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Ben Fox and Native Son
86 Plays4 months ago
Ben Fox is founder of the amazing book discovery site Shepherd.
Joe and Mark talk to Ben about a book that had a huge impact on him.
Native Son, by Richard Wright, was assigned to Ben as a senior in high school.
"I hated it from the depths of my soul, but now this book is strongly in my DNA," Ben says.
He doesn't hate the story now, though it does haunt him. It's one of the top fifteen books he would recommend.
Don't miss this great conversation about systematic racism, reading and Ben's pet project, the book discovery site Shepherd!
For more information, check out the show notes for this episode.
Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press.
Drop us a line at [email protected] to tell us what you think of this episode... or any other.
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Transcript
Introduction and Memes
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, Mark. Smoking Joe. How's it going? Very well, as usual. How about you? Pretty good. Yeah. I've been online a lot. So I'm thinking about online stuff. And I was trying to think about what my favorite meme was today. And I wondered if you had a, fit I think I know what it is, but I wondered if you had a favorite meme. Mark, can you not like once ask me an easy question? what's the fun of My favorite meme. Yeah. Cause I've given that a lot of thought. Um, I mean, okay. There's memes that like come to mind, you know? And the one that I seem to see all the time now is the one guy walking with a girl who's checking with another girl. yeah you know him Distracted boyfriend. that's called him Yeah. Yeah.
00:00:59
Speaker
But, uh, no, I don't, oh, you know what? Okay. It just came to me. There is a ah meme of like, it's a house on fire girl with like a demonic expression on her face. Yeah. I love that one. Yeah. I don't remember that one's called mine is a woman yelling at cat and the specific subset of them arguing about a badly typographed sign. So the one that I remember the most is, uh, it's supposed to say, let it snow, but because the way they've broken up the letters, it actually says let tits now. ah um god Okay. You're going to have to put that one up on the website. So that one combines my two favorite things, cats and and bad typography.
Guest Introduction: Ben Fox
00:01:42
Speaker
So I thought maybe, cause, cause our guest Ben Fox is online quite a bit. I'm guessing I thought he maybe might have his favorite meme as well. Oh, okay. Well, that's fine, dude.
00:01:51
Speaker
I would have to say I love the one where it's the ah dog just sitting in the burning down bar saying it's fine, whatever else. I mean, that's that's yeah kind of my favorite. Yeah, that's a pretty good one too. Yeah. Yeah. And that goes way back that one too, eh? That's like 15 years old or something. The burning house one is pretty old too, I think. Yeah. I feel like that's dawn of the internet age. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. That's really old. That one, but I, yeah, they're all, they're all pretty old. The ones we've mentioned, but even mine's fairly old. So Ben Fox, welcome to the ah podcast re creative. It's great to to have you all the way from Portugal.
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah. Thanks for having me. You know what? I think, uh, let's change things up a little bit, Mark, and ask this gentleman to describe himself like right off the top. So chair good plan. know Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Cause we, so we do this thing where we just, we asked the guests to introduce themselves. So away you go.
Shepherd.com: Vision and Motivation
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah. So my name's Ben Fox. I'm a longtime entrepreneur. I'm a biker. I'm a, I love to read. Um, and I am currently trying to boot up a book website called shepherd dot.com. which ah both Mark and I are taking advantage of. And before we get into your your pick of your choice of art today, let's just talk a little bit about that, if that's okay. Because, I mean, it's pretty amazing what you're doing. And it it almost seems like you're kind of doing it out of the goodness of your heart, you know, because it it doesn't really seem to be like monetized in any way. It's just like you, so yeah, why? Why are you doing this?
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to get, trying to get it monetized just so we can kind of break even on our cost at some point. But yeah, I, it's really to scratch my own itch because I read a lot of books. I've always been able to read super fast. So I read over a hundred books each year. And, you know, a friend might give me one or two books each year that they love, but I realized that I spend and a ton of time just going through Amazon trying to find military sci-fi or, you know, fantasy that I'm going to love that have well-developed characters. And I realized, like, this is silly. Like, I want tools to be able to do this. And I kept hoping, you know, Goodreads and others would create them, and I just never saw them.
00:04:03
Speaker
And so I've been thinking about doing this for a while and COVID hit and I kind of was yeah had another company that kind of went down in flames and ended up trying to
The Serendipity of Book Discovery
00:04:12
Speaker
do this. And it's been immensely fun. It's going well. And it's it's a cool website too. Like it really is a cool product you're creating because it's it's that discovery thing. like You're helping people discover writers that they wouldn't necessarily have known anything about. good yeah i just want I want people to bump into books in a more like serendipitous manner because that's usually where I find amazing books that just seem like I met them at the right time when I needed them and they're coming home with me. um and It feels like online that's just such a struggle because Amazon has become more and more full of ads and a lot of the other sites just feel like a database. so
00:04:48
Speaker
So yeah, this is, I've kind of gotten to like, okay, this is a good base level and I'm hoping over the coming years to get like the crazier ideas I have in my head too, but that's crazy here. It's like, it's like an internet version of an old bookstore or our used bookstore. Like it's got that kind of, like you say, serendipity, like that's my experience of going into old bookstores. I mean, smelling the old paper and just kind of wandering around and going, Hey, what's that? I never heard of that. And yeah, that's, that's what I love about it. Well, I, I ordered a book, uh, just this morning, actually based on, on Shepherd. And it was one actually that you had used in, uh, so you had this virtual meeting yesterday, which I attended and that was cool. And thanks for that. oh yeah And, uh, you had one of these books as an example and I thought, man, that book looks really cool. And
Mark's Initial Skepticism and Appreciation
00:05:33
Speaker
my habit is if I don't.
00:05:35
Speaker
buy a book that I see right away. I know I'll forget it and it'll be lost forever. So I'm like, I just got to buy it. So, yeah. That's great. So, and I was super flattered to, I don't know how you felt Mark, but I was like, at first I was like, I was like super flattered to have been asked to participate in Shepherd to have my books up there. Then my next thought was, wait a minute, what kind of scam is this? yeah I get that a lot. Yeah. Well, cause like my experience with, uh, with publishing the books so far is basically everybody's making money off the writers, except the writers, you know? And I thought, well, this'll be no exception, but it is an exception. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're not, I will tell you,
Sustainability Goals for Shepherd
00:06:16
Speaker
we're not making money. I mean, my goal with this is really to get to a break even where we can be sustainable with one full-time developer because I want to keep building features because I tell authors, you know, I think I mentioned this in the email when I approached some authors as I tell them, Hey, I'm not Oprah. You know, this is one of a hundred things and I hope that in,
00:06:34
Speaker
three or four years, it's five of 100 things you should do online to bump into new readers. So yeah, I think back to the days when we first got started, I didn't even have the website ready. um The first batch of authors I was pitching with an image. I'm amazed that they responded to me because I was just like, hey, here's what it's going to look like. Can you, can you trust me ah that it's going to be cool? We're all desperate. So yeah, I was, I think that might've been one of those writers actually. Cause I, I think I've been as a founder, my founding member for a long time anyway. Awesome. But I think it'd be good to get other, cause we have a lot of writers, i a lot, some writers listed to this show and it'd be great for them to help you and, and become, um, you know, participating members too. Yeah. Yeah. be great
00:07:17
Speaker
But none of that is why we want to talk to
Ben's Art Choice: 'Native Son'
00:07:20
Speaker
you today. Yeah. We want to find out what your choice of art is, what inspires you. So what do you and you haven't told us we have no idea going into this. So what do you got? So I debated between a few. It's got to be books because I went through everything else. It's going to be um Native Son by Richard Wright, because I have a very conflicting ah relationship with this book. um have you Have you either of you read it? nope No, no. yeah I was wondering if this was gonna be a very um a very American book. I read it in high school, as a senior in high school, and I hated it. I remember I was one of two kids in the class with you know this great professor we had, ah Dr. Burke, and we both hated it to the depths of our soul. But the truth is, when I look back, I think a lot about like what's my book DNA, because that's something I think about doing Shepherd all the time.
00:08:16
Speaker
And this book is strongly in the mix for 15 books that really push my ah push my worldview in a certain way. So can you explain what the book is about? Because I mean, yeah I don't unfortunately know that book. Yeah, that's i I feel badly that I don't. Well, no, but that's one of the great things about this podcast, right? Is we keep discovering stuff that we need to know about. So it's um it's it's and i um I looked it up a bit, so I've got a little bit here. But basically, it's about a black man. I believe it was Chicago. I'm going to butcher part of it because I haven't read it you know in 20 years. But basically, he goes to work for a wealthy family.
00:08:54
Speaker
he's not used to you know He's used to 19th century racism every day in his life. The family is nice. They're giving him a lot of, you know, his room. He's going to help him out around the house. I believe he's going to, you know, he does things like drive the car around. He ends up driving the daughter to a communist party meeting and her boyfriend's there and they want him to sit with them and use his first name and talk like they're friends. And, you know, this whole world is suddenly his whole world order is breaking down in front of him. He's confused. He doesn't understand like the nuance and the things going on around him.
00:09:30
Speaker
It ends up she gets drunk, he takes her back to the house, he has to carry her inside, he's terrified that somebody's gonna see him ah carrying her in, because obviously, you know, this is when lynchings and other things are going on. And so he gets inside, he puts her in the bed, and he he can't resist, he gives her a kiss, and as he's doing that, I believe the mom kind of walks in the room, she doesn't see him, because I think it's dark, and basically he has to keep her quiet, and he puts the pillow overhead, and she starts making noise, and he suffocates her to death. Oh, good. Oh, my God. Yeah. ah In African high school, this was I mean, it was a I just hated it. I hated the whole series of events to get strapped in. So he takes her downstairs to the basement and he puts her in the furnace. And then it becomes a bit of him trying to get out of this event he's created. And ah yeah, and just about it just was. So why why why is it so disturbing and so adjustment? It was like one of those things where you you're on one side of a coin.
00:10:29
Speaker
And you can't even fathom the other side of the coin, per se. like And I mean everything, just with your world view, it's so easy to keep working. And then this was like one of those where it just broke open and to see this other side. And I hated, I remember in high school arguing for 30, 40 minutes, me and this friend of mine in this class about how much we hated it because this character you know shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have gone down that path. you know But in hindsight, you know, looking back, I mean, it's not a year goes by that I don't think about this book, you know, and it bothers me about, you know, though you you're stuck in your kind of worldview and you can't get out of it. And that's what kind of leads him down this path many times.
00:11:10
Speaker
So you you hated it, but but you were but it's still completely captivated and gripped you in and stuck with you. So do you hate it now? I don't hate it now. I want to go back and reread it and see how I feel again, because it's so deeply lodged in there. At the time, I hated it because i i I'm a very optimistic person that everybody has the chance to do anything kind of feeling, and the whole discussion in the class was about how
Evolving Interpretations of 'Native Son'
00:11:39
Speaker
he had no options to do anything else. you know There's some things in the book about he he wants to be a pilot, and but that's inconce you know it's inconceivable for him to be able to be a pilot in that time period.
00:11:49
Speaker
and i hate i hate that deep in my soul um so that yeah i think i don't hate it now it's more i understand it it took me a long time to understand it but it's like it's just deep in there it's not getting out i mean there it really does come up i swear once a year where i think a lot about that book and that character Well, it sounds to me like the book is like an examination of how systematic racism is something that you really can't escape. ah When was the book written? Do you remember that, what happened to that? Yeah, I just, sorry, I had it up and then I wanted to see. Because it sounds like it's still relevant today, really. Yeah. So it looks like 1940. Oh, okay. So probably set in the 30s.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually have this is resonating a bit with me because there was a book I did. I wouldn't say I hated it. But um in French, we we had to read L'Etranger in the original French, which has got kind of a similar theme. It's about an Algerian man who kills an Arab in Algiers, I think. And, you know, his most of the book has set him in and the prison while he's you know waiting trial or waiting. his execution. And yeah, there's same kind of themes as like, oh man, this, but his was worse because he did it on purpose. Like he wasn't trapped in, in the circumstances, but same kind of feeling is like, why are we reading this book? This is really, really upsetting. And the rate and the racism in the book is pretty, it's pretty hard to read about. Yeah. Cause that's the same sort of kind of racism, you know, the French occupation of Algeria.
00:13:31
Speaker
Ben, have you read reread the book? No, I have not reread it. It's on my list. It's been on my list for about a year, but I'm hoping this year to tackle it. I've been doing a book club with my dad and brother, so I think it's gonna be my pick. Huh. And Mark, have you read, reread L'Etranger? I did. I read a translation because I wasn't up for reading it in French again, because my French has gotten worse since high school, not better. Uh, and yeah, I i like, uh, I mean, I brought more to it, I think, um, as an adult, uh, because I, you know, I didn't have, ah I knew a bit about, we did learn about existentialism in the process of reading the book and in class, but of course it was in French. So it wasn't sort of.
00:14:14
Speaker
And we didn't understand everything that we were talking about really, it's the best, the kindest way to say it, because we were sort of working with another language. But um since then I've, of course, I'm quite influenced by existential thought and Camus especially. So when I reread it, there was, I got a lot more out of it the second time around. And of course I wasn't struggling with the language as much because it was a translation, not not the original. And I imagine both you guys have had the experience of rereading books that as adults that you had read as kids. And in in my case, anyway, I do that a lot because I have these favorite books. And whenever I reread them, it's it's like reading a completely different book. and did they I'm like, did they rewrite this since I read it the previous time? Is that the experience with you guys?
00:15:07
Speaker
Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, actually, because we've talked about maybe doing a podcast about to um The Once and Future King. Yeah. Which I did read ages ago when I was a kid. And so I picked it up last night and I started rereading it so we can talk about it. You and I, Joe. And I was just like, I don't remember this book being as funny. Oh, it's a great book. It's yeah really mighty like it's it's got like it's got like there's a continuum between T.H. White and ah Douglas Adams, I would say, in the way that he writes the book. missed it completely as a kid. well And I've got a lot more to say about that, but I'll i'll save it for that particular podcast.
00:15:44
Speaker
but that he read the win future king ben I haven't read it yet. It's also on my list. My brother is a big fan, so
Revisiting 'Wheel of Time'
00:15:50
Speaker
it's been there for a bit. I was going to say like Will of Time series is one where I read it. you know I started it in my early 20s, so it had like a certain you know importance for just impact at that time. But then I read it again once it was complete in the in my 30s, and then I read it when I turned 40. and it is it is it was really weird to get a whole new level or something out of it each even for a fantasy book like that which is one of my favorites so i you know i was i had been married by the time i read it in my 40s for seven years and i was like oh like because they there was like a whole new dimension to some of the relationships um but yeah i i definitely get that no wait i gotta clarify you read the wheel of time series the entire series three times
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, I actually just was starting it for the fourth time this week. i really like yeah i When you read fast, it's not so bad. yeah I think I got lost in about book five. i I was like, I'm out. He's never going to finish this. I'm done. I gave my wife book number one ah this year as part of a tradition we do where we cut kind of like do one one book for Christmas. It's like a challenge book of like, try this if you're interested in something different. um And for a long time, for I think a year, she was using it to go to sleep because she couldn't make it more than three pages since she was out. And now she's 80% through the audio books. So I'm very curious if she's going to do another one and and so on when she finishes. but Wow. Okay. So for any listeners who aren't familiar with that series, these are enormous books, The Wheel of Time series, and there's like a whole bunch of them. And like Mark, because I really enjoyed them and I was actually reading reading them when I was in Aix-en-Provence, which I had told you in an email and recently.
00:17:27
Speaker
But I was there and that was and I was feeling, you know, like alone and lonely and I was reading The Wheel of Time series to keep me, give me comfort and solace when I was there. But I lost my way. I read one and then lost the book or something and then forgot which one I was at and then couldn't pick up the series that week again because I couldn't remember. Am I in like book seven or eight? and Okay, so I gotta ask, do you have thoughts on the TV series? Have you seen the TV series? Which is on Prime. Yeah, it was it's actually I think it's the first TV series where I was actually like deeply excited in my soul that they were gonna try to do this. Yeah. And I was horribly let down. I mean, the things they changed and the decisions they made, ah it might be good for people coming in fresh. Um, but I was, I made it like, I think I forced myself to do about four episodes and I was like, why did they do that? Why was that decision made with such a core character? So I, I can't do it. It was, and then some of the core magic rules, they totally destroyed in the first six episodes, I think. Yeah. it' was frustrating It didn't seem right to me though. They're some good actors. in it so Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:33
Speaker
But yeah, adaptations that now we're going far afield and I will get back to your book, Ben, but I'm telling everyone to watch the foundation series. on apple It's so good. yeah as it season two Yeah. But yeah, so getting back to, to that book and your initial reaction to it, I think of the book for me that I had that kind of relationship with is, um, Lord Foul's
Mark's Experience with 'Lord Foul's Bane'
00:18:59
Speaker
Bane. Oh yeah. which I picked up the book in a bookstore, knew nothing about it, read the first page, was instantly gripped with this character of of a leper going to like a fantasy world. And I thought it would be that he would go to like a Lord of the Rings type fantasy world and have a great time. But no, he goes to a
00:19:19
Speaker
Lord of the Rings fantasy world and then rapes a girl, you know, which is like horrible. Sorry. Spoiler alert. But yeah,
00:19:31
Speaker
yeah but anyway, I was like so like revulsed by that, that I literally threw the book across the room. I'm like, I can't read this and then went and picked it up and like, and then read the rest of it and and ultimately loved the series and and I've read it and twice and and reading it as an adult and getting the context of you know how why he acted the way he did, why he did what he did, not to excuse it or anything, but it was a completely different experience reading it as as an adult. So um I would love to you know check in again with you later after you read
00:20:09
Speaker
ah Richard Wright's book yeah and see what you think of it. Yeah, two, three. um it's It's penciled in. I'd like to get back into the reaction a bit more though because it sounds like it was a real visceral hate. and Is that because because of the racism and like was that something that you hadn't really I wouldn't say thought about, but hadn't really sort of absorbed as part of your world. And so was that part of the reason that it was such a visceral reaction? It's like, Oh my God, this is so wrong. And you'd never really encountered it before.
00:20:44
Speaker
that was That was a smaller part um because it wasn't the main focus. For me, it was the the absolute disgust over the lack of control that he had in his life. like That bugged me deeply in my soul. so i mean The racism, of course, was terrible, but it wasn't as it played out or It wasn't shown as clearly in the book and I wouldn't have at that age been able to kind of see that as clearly as I can now. But it was more that this person felt they didn't have control of their life and how much that bothered me because I want to be have the thought that I have control over my life and where I'm going, the decisions I'm making.
00:21:20
Speaker
And so to watch them, you know, kind of they're in this time period and they've got these boxes confining them was very difficult to handle and then watch these series of events happen. Cause it goes, it goes downhill from there as well. So it was something about that me and the my friend who was also really struggling with it I think she had similar views of that time as it was just how could he do this and I kept asking myself well why can't he fly planes like can't you find a way like I know it's not easy but
00:21:53
Speaker
you know And so was it was, a you know was in god I must've been 17, 16. It was just a very weird thing to wrap my head around you know white dude in Arkansas, your ways on the American dream that you can do anything you don't have. you know Back then especially, they didn't even pretend to draw boxes around you in terms of what you can do. It's kind of the ah the ethos you're given at that time is you can achieve anything you want. You wanna be an astronaut. You know, I feel like we have a much more realistic view of that now. But at the time, it was very hard to handle in my little high school brain. Yeah, I guess I guess I was making the connection then it's like because that that lack of options is is really racism at work, right? Like they that, that, that is like you're, you're, you're confined by the sort of structures of ah sort of, of society in that sense. So I was making that connection in a way that maybe
00:22:43
Speaker
as a younger person, you wouldn't make that connection. And I wonder if that's, if that's the intention of the book, I wonder. Or it seems like it's got to be, I mean,
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, I've read a little comment. I really am curious when I read it again, if it's so much clearer to me as an adult who who now has seen, you know, like considering I was in Arkansas, I should have been more familiar with racism and I got a lot more familiar with it as I got older and actually started seeing it more and more. because it yeah Yeah, I mean, Yeah, I mean, it's got to be the main focus of the book. Now, he wrote ah a lot of books. He didn't live a long time. It looks like he only lived till 52, but he wrote a lot of ah books and in his life. Have you read any other of of his books? I haven't. I don't think I've read any of the others. Let me see. No. Yeah. And we haven't made it clear, so probably we should state it. So he he was a black man writing about a black experience.
00:23:49
Speaker
And um yeah, I'm not familiar with him, and I'm kind of thinking that this is an author that maybe we should be familiar with. that's That was my reaction when when i think I think I should know about this book. And I'm just looking at the the Wikipedia page right now, and there's a quote here that's just jumping out at me. It's from James Baldwin, who's a black writer I am familiar with. And the quote is, no American Negro exists who does not have his private, bigger Thomas living in his skull, which is, ah that's the main character in the book. So that sort of describes it very well. He didn't like the stereotypical main character that he created for this book. right um He just didn't personally like it and felt that it did damage, I think, that I had read too.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah, because it's ah yeah it's it's not really an uplifting tale, right? Like where he's in this structure and he can't get out of it and he makes bad choices then as well. Now, it also seems like ah Richard Wright was someone, and now I say this without having read his work and just hearing about his work and and reading about his work, but it seems like he was writing about um important um thematic subjects. Now, The Wheel of Time, just to pick on The Wheel of Time. Segue. Yeah. Is it? Because I'm thinking
00:25:11
Speaker
there There are some interesting thematic subjects in there. It's talking about ah yeah the experience of adolescence. I remember one of the character you know was kind of gradually sort of or occasionally changing into a bear, you know which was obviously like a metaphor for ah hormones and that sort of thing. But it doesn't strike me as a super deep series beyond that. Yeah, yeah what what are your thoughts on that? Like do you read other books that have that are deeper or do you go back and forth or? Yeah, with i'm I'm also really I feel like I'm really good at reading in two books deeper levels so that it's like my subconscious gets to play with things because I think I think we'll have time goes deeper than most so
00:25:57
Speaker
fantasy books. um But yeah, I'm really good at kind of putting meaning in there that's already like I'm trying to wrap up. So I know for me, I got a lot out of it, you know, reading at those different time periods. In terms of of of books, i I used to be very even in terms of like 50% kind of more entertainment, 50% more serious, and then something happened like, I don't know, like 10 years ago, and now I'm like 90% entertainment, um or serious but masquerading as entertainment. and 10%, maybe 20% serious. um I don't know what flipped, um maybe something with work, I think. And I just ah really needed more of an escape when I go to go to books. So i I'm trying now to balance that out more. I'm trying to do this like book club with my ah dad and brother, and I'm trying to do a certain number of reads that are more challenging straight up from the book, not with whatever I imbue it with.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to get a better habit there because it has been a lot of, a lot of, uh, what I would call beach greens or something like that. You got to get some of that liver in there with you. Yeah, it did now mark you i need whatever you want yeah there you go. But no market like, and I'm i'm turning this to you because having read, uh, you know, a lot of your work, you kind of. You do both in terms of what you write because you write about important thematic subjects. I'm thinking of like the the fatness, for example, and the kind of um you know more fun you kind of blend the two together, and which is a really, I think, a great way to approach writing. and
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I, I consciously do that. I, you know, I try to make, um, there's layers, you know, so there's, there's like a deep, deeper layer, um, that I know about. And then there's the lighter stuff on the top and I'm happy to have readers just enjoy the light stuff and not really necessarily get the deeper stuff. But I'm really happy when people get both. That's, that makes me feel like I did my job right as a writer. And then there's another layer that I don't even know it's about. ah So I think, you know Ben, you're alluding to that, right? now Readers bring stuff to your work, and as a writer, yeah you know you you you control the book until you publish it, and then it's not your book anymore. Then it's the reader's book, and so much happens in their minds that you don't control it. I have a one of my a book that like massively helped me during a dark period of my life is a Killer of Men by Christian Cameron.
00:28:33
Speaker
And i think I think sometimes when I tell people that they think I'm crazy, I've told the author that, and I'm not sure if he thinks I'm crazy or not, because it's ah it's a great historical fiction, but it's you know it's heavy on adventure. um But it just hit me at the right time, and the way that he writes characters is it was just exactly what I needed when I was at the very bottom of a period, and it got me back out. And I worry sometimes because I've told him a few times over email to try to get him on the site because of course I want to know what he loves to read. I'm like, does he think I'm crazy because I i say that on interviews and I know that I've mentioned it to him. And I'm like, he's like, I wrote a historical fiction, you know, adventure book. What is, why how is this guy saying it's one of the most important books in his life? But ah books are such a great mirror and whatever's going on with you. And if you get one at the right time,
00:29:23
Speaker
It can really help you and it might not even, you know, have been in that book before. The author just did a really good job about leaving gaps in it that you feel. Yeah. Yeah. And that's like one of the real privileges of being a writer is that, and that connects with readers is that, yeah, you're helping people with those things and you don't even know what they are really. Cause it's like you say, it's all, and it's a mirror. It's what's happening in their minds and what's happening in their lives. at the moment they encounter the book. And that's kind of magical. and It really is amazing to me how fiction works. And I think we all have those special books that have hit us at a certain time in our lives. I can you know think of you know a few, like one is Tinkerbell by Robert Manry.
Mark's Love for 'Tinkerbell'
00:30:06
Speaker
which I really wish he'd named it a different title. but so it's going to take you seriously But it's an amazing book about sailing a 13 and a half foot sailboat across the Atlantic Ocean from Falmouth, Massachusetts to Falmouth, England. wow And I've probably read it five or six times. And yeah, it's just, I read it as a kid and then keep reading it as an adult. And then somebody made a movie about him and, uh, which people need to go see that movie too. Uh, it's like a documentary and I, I think it's only been seen by a handful of people, but I went out and bought it special. And yeah, cause it just hit me at that right place. Tell us more about that book that, that meant, so why, what is it about? And.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say too, like I think you and I actually, uh, one of your favorite three reads of 2023 was my, uh, one of my favorite reads from about five years ago, which was the sailing book, uh, by what's your name? I'm a big fan of sailing books as well. Oh, Tanya. I don't even know how to pronounce her last name, Tanya O'Vear. Crazy story. Yeah, um that's another great book. Very good. Yeah, so Killer Men, um I was kind of at a big change in my life. I had just gotten married. I had had a big work project or a big business be sold and it kind of didn't end the way I wanted and it it was a end of a very close or a real change in a close friendship I had with a business partner that was not where I wanted it to be. um I found out I was, you know, I had a chronic disease after like surgery. I mean like it was like everything that could go wrong went wrong in one year and I was just like trying to dig my way out and I read this book the year after I believe or a couple years after and and the reason ah well the reason I think it hits so heavily it's a series of books
00:31:54
Speaker
about four or five, but it was him as an older man telling the story of his youth, you know, going forward. And so it was very therapeutic because you had this, I can't remember how old he is in the book, you know, maybe mid 50s, somewhere in there telling the story starting when he was like 16, I think. and ah And the characters Christian writes are just so realistic to me and they share a lot of the same values that it was it was almost like seeing some of my same mindset and then seeing it grow up. And it was cool because I got to see it evolve from a certain point where I was currently at. And it just helped me make this bridge over to a more healthy ah view of myself, if that makes sense, because it was this big view of things. It was it like walked me over the bridge, just helped me get there. So is is it is it a book that's set in ancient Greece?
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. I haven't read a book set in ancient Greece in a while. I think I have to read this book because I love that period of history and it's set ah before the Persian war or around the Persian war. Yeah. Cause it's leading up to that. So it starts when he's younger, it's based and he's a, the character is a real historic character who has a Wikipedia entry. It's kind of cool how he did it. And he basically grows them up and he's got a, you know, and just leads them to that point in history. So you get a lot of the characters and historic characters from that time. Um, and I really like how he writes dialogue and everything else as a writer where you're just on the same level. So that's good. huh so And you haven't been able to get that. What's the name of the author again?
00:33:26
Speaker
ah Christian Cameron. and Christian Cameron. And you haven't been able to get him on Shepherd yet? Not yet. No. He said he was, and then he got busy. He writes a lot, um and I'm going to work on him. I'm going to work on him. he's He's like number one on my list. I just would love to know some other books that have you know so his book DNA, which is really a lot what we do. So ah fin fin I'm so pathetic, right? like So I get this invitation from Shepherd, from I guess one of the people that you're working with. You guys had my stuff the next day. Oh yeah, that's great. I'm like, hey, do you want to help me sell my books? I'm in. Yeah.
00:34:01
Speaker
Personality-wise, I'll tell you, it's either next day or it's like way down the road. I've got authors that asked me to circle back in 2027 right now. I mean, there's that mindset of it's either like you get right on it or there's going to be a little bit of a dance before you get it. and Maybe it depends like where you're at in the journey. Like Stephen King's like, you know what? Yeah, you know, 15 or 16 years from now, maybe I'll give you something, but yeah, he doesn't need the help. But i people should definitely check out the site because it's a great way to discover new books. It really is. Thanks. So let's see if you don't mind if we kind of pirouette to your entrepreneur side, and because I find that really interesting. So you describe yourself as an entrepreneur. You've done ah startups in the past, and this is a startup, and presumably there will probably be startups in the future. So where does this all come from? what what Why are you an entrepreneur?
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah. um woof i mean my I had some good examples. My dad at different times was an entrepreneur, so I got to see that. um He started a small ISP in our nearby town in Arkansas and some similar things.
Entrepreneurial Influences
00:35:08
Speaker
I think also growing up, you know back to books, it was books like Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Grapes of Wrath. ah you know Those books heavily influenced me on you know what a load of crap ah work can be if it's not respected. And so I think as I kind of you know got to college,
00:35:31
Speaker
is I just was like, I'd rather be doing my own thing. And I started pretty young. I had some businesses I tried to do in junior high. I had a good one going in high school. So it was kind of always there. um And I just wasn't sure I i wanted to go all in um yet. But I think it was heavily like, you know, work can be great. But often I had a lot of examples of my family where people were not treated well by their employers. um And so I had a real I disdain for that combined with a love of travel and a love of free time and a lot of hobbies. And I wanted to have time for those before I got older and and maybe wasn't as healthier because I also saw that through my family. So I'd say those are kind of the ah big trends that kind of pushed me that way.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah, and you do seem to have um a really good balance, um something that, I mean, they say for for writers, writers gotta have newsletters and and some do it well and some do it don't do it well. And I like to read all the the newsletters that come my way to kind of pick up the the tips and And you write a great newsletter for show. And you always include ah your your personal activities, the little bit of, you know, it's like, well, you know, the other day I went, uh, you know, bicycling through Spain with my son. And, you know, those guys live in the dream. It just seems to me that, uh,
00:36:49
Speaker
Entrepreneur authors could learn a lot from what you're doing, promoting Shepherd and. Oh, thanks. So yeah, thanks for ah being, ah not just promoting our work, but being an excellent example of how to go about it as well. ah yeah i'm I'm lucky that I had a lot of examples I stole from from people who were authentic and when you're authentic, people want to get to know you and they get to know you. It's so hard to meet people through this online medium that I've i was i've spent a huge part of my life online. and My dad was a tech guy so I was like the first one in my city with high speed internet and it would open my eyes and I did a lot of projects from my age that people thought were adults doing it. so
00:37:27
Speaker
I realized early on that if you're authentic, like you get so much more done because it's not the same as meeting people in and the real world. yeah it's it's been It took me a long time to get to that point, I will say. like but i'm much more I try to share a lot more about what's going on in my life. so People are like, hey, it's not a robot. Yeah, that's one of the things I like about those newsletters too is the transparency that you're you're explaining to us who who are stakeholders really now because you know we've either invested time or invested money or both. And you're explaining to us what your plans are, where things are at. it's It's really nice because you don't really get that with other kinds of websites I don't find.
00:38:07
Speaker
yeah I feel a lot of responsibility. yeah I get stress and responsibility on on that front because yeah I've got i've got this ah these bosses and and ah and and you know that I want to help and I want to do good things for. um it's not It's not easy. It's a hard world out there for the book industry right now and the last 20 years really. yeah Well, don't stress too much because you're doing a good job. So thanks thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, when this is the, obviously the flattery portion of this podcast, self-esteem booster. What's next? I'm scared. No, no. Yeah.
Financial Freedom and Passion Projects
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, just making yourself available for something like this, this podcast, you know, I was impressed that you, and that you did that.
00:38:51
Speaker
So how do you handle the the stress and the pressure of putting something like that together and having that kind of responsibility? It helps that I have had enough businesses that I've exited that I can live frugally and I don't have to worry about Shepard making money for me. This is a passion project. I've been working for free you know for three years on this and putting in a lot of my savings. um so That's a big wait off. When you can just do something because you love it, that's amazing. So that helps immensely. On the stress part, it's mostly over money because I want to get to the point that I can hire a full-time developer or one and a half equivalent so that I can keep building things for authors and do it faster. i'm I'm not the most patient person and I have a lot of ideas on where we want to go. So I spend a lot of time trying to say, okay, what's the best path forward for these features? But I get frustrated because I would like to be building things a lot faster.
00:39:51
Speaker
So in terms of what i do is i try to just be really kind to myself about what we're capable of doing and then i yeah i wouldn't say that i'm the best i so i just went through a massive batch of stress over december and january. And I kind of got out of it, you know, by thinking, looking at the data and deciding, OK, well, you know, it's clear that we have to go this way. I talked about this in the call yesterday is memberships from authors and readers are the only way we're going to reach this sustainability level.
00:40:24
Speaker
um So once i I kind of got that answer, then I don't feel the stress because then all I can do is kind of play the game. um And then the other stuff is you know the work-life balance, which has been very hard to reach, but I'm and you i much much much older and make less mistakes than when I was younger. So I have Biking i've got my family so it really helps helps the listeners can't see this of course but yeah you got a nice bike in the background there and i see your swiss ball on top of the bike so obviously you got yeah a good exercise regime that helps with the stress. Yeah you know and i can say like a from from my part as a as an author and and a founding you know founding member of ah of of shepherd.
00:41:04
Speaker
I don't care if you lose my money. like you know like you You shouldn't feel any stress from my point of view you know because I just like the fact that you're out there trying it and and doing it so authentically and and genuinely. If I thought that you know that the stress was killing you or something, then I would be like, no, no. like no yeah Yeah, it's rarely from authors. It's it's me and it's more it's some this last January and December. It's my money um because I'm covering the difference right now. So it's more like, okay, I had a certain amount of money I was going to put into this project to get it to a base level. We've gotten to the base level and so it's more stress over, okay, how much far can I push it out of my savings? you know And like how quickly can we get to break even on cost? Because we covered about
00:41:48
Speaker
50% of our costs last year which is great. It was a big jump and I'm hoping to get to like 75-80% this year. It's just that the business model I was relying on to get us there last year has broken apart in the face of data. and so it It was like stress of okay, I've got to pay for this you know ah kind of bit. so Yeah, the only this the stress I feel from authors is generally the one or two bad apples that are mean. Everybody is incredibly supportive. So it's just really nice to get emails that are positive. ah Because you know, every so often, I'll get a death threat or you know, something something terrible, you know, and usually they're, they're under immense mental stress or something like that. I got I got somebody who called me
00:42:33
Speaker
racist about four weeks ago and that really hit hard. you know's It's hard to have a good day when even a crazy person calls you you know something like that because you're like, oh, like it's hard to shake. Yeah, but you're you're making yourself visible. you know You're putting yourself out there on behalf of a lot of people and and I guess that's kind of ah a bit of the risk of Kind of a natural byproduct of yes yeahs having a lot of fun too. I should say yeah try having fun it balances out like I just I try to I'm getting better at shaking those two because I haven't had to deal with those in a long time since a Company a long time ago. We got some of those but uh, but yeah, the fun balances out and the positivity I get on doing things like this or responses newsletter are very helpful
00:43:18
Speaker
Good, yeah. Now, if can I ask a slightly more difficult question around that? I'm curious because I mentioned at the beginning that it seems like you're you know kind of doing this out of the the goodness of your heart because you know you've got contributions from founding members, but you haven't monetized it in any way, which would seem to me to be kind of an obvious direction to help with those difficulties. Why aren't you pursuing that? Yeah. So right now we're monetized via affiliate sales of books, uh, display ads. We have a little on there. I've really scaled that back because I hate display ads and so does everybody else. Um, and then the right now we have the membership for authors. So those are the kind of three things we have right now. And then I am working to launch a membership for readers. Is that kind of what you're asking around?
00:44:05
Speaker
Well, I guess I'm just, you're thinking around monetizing it in other ways. Yeah. Yeah. It's become clear. The only way is the memberships to have readers and authors, you know, chipping in and getting benefits for it, but helping build the site is kind of my my focus. I am talking to some publishers and some sponsorship ideas that have been interesting. But yeah, i you know like the author ones i talk the author membership I talk about a lot because it's only when we we launched it in September 2022. We have about 650 authors who are i'm paying between $50 to $100 a year to to help you know to build the site.
00:44:41
Speaker
um and trying to build them perks. So I am trying to talk about it a bit more. you know like There's not much on the website about that because it was for authors. As we get the reader ah accounts launched and more features for readers, I'm hoping in you know the next six to nine months that we have a reader specific membership so they can ah get some really cool perks and benefits out of that and then hopefully help ah pay for building the website too. Cool.
Innovative Features on Shepherd
00:45:06
Speaker
and And so in terms of the future, and so this is a big passion project now, do you have like other businesses that you're looking to pursue or directions?
00:45:15
Speaker
Um, not really. I've got like, you know, this is a, I love books and you know, of all the forms of art books are what like speaks to me the most. Uh, so I have so much that I want to do around shepherd that I have a few other like smaller businesses related to shepherd that I'm talking to a friend about starting, but those are more to support shepherd financially. Like I have another you know little small website that makes some money, but all that money goes into shepherd. So this is really something I'd like to work on for a long time and I'm just trying hard to get to the point you know that we can keep it you know keep the development going at a faster rate is my hope. So no, I plan, this is kind of a passion project. I'm semi-retired and I'm hoping to just keep going forward and building new features. you know I really want to get reader features out of there. I've got a ton of crazy ideas I haven't even been able to get through um at this point. so
00:46:12
Speaker
I safely have five years of work here. Can you tell us a crazy idea? Or is that too proprietary? You don't want to give that away. No, yeah I think sharing them is great because everybody's going to implement them differently. um so One thing that I've spent ah probably too much time currently in the back end is all our topic system is tied to Wiki data. and and Wikipedia, it does a really cool thing where they've made machine learning entries is the best way to describe it, that a machine can understand the relationships between different entries in Wikipedia.
00:46:42
Speaker
So if you go to Battle of the Bulge, you can see it's part of World War II and here's the key moments or here's the key people. And I really want to get to the point, um we need to make it more accurate as well right now, but I want to get to the point that I can build timelines of history um where they allow people to kind of see history in a time scale, but then zoom in you know at different points and also get books from that. I've got a lot of ideas around that. Yeah. So there'll be some really fun stuff to do there. People as well with how Wikipedia is doing it. I think there could be some really fun stuff and they, you know, they give this away for free. They have an API. So that's something I've been wanting to do for the start, but it's, it's out there. The other one that I've talked about with authors is a character browser, because this is something I personally want is I love Bosch. Like i I love his writing. I love the character and that, that I would love to say, I love Bosch. Now show me other characters like Bosch.
00:47:40
Speaker
and kind of make it like online dating where you can go, okay, well, show me, you know, or you can show me characters that look like me um or show me characters, you know, and who do this for a living or who are a wizard, you know, it's to browse books in a way that you can't do in a bookstore. Cause right now yeah we do a lot of stuff, but I want to, you know, um push, push some of those limits. Cause that's what the internet's for is doing cool stuff, not just throwing up a database. Yeah. That's so cool. To me, the, the, the two most, um, Difficult things right now in in publishing our discover ability you know getting getting the author's work out there so you addressing that is fantastic and then the the other part of it seems to increasingly be profitability.
00:48:23
Speaker
Because, I mean, this book that I'm reading now, which is a great book on the history of copyright called Who Does This Sentence Belong To?, and one of the lines in the book is, never before in history have so many people worked so hard to make so little. Which I think, you know, kind of sums up ah writing these days. and ah So I wanted to ask you, just as we kind of close off this podcast, what do you see in the in the future of ah publishing? is like You love books. We love books. Are books around to stay? is it are Are we going to be able to make a living at it? What do you think?
00:49:02
Speaker
I definitely think books are around to stay, you know whether that's ebook or paper. i mean there's not I don't think they're going anywhere because they're so intrinsic to like ah humans. i mean When I talk to people about books, the passion that is there is just so huge. I just can't imagine them. you know, ever going away, even if the format changes, you know, I mean, we see format changes already, but the money one I'm more concerned about. um And that's a much harder one, you know, I'm new to the publishing industry. So I've come in with like, tech marketing eyes, and
00:49:36
Speaker
It is crazy like i don't even understand what i'm seeing so far i mean i talked to publishers who are only taking orders via fax and put their books on amazon and i'm like what is you know they could still marketplace i mean amazon and the others are. I mean, they're definitely holding down prices. Book prices have an increase for inflation in 20 years. I mean, how can an author make money unless they're splitting into smaller bits? i means the The level of stuff going on in the industry is hard for me to even articulate because it blows my mind continuously every time I learn something. um So I mean, in terms of future, at this point with only three years of experience looking at this industry, um apart from some stuff from my brother who's a writer,
00:50:18
Speaker
um is I really think that we, I would have said the best thing is to start, I mean the only thing is to build your fan base. Whether you do it one at a time, that's that's the only solution. We're seeing that with Substack is I think a great example where I have people that I pay $100 a year to get emails from. and you know like there' i mean I think that more authors building their fan base is the only thing and that it just needs to be easier to get that fan base because Amazon for all the negative things they do, they do a ton of good things about helping authors of all types get in front of readers and and start building a fan base.
00:50:59
Speaker
so Yeah, I don't know if that really answers it. i'm I don't know where the future goes. I'm very nervous about AI and discoverability type stuff, but I don't know if that was an answer. Oh, no, that was a great answer. That's another whole podcast. Yeah. I have so many so many thoughts there. Yeah. but Mark, any ah final thoughts or questions? or No, just to again to say thank you for the site because i really i do like my brother and I had a conversation, I would say about 20 years ago, that there's got to be some kind of way that you can make those connections. Like, I like this, what else is like this? And like you said, there just aren't the tools out there. So good for you for building it. Ben Fox, thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative.
00:51:45
Speaker
Thanks for having me. Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney. Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney. Web designed by Mark Rainer.
00:52:22
Speaker
Show notes and all episodes are available at recreative.ca. That's re-creative.ca. Drop us a line at joemahoney at donovanstreetpress.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.