a romance novel
[10:18]and have like fall for the quarterback
[10:20]and have a typical romance.
[10:23]You know, I love, I love, you know, I love,
[10:24]I was like, I read that, I want to read it.
[10:26]Yeah, I love them.
[10:27]And I am all in for them,
[10:29]but that's just not the book
[10:30]that what I thought this book would be.
[10:32]And so I was struggling on that front.
[10:35]And so when I saw what Julia was doing,
[10:38]I really connected with it.
[10:39]And I just kind of was like,
[10:41]all right, I'm going to go for this
[10:42]because I feel like there's a connection there.
[10:45]But she doesn't, but I hopefully I can sell her on
[10:47]and she may not know about yet.
[10:49]But it just, it came together beautifully.
[10:52]And her voice, her Blake,
[10:53]just the character comes alive in such a wonderful way
[10:56]that I didn't even expect.
[10:58]You know, you have this voice in your mind.
[10:59]And then when I heard hers and heard her give voice
[11:01]to all the characters,
[11:03]they just came alive in my head
[11:04]and in such a profound way.
[11:06]And so I'm hearing that from other people
[11:08]who listen to the book.
[11:10]So you wrote this right as things were shifting.
[11:13]I feel like now there are so many women on the sidelines.
[11:17]Like it's almost rare not to see a woman interviewing
[11:20]a football player at the end.
[11:22]And my husband is a huge football fan.
[11:23]So if I can stay awake, I watched the night games of the event,
[11:27]definitely they're on all day Sunday
[11:30]and the other day, I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot.
[11:32]I made plans and it's a Sunday.
[11:33]Like so sorry about that.
[11:35]Yeah.
[11:36]But I do, I am struck by just how many women are doing it.
[11:40]It's almost like women have taken over that job
[11:43]that used to be traditionally male.
[11:45]It's like, not over correction sounds like a negative,
[11:48]but it's almost like it's been completely usurped in a way.
[11:51]Being the first of anything is being a trailblazer is hard.
[11:57]So what do you think the experience is like now?
[12:00]I know you talked to other publicists
[12:02]and people in this field as research for the book,
[12:04]but I'm sure you've talked to them since.
[12:06]Like how is it now?
[12:08]Do you wish you were starting now?
[12:10]Is it still bad?
[12:11]Like what do you think?
[12:12]It is very different from when I worked in the NFL.
[12:15]And I will say, you know, working for a news outlet,
[12:17]like a Fox Sports or ESPN is different from working for NFL teams
[12:22]just because the NFL itself has been these male owners
[12:26]and their coaches and anyone on the football operation side
[12:30]is usually a man.
[12:31]They're just not many women who have held those jobs.
[12:33]But I do think 2020 was a big turning point for the NFL.
[12:37]And what happened with Washington was a real shakeup.
[12:41]And since then, there have been,
[12:43]and it has been an increase of over 140% of women
[12:47]entering the NFL on the football operation side, which is huge.
[12:51]I mean, I would say, you know, I think now there's over 220 women
[12:55]working in football ops and full-time positions
[12:57]and over 10 of them are coaches, which before 2020,
[13:02]that did not happen.
[13:04]And I mean, I could tell you all these crazy stories
[13:06]of being the only women working for a team going to an NFL scouting
[13:10]combine where they watch the players go through all these different drills.
[13:14]And that's what they do to evaluate for the draft.
[13:16]And I mean, I was like the only woman in the room at one point.
[13:20]And we also watched the combine footage.
[13:23]Oh, yes.
[13:26]And we watched the draft all the rounds of the draft.
[13:31]So yes, I'm well versed and well versed.
[13:34]All right, you got what I'm saying.
[13:36]But it's changed.
[13:36]I think it's changed profoundly.
[13:38]And women are getting high roles.
[13:40]I mean, you're talking about vice president roles
[13:42]like for the Cleveland Browns.
[13:43]And you have, you know, assistant GM's who are women.
[13:46]And that just did not happen before 2020.
[13:49]And I think also, I mean, one, I think there was one
[13:52]executive, one top brass, but NFL teams said,
[13:55]we also realized all these women are such good multitaskers.
[13:57]I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.
[14:01]Yeah, thank you.
[14:01]You're starting.
[14:02]Yeah, I know, you know, but they just, you know, I think this is a very,
[14:05]it's new territory for a lot of these NFL teams.
[14:07]But you are seeing a huge rise.
[14:09]And you're seeing that these women are successful in their position.
[14:11]That's actually why I'm remembering now, Brooke, we we decide I read the book.
[14:15]And I said, can we time stamp this?
[14:17]I actually want to make this historical fiction.
[14:19]And we added with obviously Brooke's approval.
[14:23]I said, you know, what year do you feel like this story really lives in?
[14:27]Like there's a moment where she gets her first kind of team phone, like a smartphone.
[14:31]There's music references in the book.
[14:33]There's a certain feel that felt very like 2012 to me.
[14:37]And so we actually time stamped it because I do think that as the industry continues to progress
[14:42]and and develop, this is going to feel more like, wow, that's what it was like back then.
[14:49]The dark ages and there's certain things that unfortunately haven't changed in any industry.
[14:54]And I think that that's where that book, that's why the book succeeds on the level of
[14:58]a view into this world that I personally knew nothing about.
[15:02]But also something that is very universal.
[15:04]And I think women in a lot of industries can see themselves represented in it.
[15:08]But yeah, we chose to essentially make it historical fiction.
[15:12]I am still caught up in the fact that you could even define what 2012 was.
[15:17]I can't even remember that I can't remember the difference.
[15:19]And she's like, I don't know, it's all a blur from like 2000 to 2020.
[15:24]It all just like blurs together.
[15:26]I agree.
[15:26]I actually was just having this conversation the other day that I was like, anytime I think
[15:30]something has been only five years, I have to double it.
[15:32]Any any distance of time is is I'm safer if I just double it in my head.
[15:38]Yeah, same way disappear.
[15:40]And to be what's been so fun too is that I mean, it sounds silly,
[15:43]but there's like a full on Taylor Swift effect with the book because it came out.
[15:47]And I had a lot of people say, I think this is just going to fill a niche of women who like sports.
[15:51]And I will say, I mean, there is a big, actually, I listened to your interview with Meghan
[15:58]Katie about Bluebird Day.
[15:59]And I loved how she was talking about leading into women sports because there has been
[16:03]a big movement with Coco Gough.
[16:05]And you just, you see all these like big time women, you know, athletes getting their
[16:10]due, you know, Serena Williams was it for a while.
[16:12]But now she's like, our health mogul.
[16:14]And so, but anyways, I sort of thought I might fall into a niche then that would just be
[16:20]women and sports, which is great.
[16:21]But I felt like it could really relate to women in all different types of industries.
[16:25]And Taylor Swift, if that came into play and people said, I had people, different people,
[16:30]reviewers say, listen, I love Taylor Swift.
[16:32]I'm actually in more interested in football right now.
[16:34]Can you send me a copy of the book?
[16:36]I'm like, okay, so, you know, it got play from that.
[16:40]It got, you know, digital play, social media play, yeah, which is the boost.
[16:44]Nothing like the Taylor effect, nothing like the Taylor effect.
[16:49]So how did it work in terms of your collaboration?
[16:51]And does audio berry do things any differently?
[16:54]Like traditionally, from my understanding and from the books that I've worked on,
[16:58]whatever, you either get assigned a narrator, which obviously you got to pick in this case.
[17:04]And then you don't hear it until the end.
[17:06]Or maybe because I was so low on the totem pole.
[17:08]But anyway, how did it work with you?
[17:10]Did you have to wait till the end to hear it?
[17:12]Or Julia, did you send takes or like how did it work?
[17:15]No, she did.
[17:16]She, because we had, we did this very quickly and in just put it into our workflow
[17:21]as soon as possible and had the audio ready pretty much the day before we launched.
[17:25]Brooke didn't hear anything ahead of time, but we did have a very extensive conversation
[17:29]about character choices, pronunciations.
[17:32]This is when she gave me a primer on football.
[17:36]And so there was, it was a very collaborative, creative process like leading up to the recording
[17:42]of it.
[17:42]But yeah, she heard it along with everyone else.
[17:45]And how much do you listen back?
[17:48]Like do you do all the pickups yourself?
[17:50]I know these are stupid, like no, I mean, I mean, we have a post team and there's many rounds
[17:56]of QC on, on our projects because I feel personally, I've always been upset as a narrator
[18:02]that little mistakes that slip through that end up, you know, going wide and then trying to get
[18:08]that toothpaste back in the tube is always super complicated.
[18:10]So we do a pretty rigorous editorial and proofing and mastering process on, on our stuff.
[18:16]But yeah, I mean, I, I'm doing the pickups.
[18:19]I am listening back, especially with characters and voices, especially if they're like gone for
[18:24]50 pages and then they, they come back in.
[18:26]I always have clips that I'm referencing to remember their voices.
[18:30]And on a final listen through all of site, no, I think I can do that better and slip it in.
[18:35]So I'm a bit of a perfectionist on that stuff.
[18:38]I actually have a question for you, Julia.
[18:40]You did all these Oklahoma accents, but there's nuances to it.
[18:43]With that, how did you nail those?
[18:45]Like, how did you do that?
[18:48]Yeah, I mean, I, I think that there's, well, you have such great character detail.
[18:53]And I write all of that down when I'm prepping a manuscript.
[18:56]So I am looking at what biographical detail is the author giving.
[19:00]What is this person's lived experience?
[19:02]Like, Johnny, you know, maybe from that area, but he's gone around.
[19:07]He's done his tour of duty in many other places and kind of come back.
[19:11]And so he had, he would have a different polish than someone who has just never left, you know.
[19:17]So I'm, I'm just building character.
[19:19]And I know that's like a very ephemeral kind of thing to say, but
[19:23]that's, as the best I can do as an actor is just saying, I'm just building character.
[19:28]And for those who don't know, and obviously I've interviewed you before, but in terms of becoming
[19:33]an audiobook narrator and leaning into this and becoming an expert in the way that, you know,
[19:38]perhaps Blake is trying to become an expert in her field as well.
[19:42]How did that happen?
[19:45]I mean, I fell backwards into this job.
[19:47]I actually just got a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences.
[19:51]And when I was trying to write a speech, I, I had a little bit, I was paralyzed a little bit
[19:56]because first of all, I'm so focused on audio berry and building and moving.
[20:00]or we're in the future that I'm not even thinking,
[20:02]like I'm not looking back to how I even got here.
[20:05]So I had to just take a minute and kind of take stock.
[20:08]And the other thing is a kind of disturbing thing
[20:10]that occurred to me is it's been hard for me
[20:12]to take credit for this career
[20:14]because I didn't intentionally set out to do it.
[20:17]It just sort of snowballed.
[20:19]And if you follow that thinking through
[20:21]to its logical conclusion,
[20:22]then no one should ever be able to take credit
[20:24]for anything they didn't intend to do.
[20:26]And that's absurd.
[20:28]But it did just, you know,
[20:30]I remember when I started thinking,
[20:32]if I could just do like one book a month,
[20:34]that would help cover some costs.
[20:37]And I had my tutoring job and I was doing on camera work
[20:40]and I was doing pickup screenplay writing.
[20:42]And, you know, I was doing that,
[20:43]living that multi-hyphenate 25 year old
[20:46]Los Angeles life.
[20:49]And I just ended up, I just fell in love with this work.
[20:52]And I got super charged by it.
[20:55]And then, you know, I was able to finally get back
[20:59]to my own writing.
[21:00]And now I just looked up and it was like,
[21:02]I live in books, I live in publishing.
[21:05]That's what makes me happy.
[21:06]But the industry itself doesn't make me happy.
[21:09]And that's what needed to change.
[21:10]But I absolutely love this work.
[21:14]And I think it's valuable.
[21:15]And that's, but I did, I just fell backwards into it.
[21:19]Like everyone did then, it's amazing.
[21:22]So for both of you, do you have more books
[21:25]that you've written yourself coming out
[21:26]or different projects?
[21:28]Or, no, I'm excited about Brooke.
[21:30]I'm excited about what she's working on right now.
[21:32]Oh, tell me, tell me.
[21:34]Well, mine is a little league kind of drama,
[21:37]but it's about the culture of parents
[21:40]over obsessing about youth sports and sort of the drama
[21:45]with family and a mom who sort of finds herself
[21:48]as a baseball mom and very unfulfilled in life.
[21:50]And so there's gonna be lots of layers.
[21:52]But I don't know if you experience the city,
[21:54]that I found that in at least in Texas,
[21:57]the culture of youth sports is out of control right now.
[22:00]It's like, it's own world.
[22:02]Yeah, I took a different tact.
[22:04]And we do not do youth sports
[22:06]after I followed my center end to travel baseball.
[22:08]And I was like, we're not doing this anymore.
[22:11]You don't even like it.
[22:13]I'm not giving up my weekends with all the other kids.
[22:16]Like the other three kids to like sit here
[22:18]and watch you eat snacks in the dugout
[22:20]and like lay down on the field
[22:21]when it was your turn to be in the outfield.
[22:23]Like we're not doing this anymore.
[22:24]My parents are hard to do with that too.
[22:29]I did gymnastics, but my parents also would not let me do
[22:32]team sports because they also just were like,
[22:35]we don't want to deal with the parents.
[22:38]It's the main reason.
[22:39]But yeah, I'm super excited about that coming out of broke.
[22:42]I am, yeah, I am actually,
[22:44]so I launched audio berry launched with my third book,
[22:48]which was a romance novel that's the book
[22:50]within a book from Thank You for Listening.
[22:51]So the book that the main characters were recording,
[22:54]I wrote and turned into it.
[22:55]And it's hilarious because I ended up being
[22:59]like my best reviewed book and it's just very funny.
[23:03]But I am currently working on, yeah,
[23:05]I'm working on the next thing,
[23:06]but it's too early to talk about.
[23:08]But there's, I mean, all of the energy this year
[23:12]and most of last year has been going toward building
[23:15]audio berry and, you know, I'm not,
[23:18]I can't say I'm in an active writing practice
[23:21]at the moment, there's just no time.
[23:23]I mean, you can't do everything.
[23:24]No, I can't, no, apparently not,
[23:26]which I just, I have a problem with that.
[23:28]I don't, that doesn't sit well with me,
[23:30]but here we are.
[23:32]I can relate to that.
[23:33]Yeah.
[23:34]Yeah, you have all people.
[23:35]I can relate.
[23:36]I can relate, I like to do everything.
[23:38]So what is most helpful for both of you?
[23:40]Like what's most helpful brogue for getting the word out
[23:42]about the bug and Julia, like what's most helpful
[23:46]for not only getting the word out about the audio book,
[23:48]but how to help you build your audio berry business
[23:51]and all of that.
[23:52]Like what would be the dream things to happen
[23:54]for both of you next?
[23:56]That's very sweet.
[23:57]On our end, I really encourage people
[23:59]to go to the website, sign up for our newsletter.
[24:01]Not only will you get 10% off your first order,
[24:04]but we don't spam, we really only send out messages
[24:08]when there is something to actually say,
[24:09]a new project, a pre-order, some cool new feature
[24:12]that we've put into the app.
[24:14]And there's good stuff happening right now, particularly.
[24:16]So do that because, again, the whole point of this is
[24:19]if you can purchase your books through audio berry,
[24:23]our projects through audio berry,
[24:25]you're making such a difference to the people
[24:28]that are actually involved in it.
[24:30]So that's for me, that's really it.
[24:32]Right now it's word of mouth
[24:33]and we're building the library
[24:35]and there's great stuff coming down the pike.
[24:37]So that's for me, that's really all I ask.
[24:40]Yeah, I know that it's the same thing for the book
[24:43]and how I feel about the audio book.
[24:45]I'm just trying to get the word out there
[24:47]about the audio book and about audio berry
[24:49]and how it does support artists, writers.
[24:52]It's just, you know, it's interesting
[24:54]because I've had people listen to it
[24:56]and when they listen to it also
[24:57]they really get this feel for seeing it on screen.
[25:00]And then it's funny how the audio book really triggers
[25:03]that more so than maybe the written book.
[25:05]And maybe it's just because those are the people
[25:07]who were listening or plugged into that.
[25:09]But they, I've had a few people reach out to me
[25:12]and say, when I listen to the book,
[25:14]I really feel like it needs to be on screen.
[25:16]And so I think that the voices lend to that.
[25:19]Well, again, I think that's a very underappreciated part
[25:22]of audio is that it really is the first adaptation
[25:25]of a project.
[25:26]And in a lot of ways, it's gonna be the closest
[25:28]you're ever gonna get, you know,
[25:29]so everyone watches the movie and goes, you know,
[25:31]the book was so much better.
[25:32]Well, yeah, the audio book is the best,
[25:36]most faithful, true adaptation you are ever going to get.
[25:41]And it should spark that in people.
[25:44]And I think it often does.
[25:46]So I'm happy to hear that.
[25:47]It does deserve to have that treatment for sure.
[25:51]Are you either of you listening to other books right now?
[25:53]No, just my own projects.
[25:54]I mean, just audio-bury projects.
[25:56]I don't have time for elective listening unfortunately.
[25:59]Reading too?
[26:01]Yeah, same thing.
[26:02]I have a list of, I mean, here we are
[26:03]like gearing up for the holiday time.
[26:05]And I'm just like, it'll be great.
[26:06]I'm not gonna work.
[26:07]And then I looked at my reading list.
[26:09]And it's about 25 books and I was like, oh, well, okay.
[26:12]Yeah, somebody's name is just like,
[26:14]oh, we'll read this over the holidays.
[26:15]And I was like, do you have any books?
[26:17]I said, I'm gonna read over the holidays at that point.
[26:19]No, I don't even have time.
[26:21]What about you?
[26:22]Bluebird day, that's the one I just got.
[26:24]I'm excited to read it.
[26:25]Oh, no, well, it really spoke to me
[26:27]because of the women in sports.
[26:29]And I love the ski.
[26:30]And so I'm getting it, it's, yeah, I'm so,
[26:34]and I'm giving it to some friends for the holidays as well.
[26:37]Like Teddy will be very appreciative
[26:39]and we all are as well.
[26:40]And actually speaking of giving,
[26:43]and I'm very broke, I need to,
[26:45]I don't know when you're thinking of having this air zippy,
[26:47]but we are like, maybe even today,
[26:49]finally getting the gifting capability.
[26:52]So on the audio berry websites,
[26:54]you can actually gift specific projects now,
[26:57]not just gift cards, which we've had forever.
[26:59]But I know, I'm very excited about that
[27:01]because that will allow people,
[27:02]like people wanna support us
[27:04]and they'll buy a project.
[27:05]And remarkably, we have such a high level of return,
[27:08]like more multiple purchases,
[27:09]which considering we're not doing the same type of book each time.
[27:12]I'm really, I think that's very impressive
[27:15]and I'm very proud of that.
[27:16]But now it's giving people the ability
[27:18]to actually gift the things that they loved.
[27:20]And so if I were to go online
[27:23]and gift sideline confidential to someone,
[27:26]would it come as a card branding with sideline confidential?
[27:30]Yeah, it'll come as an individual.
[27:31]You can like put in your own message.
[27:33]You can schedule delivery
[27:34]and you can also pick like a cute little gif if you want
[27:37]and it sends them an e-card,
[27:39]essentially with a link to redeem the product
[27:42]through audio berry and then it will walk them
[27:45]through signing into the app
[27:47]and it'll be in the app for them.
[27:48]Okay, good.
[27:50]Okay, that's another good idea.
[27:51]We were talking at the beginning
[27:52]about how we're gonna finish all of our shopping.
[27:54]And I'm like, well, that's a good idea.
[27:56]It's very easy.
[27:57]Give the gif the body a great stocking stuffers.
[28:00]Yeah, exactly.
[28:01]So yeah.
[28:02]No, I think it's, I'm excited about that.
[28:04]And yeah, so that's the point is like,
[28:06]and I think that's the other thing is
[28:08]Broke is seeing that every time we have a new project,
[28:10]it brings people back to the site.
[28:11]It builds our mailing list.
[28:12]Like all of the authors are benefiting
[28:14]from the ecosystem that's being created over there.
[28:17]And it's been great.
[28:19]And I'm so appreciative of authors like Broke
[28:21]for taking that initiative to come to me and say,
[28:23]I know your work.
[28:25]I think you might like this.
[28:26]And I totally agree with what you're doing
[28:28]and what you're trying to fix
[28:30]and giving me that confidence and that partnership.
[28:34]And it's been wonderful.
[28:37]So, so I guess just in closing,
[28:40]since both of you are sort of fearless trendsetters,
[28:44]if you will, in different areas,
[28:46]going into industries that might not have a clear path
[28:49]for you when you start out.
[28:51]What's advice you could give or what keeps you going
[28:54]when you start to feel doubt?
[28:56]If you start to feel doubt.
[28:58]Like what is the thing you say to yourself
[28:59]or how do you convince yourself this is the right move?
[29:03]That's such a good question.
[29:05]Oh, wow, yeah.
[29:06]I'm punting to broke.
[29:08]Oh, and good football term in there.
[29:10]I was just saying I know I was like, no, I can't.
[29:13]I think with sideline confidential,
[29:17]the reason why I wrote it is that I wanted young women
[29:20]to feel like they weren't alone
[29:22]in starting off in an industry
[29:24]where you feel like you're walking this
[29:25]impossible tightrope or it's like be pretty,
[29:28]but not too sexy.
[29:29]You need to know a lot, know your football stuff,
[29:32]but don't know more than the men in the room.
[29:34]And so I wanted to just have been to realize
[29:36]like they have a voice and they're not alone.
[29:38]And a lot of times when I think about,
[29:40]gosh, can I do this?
[29:42]I mean, forging this path ahead
[29:43]and I'm putting myself out there and it can be scary.
[29:46]I just remind myself, I'm not alone.
[29:48]There's so many other women trailblazers
[29:49]and you do it for each other.
[29:51]We are in this together.
[29:52]And I believe in partnership and raising everyone up
[29:56]and not like, you know, that there's one person you can do.
[30:00]We all can be lifted up and do things together and I just feel like when you have that mentality
[30:05]that more collective mentality than yes, you can do these hard things and you can forge these paths.
[30:11]That's so valuable, it's such a good point. For me, I think it comes down to really
[30:16]understanding your why, why you're doing something. I mean, you go back to that like
[30:20]Simon Sinek Ted Talk from 10 years ago or 14 years ago at this point. That's like every major
[30:26]company successful game-changing company starts with, what is the why? Not the what? Not the product,
[30:31]but the why are we why are we doing this? I will say that as I've conscripted my poor husband
[30:37]into doing this with me, this is eaten up our lives. We don't have children and in many ways
[30:44]I feel like we just created a child here and a toddler that you can't look away from for more than
[30:49]10 seconds or it's going to hurt itself. This is not the lifestyle that we wanted, but I
[30:56]have such a strong why for this and that's what gets me up every day and makes us go, we're
[31:02]going to keep going, we're going to keep moving this forward. And I think also I will also say that
[31:07]not having a, my first book is a little bit about this. My Oxford year is a little bit about
[31:12]this thing we tell ourselves of you've got to follow your dreams, like never give up on your dreams.
[31:17]And I, like I said with audio, I fell backwards into this. This was not the dream,
[31:21]this was not the plan. And if I had been resistant to letting something else into my life,
[31:25]I would have never found this thing that I love. So I think that it's healthy actually to
[31:31]reevaluate your dreams and to say, I have more information now, maybe this isn't the best thing
[31:35]for me to be doing. And that openness to other influences to the world at large, like just be curious
[31:44]about the things around you. And I think follow them when they really interest you. That's how I
[31:50]I got here. That's great advice. Yeah, podcasting was not my dream either. Right. And I love
[31:56]it. I love it so much. And who knew? I mean, I didn't, it didn't even exist. So right exactly. Yeah,
[32:02]perfect. All right. Well, congratulations to both of you, sideline confidential at the book,
[32:07]the audio book, the whole package congrats on this fabulous team. Thank you. Thank you,
[32:13]you're welcome. Okay. Happy holidays. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to totally booked
[32:22]with Zibi, formerly momstone have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[32:27]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and bye
[32:34]the books.