Transcript
Speaker: Okay, we are recording. That's your warning. So no more excuses, please. No more profanity. do we Have we sworn in this podcast? We probably have. I definitely have. Sorry,
Speaker: um So, hello, everyone. Welcome back. It's been a while since we did a Chosen Ones and Other Tropes, um but we're here and we are... Cut us some slack because this is we're trying out a kind of new format here. we want to We want to try and keep things more regular, which means that with the three of us between our schedules, we might not always be in every episode, but we are going to try and hit a weekly cadence. Maybe this is too ambitious for us, but we're going to give it a go.
Speaker: ah And we're going to talk about, we're going to try and talk about more kind of relevant news and things happening within writing and publishing. So we are going to kind of do, we're going to start every episode, I think now with a bit of a news roundup of things, interesting things that have happened or things that we want to talk about that have popped up around the industry um to discuss. Then after that, we'll we'll we'll pick some topics to talk about or we will talk about,
Speaker: What was the other thing I was to talk about? Oh yes, Q&A. Questions from you guys, because we get a lot of questions from you guys. It's great. We love that. And we want to talk about things that you think might be interesting from our perspectives.
Speaker: um So that being said, if it's a big news day, we might just do news in that one in in that one kind of episode. We'll see. We'll play it by ear. We're still figuring this out. So ah be patient. ah Hopefully this is the the same level of quality that you've come to. to So the bar is low. from From the chaotic trio that has chosen ones and other tropes.
Speaker: um But let's jump let's jump into it. We're not doing the one-star reviews anymore because I'm sick of looking up one-star reviews for Twilight. So we just go straight into the news. um And here are the headlines.
Speaker: ah Recently, the Booker Prize 2026 shortlist was unveiled. Have you guys paid any attention to that? Ooh, was that also had the book on it that when the Waterstones book cries, we may feed the king or something.
Speaker: feel like that was on the book. I think so. This is testing us, isn't it? I know. Yes, my finger is on the pulse. Maybe you need to send these two in advance. no, no, no, no. It's fine because we're all commercial fiction bimbos and I think know that. Yeah, this is the thing. oh it's terrible, isn't it? Because I have no taste and no one should listen to me. But if a book is on the Booker Prize list, it does immediately put me off reading it because I only have two little brain cells to rub together and I'm going to struggle at the best of times.
Speaker: But I did actually read Orbital, which I believe won the Booker Prize list. And it was a short book and it was space. And I enjoyed that. So I'm wrong. I am wrong. And I should look at the Booker Prize list. I'm just a pleb.
Speaker: Well, it isn't, it isn't because the you know it's like the Oscars, right? ah Just because something wins an Oscar, there's there's a part of me when something wins or it's just nominated for Best Picture where I'm like, is this going to be ah like really hard to watch biographical, yeah historical thing? And it probably is. I'm like, I have to be in such a mood to do that.
Speaker: um But ah equally there's stuff that have won Oscars that I've, you know, like ah I thought The King's Speech is an amazing film. And I the same way about the Booker Prize. It's like, there's no reason why it means I wouldn't ah want to to read it. but I just, you know, it's not Dungeon Crawler Carl, is That's never going to be on the Book of Rights. What do you mean?
Speaker: May We Feed the King, Rebecca Perry? Is that the one you were talking Yeah, see that everywhere. I'm inclined, so I agree with you guys in that is the Book of Rights probably looks a bit too highbrow for for me. May We Feed the King also won the Waterstones Book of the Year and yes I think if something wins that award, it's probably like not quite so literary or maybe it's like a little bit of both commercial and literary so I'm kind of maybe inclined to give that one a go i think well the there is a little bit of a there's been some discussion with this Booker Prize because I believe
Speaker: Two of the nominees, there's six in the shortlist and two of the nominees have won before and I think another one of them has been shortlisted before and there's a bit of a discussion about do we think that if you've won before or maybe not, should be more diverse, we should be looking broader than just having the same people win over and over again. Yeah, we should be like discovering other established authors. suppose debut authors.
Speaker: Because I think we we may feed the king May We Feed the King, apologies, is a debut. yeah I think it's the only debut on the list. So it would be great if that were to to win. Yeah. But at the same time, if it's a genuinely good book, yeah should it not be recognised for that? I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, it's there's no right answer or wrong answer, him because it's like, well, what if you did write two back-to-back, just like groundbreaking pieces of book? Absolutely bangers. And also, we already know that the best book will never be on the book prize list because they can't read every book.
Speaker: like The best book um you could ever read, you will probably never read because there's so many books. So they kind of have to draw parameters somewhere, I guess, or because they don't have unlimited time and resources. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: In general, I think the three of us are not the target audience for this. that's yeah There's a good chance through word of mouth that i will that that I might end up reading one of these or whoever the winner is.
Speaker: but it has to you know It's a certain wheelhouse. It's like best picture at the Oscars um because no one really watches all of those. Let's be honest. No, very true. um Okay, next up, this is one I mentioned ahead of the episode, which you guys hadn't heard about yet. This was ah the end of September, i believe.
Speaker: Amazon ah reduced the limit on KDP, which is akin to direct publishing. That's where, if you're an indie author, a lot of people are, that's where you you um publish your novel or your books or whatever it might be.
Speaker: ah they have Previously, you could publish up to 10 books. novels, books a week. Oh, wow. They have reduced that limit down to two a week. Is that because of AI?
Speaker: was going say. They have not publicly said, i'm on the on on the i found on on the KDP website, it all they've said is, to it's to ensure a positive experience for all authors. We limit the number of titles you can create at the same time to two per book format each week, down from 10.
Speaker: So I don't trust Jeff Bezos as far as I can throw him. love him. What do you mean? I would argue that this is about server space and nothing to do with others. Because surely the amount of books that these people are pushing through Kindle Unlimited and whatever they take up space on a hard drive somewhere on a server. And I just, I've got to wonder if that's actually the real factor here. and and that AI, like you've just said, it's probably a factor in that the sense that people are able to publish a lot more quickly because AI is just generating everything yeah and it's taking up their precious server space. And so I just, I don't know, I think that's what's behind this.
Speaker: That's so interesting because I have, well, many things to say about AI, but one of my things is always and there's always a big push, isn't there, across all publishing and ah bookshops and things about being anti-AI. I feel like that's the general PR ah stance at the minute. However, I'm always a bit suspicious that the main reason a lot of big players don't like AI is as far as I understand it, and I'm not a lawyer, it is incredibly difficult to copyright anything that's made with AI. And I believe if something's completely AI, you can't copyright it at all, which means other people could just copy it, nick it, like publish their own version, and it would take money away from those big players. So that was my other thing. I assumed AI, but also for an evil reason.
Speaker: I was like, oh, maybe they're getting into like lawyer trouble with AI books being put up that maybe say copying and Stephen King or something. And maybe they're getting you more trouble and maybe it's costing them money.
Speaker: So they're trying to reduce the number of books they have to check for AI. So I also thought it was an evil reason. I think that, I mean, if you look at what's happening with my understanding, and this is just, you know, word of mouth, file I have no definitive proof here, but my understanding is that Spotify has been using AI to generate songs and slide them into its like pre-generated playlists, ah which is which used to be a great way of getting discovered for new artists.
Speaker: But there's like weird loopholes, i I believe. And you'd have to double check this. Like there's legalese here that don't understand ah where, you know, they but they basically to end up not having to pay royalties, as small as they are nowadays, to any of the artists because because they kind of pad out a lot of the playlists now with their own ai generated stuff. And they weren' they won't say or anything. You'll just be playing and you'll hear like, you you'll hear the artists you know, and then it'll just, you'll just assume it's an artist you hadn't heard before.
Speaker: Yeah, that's very naughty. So that kind thing might be a similar thing. I think it's probably the server space thing, but that's been exasperated by just flood of AI generated content.
Speaker: m But maybe this is a hot take. and and they i like I'm not an indie author, i'm not and if I was, I wouldn't be nearly this prolific. But 10 books a
Speaker: one of like what what how long these What are these books? are Like a few pages? like This is more than one book a day. What yeah what do we what are we putting out? I can't believe you don't write 10 books a week, Jamie. What are you even doing? That's actually embarrassing to admit on the podcast. Sorry. i mean I mean, for the speed with which I would write something, two books a week is an absurd amount of writing to put out.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's not like you can say, oh, but what if I've been writing for 20 years and I've got 20 books and I've never, like, I've not made it safe. I chose traditional publishing. So I've decided to go down self-publishing and put them up. Well, just wait till the next week, dog.
Speaker: Like, maybe you shouldn't put them all up at once. It's okay. Yeah. Don't eat your own audience. Yeah. I don't know, but maybe maybe there's a niche there where like a series of very short books coming out rapidly makes sense. Yeah, you can get really short ones on Kindle. I've got friends that make extra, I've got um a friend who will remain unnamed, who's a literary author, I would say. And ah they write a werewolf porn and put it on nice Amazon KDP. I don't know exactly all the ins and outs of it, ah so to speak. don't That's not a pun. And um she apparently makes, quite a bit of money on the side with that and they're very short like 2,000 words now I don't understand how that works oh yeah she said they're 2,000 words now it's only just occurring to me oh god that's like a short story is that being put up as like a kindle book I've never actually looked it up because they haven't told me their pen name to look it up but now I'm thinking maybe that's what people were doing like writing 2,000 words but I don't know enough so I've read a few that are like maybe 20 to 25,000 but
Speaker: 2000 is really short. Yeah, I don't know what the parameters are. Maybe they, I mean, this was a while ago, she told me this and maybe they, maybe they have ah a thing now saying how long something can be. I don't know. It's hard when you start putting parameters in like that, though, because you start to stifle interesting creativity and like different ways of doing things, right?
Speaker: yeah How much are you charging for 2,000 words? though i think I think she was just charging like a a pound. And I think that they were all and sort of in a series as such. But they were basically like putting up Yeah, like real like it was almost like chapters, I think.
Speaker: And they were making a decent amount of money off those. Yeah. And it was almost like, you know, like in Wattpad, how they used to do it was always people would put like a few chapters up and then they'd write the next chapter and put it up. It was almost its it was almost described to me like that. So I don't know if people were doing that and now can't really do that as well. Although i suppose they can still put up two a week, but there may be something now saying that you can't put up something too short. but I don't know. Because like poetry, a poetry collection might be quite short.
Speaker: That's true. Yeah. So I don't know what the rules are. but I guess, but i I thought a poet couldn't write that quickly. Maybe they could maybe they can. i'd rather It just seems like so much to me. Oh, yeah, yeah. you I don't think you could write 10 poetry books per week, but I do wonder if you decided to say, no, you can't put up like a 2,000 word thing. Well, what if your poetry collection is only like 2,000 words?
Speaker: Poetry collection isn't often like even 25,000 words. so I mean, maybe it's a market that I'm just not familiar with where people are paying like £1 to get like a 2,000 to 4,000 word, ah whatever it is, poem, story.
Speaker: So i I reckon most of their readers are on Kindle Unlimited. Yes. So if you just subscribe to KU, you can read as much as you want, can't you? Because you're only paying one monthly price. So that's probably how they generate and with most of the income, like with page reads.
Speaker: Yeah, maybe. Because I wouldn't pay 99p for a 2,000 word short story 10 times a week. Yeah, that totally makes sense actually. I was literally ah interviewing an author the other day who writes on um a subreddit ah called No Sleep, which is which is all just like horror short fiction. Yes, I love No Sleep. Yeah, right. And ah he actually got picked up because his one of his stories on that went ah viral.
Speaker: No way. How cool. Which is cool. Yeah, it got picked up by his agent. and um Yeah, i didn ah I just thought it was interesting that they were doing that. It's probably something it's almost certainly to do with AI, whether that's yeah storage space, just a flood on the on the platform. or it it might be ah It might be a Kindle Unlimited issue where there's they're not necessarily filtering ah as much as they they need to for the amount of AI stuff that's come into the market.
Speaker: Yeah. Are you suggesting, Jamie, that Kindle Unlimited is not truly unlimited? Because that sounds like a lot of waiting to happen. Allegedly. Allegedly not unlimited. Within reason. yeah um But this sort of moves us onto the the the next years. And this is not a news story, this one that I have. This is something that's been in the works for a long time. But i thought it was interesting ah because Poland, I think, is currently in just in discussion. I think there's a draft now to introduce a uniform book price. So fixed book prices ah across the country, which is and which is alien to us, but very common across Europe.
Speaker: yeah Wait, is it not? Because most hardback prices are the same. Most most paperback bike prices the same within within reason. But I think in America, they they really vary. i don't think... Yeah, free market. This is more... I think in in and my America's...
Speaker: pretty yeah pretty free market on everything but this is more to do with my understanding is that this is being pushed uh independent bookshops because the big retailers can do massive discounts right across certain books and you the prices you can't do those massive discounts oh i see so it's like the other almost like not as is capping it necessarily as much as stopping that really protects the author though doesn't it when it comes down to royalties.
Speaker: What I was looking at it is in general, the the cost is actually put onto the readers. It's on it's on the customers because they're on average going to have to pay more, especially for like bestsellers and new releases, which often big retailers to try and compete with each other will be like, oh, we'll sell the new, you know, down brown book at a discount.
Speaker: Or like if you buy it with another one, it'll be half price or something like that. and But that's good though, because it means that like people are, you know, you you're not going to go to Amazon for it. You you could go to your Indie if you wanted to, because you know, you're going to get the same price.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe you have to think more when you're purchasing something. Like I noticed, um, I was just flicking through Instagram. Not that I do that all day, every day. And I got an advert.
Speaker: I can't think who her publisher is now, but it was for the new Divergent book, The Six Faction. And so I feel like Sprayed Edge used to be reserved for like, oh, you have to go to Waterstones or you have to go to an indie get the special Sprayed Edge or get a certain box or whatever. And they were advertising that the book is half price and it's a hardback. So it was under a tenner on Amazon with the Sprayed Edge.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, gosh, i didn't I didn't even really remember the last time I saw a spread edge on Amazon. And I was wondering, like, is that going to become more of a thing? Because, again, that was a way to differentiate, wasn't it It's like, OK, fine, you might get a half price on Amazon, but you get the really pretty version with an extra chapter if you go into a bookshop and buy it. And I feel like maybe they're not going to do that as much anymore. Maybe that's related to this.
Speaker: HarperCollins, by the way. HarperCollins. mean, I knew it was a big five one, but yes. And so it was just like a, it was like a paid ad targeted at me, obviously, because I did, as you've just heard, I clicked on it to check the price. I did go and look.
Speaker: yeah The algorithm knows exactly what kind of books you're into. Yeah, they know exactly what I'm doing. I'm chronically online, so they know. my will porn. This, as a fixed book surprise, this would not be like a revelationary thing. I think across Europe, right Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Croatia have in some form fixed book prices. I think for everything, ah from what I'm seeing online here...
Speaker: Interesting. And then there's other countries like Netherlands and Belgium that have slightly, they're fixed pricing, but it it varies. So i think I think in the Netherlands, ebooks and audiobooks aren't fixed, but they the physicals are, which I think is interesting because that surely drives people to ebooks.
Speaker: yeah I was going ask how are they going to control that because if and if Amazon wants to sell on Poland yeah website surely that would have to be within their laws so surely there'll be a set price for an e-book as well I assume it's well based on the fact that I think Germany and France and and that that seems to cover everything. So I assume that Amazon presumably has to abide by, there'll be like a note within the law that like all online retailers have to abide by that as well. So Amazon, because presumably Amazon is different in every country you go to because they have to abide by whatever the local laws are. So presumably it would it just works for something like Amazon as well.
Speaker: Interesting though. o yeah Interesting stuff. um I wonder if, do you think that's something that would be good in the UK? From an author point of view, i think that was very good because it really would protect you and yeah stop your book getting sold off for super cheap, like when they're trying to make warehouse space or whatever and you don't really know about it. yeah And you get your royalty statement six months later and you're like, oh. and Because they don't tell you these things, you know, they just hold just find out on your royalty statement. you're in on the decision. But conversely, if your book wasn't selling and they had a bunch of stock,
Speaker: it means that they wouldn't be able to just discount it to sell with them off. So maybe they they might end up just just burning copies of your book. Yikes. And also it would, so there's been lots of people I know, good example is, and he's basically said this himself actually, um Bill Wood did very well with his first book, Selling to the Works, and the works buy at lower prices. And that's why yeah can get, so there are certain, so for instance, the work started doing sprayed edges and they did a sprayed edge of his first book.
Speaker: ah Let's split up. I think that's the first one. and And he credits that as a really big reason why that book, he sold um tens of thousands of copies in the first sort of quarter.
Speaker: of that book and it was because there was this sprayed edge edition it was at the works i believe then the sprayed edge leaked into other places um but the works also put down what's called a solid sale so they bought the books a discounted price but they bought a lot of them and then they have to sell them because they can't return them it wasn't on sale or return so again you would lose out on some of those opportunities i guess there's pros and cons isn't there i I don't know, though, because you can still do sprayed-edge edition of something. and Yeah. But I suppose what would happen is it would just less of them. Yeah.
Speaker: As well. like you're saying he sold so many thousands of copies, but like maybe you you'd get a deal for like a lot less, but it was so it that type of thing would still exist. It just wouldn't be in that volume. Yeah. And the works wouldn't be because the works is really shaking up quite a lot of the sales thing. The works wouldn't exist as it does. You know, a lot of people, you go to the works and there's a copy of a really popular, you can get the whole Bridgerton box set for like £12 sometimes in the works if you go at the right time. and Which again, yeah, of course, ah ah Julie Quinn, Julie Quinn, isn't it? She's not making very much money off selling in the works, for instance, but also she sold so many millions of copies. I'm sure it doesn't really affect her too much. and But yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's a very particular example.
Speaker: but it's interesting i did i mean there'd be pros and cons wouldn't that and then also i suppose they'd be so much more picky publishers like maybe they wouldn't take as many chances because they know that they're going to end up with so yeah so maybe you'd have less chances to debut there could be all sorts of knock-on effects i do agree with you naomi like if you're established and that comes in yeah great news i suppose it would encourage people to use libraries as well wouldn't it like yeah it's true get the book cheap you would maybe try and go to a library for it. That's true.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, that is the perfect segue into our next story, surprisingly enough, ah because ah Netflix is partnering with the British Library. to donate collections of books that have inspired the adaptations um to, I think, 100 public libraries ah but through the Libraries Living Knowledge Network. It's it's a small thing you know for a platform worth however many billions. But but but you know it's a nice gesture ah to kind of give back and it's good public sentiment. for It's just PR for them, I assume.
Speaker: um and to probably make people more willing to let them adapt books. Yes, and it's better than all this stuff we're hearing about AI buying up books just to rip the spines off and scan them in and then dump them.
Speaker: I assume there'll be the books with the ah movie or television like actors on the cover. Yeah, surely. Tie-in cover. Yeah, it's nice little sales boost. It's also ads for Netflix. I guess as well, they'll probably hope that if you read the the book, you'll go and watch it and so you'll subscribe to Netflix.
Speaker: that's Yeah, because i think I was reading that this was based off a study that happened where they they said that in general, 70% of the people who read a book do want to see the film. Oh yeah, if I've read a book, and i and even if it's not a book I'm that bothered about, and I see a trailer and it happens to be coming out, I will want to go and see it just because I've read the book.
Speaker: Yeah, you put the time in. yeah Yeah, I did the hard bit with my two little brain cells, imagining it all on my own. And even if you don't, yeah it's weird because even if I didn't like the book, I'd be like, well, maybe the film will change my mind. Maybe this time it'll be different.
Speaker: Although guess it's kind of masochistic because I feel like if you really love a book and then the television series or the film comes out, you just you kind of know you're going to be disappointed. It's never going to live up to what you're hoping. The best you can hope for is you're yeah, I didn't hate it. you know Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Fingers crossed for the Dungeon Crawler Carl TV show. Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. Yeah. um Yeah, that was just ah it's just and a nice little story. Always good to shine a light on public libraries and things like that. And I'm sure Netflix is up to all sorts of no good, but this at least is a small nice thing that they're doing with the British Library.
Speaker: I've got a couple more stories. ah One little short thing was ah there was a, um they did a, what you call it? They did a, they, they, I'm completely blanking on the word.
Speaker: They did ah like a census with load with a bunch of people in Sweden recently ah on ah for audiobooks on Spotify. And ah they found that half of the audiobook listening on Spotify in Sweden, caveat, ah was um men, despite the fact that men read far fewer books than Hmm.
Speaker: o i don't know if there's much more to elaborate on that. I just thought it was an interesting fact. so i I am married to somebody who doesn't read and I think it's so weird. Shame. He doesn't read. Okay. just like Does he audiobook though?
Speaker: No. were on holiday last week and I was just like, right, I've read two books. And he's like, oh yeah, what was he doing? Yeah, like, what do you do with your time? While we're on holiday. He's just thinking about the Roman Empire. He's just playing mermaids the pool, fair.
Speaker: I think he just genuinely just ah enjoys just chilling and doing other stuff. I don't know. or just cost like What about when his brain's like running a million miles a minute and he needs to read a book to calm down?
Speaker: How does that work? Yeah, I don't know. It's a mystery. yeah I wonder what the thing is. i also i also think this will be genre specific. men Men accounting for half of the audio bit listening, but not actually reading as much as women. ah i think...
Speaker: my experience as man is that men like to do stuff. Like if I go out with, if I go out to see my friends, that kind of has to be, for the most part, there has to be an activity. You know, we're we're going out to go and do a thing where we'll also socialize. ah and Like whether that's like just a board game or it's like going out to, you know, it's, ah you go out to like somewhere that has an event, like an escape room or something like that, that they feel like men are,
Speaker: in my experience, like to do a thing while they're while they're socializing because maybe Maybe it's a ah product of a patriarchal society where men were like not allowed to you know just be cutesy with a drink and chat to their friends. That seems like a feminine thing, and but we've all kind of been brainwashed by that. So we have to project that we're doing something else. And I think maybe it's because men are like, well, reading a book would be like too like dainty and I don't want to be seen to be reading a book. Or they're reading, like I imagine most of it's like epic fantasy or nonfiction.
Speaker: And it's probably while they're at the gym or on a run or you know doing something doing a menial task. A friend of mine is a postman and he is constantly audio booking nonfiction while he's out delivering letters and parcels and things. Yes, I was going to say my window cleaner who I've known for years and years in our local area. got chatting to him when I was first publishing because he absolutely, he I don't think he probably remembers the last time he picked up a book, but he devours audio books whilst window cleaning. And he has really fancy headphones. And every time he says to me, oh, you'll have to tell me I've got some credits left. What's your audio book? And I've never had an audio book in English. So I have to tell him every time. Yeah. and uh not annoyed at all um but yeah he loves it and it's something that like definitely gets him through like now he's actually got a little um shout out to sean at five boys cleaning he's actually got a little empire in our area and he doesn't actually have to wash the windows as much but when some of his guys are on holiday i still see him and he's always got those headphones on and he listens to an audiobook he might he probably gets three more books than me doing that yeah
Speaker: Yeah. I wonder, yeah. And I wonder if that's just a huge part of it is that men doing stuff and they, they want to, that's when they're, that's when they listen to it. And they, when they're not doing in the downtime, like, like Mr. Gibson, uh, don't want to sit there with the book. They, they, they want to do other things. I'm just thinking actually, when you talk about nonfiction, like Ollie's very into that, like, but it's all,
Speaker: he'll listen to a lot of podcasts about tech stuff. Sure. And so like, if you want to talk about him to the latest game or the latest computer, whatever, he'll be all over it.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and let's be honest, like a podcast, a podcast is not dissimilar to a nonfiction book. I mean, it's a slightly different medium, slightly different format, but like the, the way of consuming it is kind of the same, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. um Anyway, just interesting, interesting numbers. And then the final story I have is, ah this was my favorite story. um i don't if I don't know how I missed this because it's ah ridiculous.
Speaker: um Hyphent Footwear, i assume that's how you say it, it's spelled H-Y-P-H-N-T. Oh my god, I think I know this story. Go on. Yes. Has teamed up with Spotify and Pan Macmillan to unveil the world's first audiobook trainer.
Speaker: Yep. What? Pan-McMedlin and Spotify unveil world's first audiobook trainers. um If you're wondering what that means, I too am not entirely sure, and I've read this article. ah My understanding is...
Speaker: you, it's literally a pair of shoes. it's It's a pair of shoes, but I don't hate them. They're like brown and they've got some like suede kind of, as they're a pretty normal looking pair of shoes. um But apparently you can tap your phone onto the shoes, which opens up Spotify audio books and then starts playing presumably. Yeah, the book.
Speaker: But which, what book? ah Do you not select a book with your shoe? So don't understand why this product exists, because why is this any different from choosing an audiobook on your phone?
Speaker: Well, exactly. You have to get your phone out anyway. That's what I was thinking. Maybe it's like, I don't know, maybe it's like you you get a, then if it was just that you get an audiobook included it with the shoes, why not just have a QR code?
Speaker: So it says on the audio work maybe it updates. I don't know. But then why do I want my shoes to update? That sounds really annoying. So does it connect? Is it like Bluetooth? Does it connect to your phone? How does it work? I think it's like WFC or whatever it's flipping called, whichever the letters are. You know, like you used to pay for things. I think you tap your phone to the shoe. This is what I understood.
Speaker: i could be totally wrong. Okay. Okay. Okay, I'm on Pan McMillan's website now. with they've They've posted their announcement about it. It says, yeah the £79-footwear Nova Junior Trainer. 79 pound? Bit of a mouthful, guys. 79 pounds. damn.
Speaker: Features embedded near-field communication brackets and NFC. That's that's the acronym you were looking for. Yeah, that's the acronym. technology that that connects where is directly to audiobooks on Spotify, debuting with John Patrick Green's best-selling Investigators graphic novel series. You're debuting with a graphic novel series. That's ridiculous. I don't... how How does this work? Like...
Speaker: do they Do they have speakers? how do they Do they connect your headphones? i it's I have so many questions that didn't think I'd need to ask. you Why would you debut with a graphic novel series? It's not just a novel series.
Speaker: ah it says a simple tap of a smartphone against against the shoe instantly launches the Spotify app where they can discover the featured audiobook. New books and stories from Pat Macmillan will be introduced over time, giving young wearers a reason to return, tap again and discover what was next so you okay so it's a one-off payment it sounds like and then you get a few different books other than your your spotify subscription why is this not just an app like why does it need to be a pair shoes you know they really missed a trick as well they could have absolutely did a red pair of shoes and you tap it and it goes no place like home and then opens the wizard of oz as an audiobook why did they not do that If it has to be shoes. Do kids know The Wizard of Oz nowadays? Well, they know Wicked. That's true. I guess. Which is not appropriate for children, so let's step away from that one.
Speaker: i don't think my daughter I don't think my nieces know The Wizard of Oz. Because Bluey is life. Well, I don't think they know this graphic novel either. Surely it's just more trying to introduce them to books, right? They're not going to know the graphic part of it. And they're not paying 79 quid. Let's be real here. Who's paying 79 quid for these books? Adults who know The Wizard of Oz. And I still think my idea is, you know what, Pam Milling, you call me and I'll license you my idea these shoes that you tack together And then it plays the audio book of one of the various Wizard of Oz spinoffs that are available.
Speaker: That's fine. i'll I'll license it to you. You call me. Who sat around a table and thought this was a good idea? just so I don't really understand. or were they like a pre This feels like one of those ones where they were like approached by another company and they were like, you have to come up like an apprentice level, like the TV show task, where they were like, you have to match together shoes and audio books. I don't care how you do it. You have an hour. ah And this is what they came up with. And in that case, I'd be like, good job. You did something.
Speaker: Well done. Yeah, maybe, I mean, it's difficult to get children to read, but graphic novels as a medium are more successful than a normal book. So why would you then want to convert an already successful medium for a difficult audience into something else that is harder to access?
Speaker: We're also missing the fact that it's a graphic novel. Yeah, that's what I mean. i don't understand. Like, you need to see it. That's the whole point. It's a visual medium. It seems a strange... This seems like a third player entered the game and it was graphic novels. They were like, you have to make them all fit together.
Speaker: Spotify and shoes and graphic novels. And they were like, oh my God, what do we do? I can't get my head around the shoe component. I don't understand why shoes. Why it's pair of shoes, yeah. No, I don't get it. It just opens on your phone anyway. know.
Speaker: Like, do kids even have a phone all the time? Oh God. Do your headphones connect to the shoes? And then you, if your kids don't have a phone, can you tap your phone? Oh. But then you could just, you could just do it on your phone anyway. could just connect their headphones up.
Speaker: Like on their own, I'm not hating on any of the things. I like graphic novels and I like Spotify and I listen to my 15 hours a month usually in audio books and shoes are great. They protect my feet.
Speaker: I love shoes, but do these things have to go together? And the shoes are not, they're fine. Like I'll share a picture with you guys. They're not like the worst. I feel like kids aren't going to be excited about these shoes. Maybe they are. I'm, I'm, I'm, what do I know? I'm 35. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm an idiot when it comes to kids' shoes. We're not into kids' fashion. I don't know what's happened. They just look like a regular shoe. You know what I mean? They're not a special type of shoe. The article says that nearly half of children, 47% says listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or both. And so it's like... oh but ah Why are you trying to give that audience a pair of shoes to make that access more difficult? Half of them are already doing it. They don't need to wear shoes to be able to do How many percentage of children wear shoes, Naomi? Is that on the... There you go. At least 99. It just doesn't make sense. They also don't explain anywhere why.
Speaker: Why shoes? What gap in the market are they trying to fill here? Because... I get... just Pam McMillan and Spotify seems like a decent partnership. That makes sense to me. I feel like Pam McMillan have got like no, nothing. If this doesn't work, it's it's not on them. stuff The people who make the shoes are gonna- Yeah, actually. Yeah, cause Spotify like, fine, we'll get some more submissions or we won't. yeah, it's fine.
Speaker: The people who make the shoes are the people who are stood to lose, yeah. funny well we'll see maybe maybe we'll be we'll have egg on our faces when we see everyone walking around tapping their phones to their feet i hope i do because i want this to be a thing for some reason yeah and i i don't know um but that brings me to the that was the last news story i had today of things that i thought were were fun and interesting and and worth talking about um we I hadn't prepared a further topic for this first session, which I realize in hindsight was probably a mistake, but we're trying a new format. we we're still We're still teething. But next week, we'll we'll we'll have prepared ah something to to talk about, a topic to follow the news.
Speaker: At the moment, we're just kind of figuring out how this works. We didn't even do a test run or or anything. We just jumped right in and I started reading out news stories. So I think that went pretty well. i think it's worked well. But for everyone listening, yeah, we are trying going to try and do these every Friday now.
Speaker: um The kind of release schedule and where this will release, that's still TBD. I'm still figuring that out. um But we would love to hear from you as always. Like if you guys have, if there's a story we missed or you have a different like take on on one of the stories that we didn't talk about, or if there's ah something in publishing, a certain topic or a certain event that's happened that you want us to talk about, you want to hear what we have to say about it.
Speaker: um then ah please do message us. You can find all of us on on different social medias across the platform. Just Google our names or you can head over to the the Right and Wrong Instagram or the Right and wrong Wrong website. There's lots of contact forms where you can reach me.
Speaker: um Yeah, I guess that's that's all for this episode and excited to get back into it and get into a more weekly cadence. So i guess, yeah, we'll catch you all on the next episode.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Thanks for putting up with our nonsense for another episode. To stay tuned to everything we're up to, you can follow the podcast on all socials at The Chosen Tropes. Follow Melissa at Meliva, Naomi at Naomi G. Writes, and Jamie at Jamie X. Greenwood.
Speaker: Don't forget to check out Naomi and Melissa's books, as well as the Right and Wrong podcast. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next trope.
