Transcript
Jo: everyone, Joe here today for What's Cracking and we've got a repeat, that's right, a repeat guest. We've got Dr. Randy over back. Pleasure to have you again. It's been a minute and you look fantastic. You eat don't age.
Randy Overbeck: I'm sure I do age, but i so I'm delighted to be back. There's always a lot happening in my area, so that's great.
Jo: It looks like it, and we know we have a new book out, Abigail trench. And if correct me if I'm wrong, this is actually something not paranormal or mystery for you.
Randy Overbeck: It is a departure from the thriller and mysteries, paranormal mysteries I've done thus far, an amateur sleuth mystery. There are lots of elements of mystery, suspense, and thriller in this book, but no paranormal elements.
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: that
Jo: So what made you change? What's new genre? It looks like historical. mean, it's the,
Randy Overbeck: It's listed as, the distributor, Simon & Schuster, listed it as historical thriller or historical suspense. One of those two.
Jo: I love it. I love that. And that's actually my my jam. Honestly, when I read, that's what I love to read as well. What made you go from one genre and shift to a semi-related, but not entirely because there's no paranormal, it's historical, there's more research involved.
Jo: What made you do that shift?
Randy Overbeck: Yeah. Well, and I have always been intrigued by history and particularly history of the American Revolution. I've read a lot of books about this particular period of time and both fiction and nonfiction and it intrigued me.
Jo: All right.
Randy Overbeck: And when I uncovered this particular story that's in my book called Abigail Trench, I realized the story has never really been told. So for those who are not,
Jo: Yes.
Randy Overbeck: that in tune with the Revolutionary War issues, there was a spy ring called the Culper Ring, C-U-L-P-E-R, Culper Ring, that was organized by George Washington.
Jo: yes
Randy Overbeck: And actually, there's evidence that it helped win the Revolutionary War with making some pivotal information for George Washington from the British. And that that ring consisted of six men and one woman.
Randy Overbeck: And the the the identities of those individuals were kept so secret that the final, the sixth man in the of the six, his his identity wasn't uncovered until 1930s, 150 years later.
Jo: Wow. Really?
Randy Overbeck: And they have never been able to find out. There's no historical agreement on who the woman is. oh I decided to create a fictional character to step into those shoes. And it was really interesting opportunity to blend history with with captivating fiction.
Jo: That's amazing. One of my teachers in Binghamton was was Jack Vernon and he does historical fiction. That's why was really part of my interest as well. And from my point of view, from remembering, it's you do your research, you have to do due diligence. You would research it as is a true paper, you know, you're writing a PhD where it's going to be your research that way.
Jo: And then the what if would come. Did you have the what if first or did you research and then go, I wonder,
Randy Overbeck: i think I think it happened halfway in between. us So and I wasn't at this point researching.
Jo: Right. Right.
Randy Overbeck: I was reading about the Culper Ring. I had read several of the books about the Culper Ring. There's a couple of books out. And there there's only just a little brief hints. they one One historical author suggests it could be this person. One suggests it could be another person. And I just thought, well, now there's an interesting story. And one of the reasons that I wanted to tell it, especially in this period of time,
Randy Overbeck: is kind of to highlight the fact that the revolution came about not just because of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin.
Randy Overbeck: it It came about because of everyday people that were working in the shadows, that were fighting the battles, all those kinds of things.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: and And I think it's kind of important to remember that, that it's not all about the leaders that we've been taught for 250 years. It's about a lot of other people that made that made that change possible.
Jo: Yeah, that made the sacrifices. There's a line in Shakespeare, who died today, knowing of importance.
Randy Overbeck: Yes.
Jo: Right?
Randy Overbeck: Yeah, that's incredible.
Jo: It goes back to that. Like, well, obviously are ones who bought the rubidals for you. The lords and the kings rarely do. Washington being exceptions. We see through this and then you focused on who the woman was, who the woman was, who the woman was.
Jo: Was that something that called to you? There's just for a personal, I can't figure this out. Or what was the, what was the draw for that one? Because the other ones are still relatively unknown.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah, well, and actually will tell you up front that Abigail Trench is the first of four books that in the cycle.
Jo: Okay. Right. Right.
Randy Overbeck: My second one is going to the publisher another couple of months. So this is, did I start that way? No, I actually, I was just fascinated by this.
Randy Overbeck: unknown woman all we really know about her there in the historical record there are several times where she is referred to as the lady that's all that's in there and then each of the culper ring individuals were given a number even george washington had a number and her number was 355 so there are several times where it was listed as 355 provided this information
Jo: right
Randy Overbeck: and And then all the only other things we know about her is that she had access to high-level British officer information and fed that to the Culper Ring on several critical occasions.
Randy Overbeck: So I put those pieces together with a fictional character and came up with a way that she might have been able to overhear these secrets in a way that would be not suspicious.
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: And then the story took off from there.
Jo: And and the one of the coolest things about this, because they're so, you know, from a writer's point of view,
Randy Overbeck: Thank you.
Jo: because there's such few documentations on this obviously secret ring itself and no one really knows who she is. Do we know not so much in your books, but historically, do we know the ending to her?
Jo: Probably not.
Randy Overbeck: They don't. In fact, she at she as i've as I referred, there's several of these mentions of this, the lady in 355, and then some of the later dispatches from the Culper Ring, there's no mention of her.
Jo: Right.
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: One historian took that to mean that she was taken, she was captured and then executed. that That's kind of hard to believe because what the British did at that point, anytime that they had an opportunity to do something egregious, they did it in public.
Randy Overbeck: They wanted everybody to know.
Jo: Yeah. It wouldn't be private. This would be very much.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah, so it's unlikely. Now, she could you know that if he were here arguing with he said, well, she could have been thrown in prison and died in prison, you know, big to me those are all possible.
Randy Overbeck: It's not the scenario I drew up, and and I would argue that mine's probably just as plausible. Although, at the i at the very beginning of the book, I explained to readers This is fiction.
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: it's not It's not historical scholarship.
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: This is fiction, even though I've worked really hard to include lots of details that we have from the historical record about the fire in New York, about the assassination of George Washington, about the hanging of Thomas Hickey, and lots of other things that I've i've woven into the manuscript.
Randy Overbeck: But the bottom line is, it's still a story. It's still just a fun way to explore what life was like in 1776.
Jo: And that's the key to it. It has to be a fun way. It has to be interesting way. And I think that's where some historical novels go wrong or arrive. They skew on the side of historical documentary, but they're not.
Jo: They're not. That's a separate, that's a nonfiction over there. And so they lean too heavily on that side without going, oh yeah, I can actually be a fiction writer as well. So I know you came from the paranormal mystery world.
Jo: Did those skill sets as an author help you flesh out the fiction side of this?
Randy Overbeck: Well, yes, I think so. I mean, for those who know my books, whether you're talking about my amateur sleuths mystery or the paranormal mysteries, there's all there's a great deal of research that goes into those books.
Randy Overbeck: So my most recent book,
Jo: Right. Right.
Randy Overbeck: Red Shadows of Saugatuck, I had to do a great deal of research about the Native culture. It's about the disappearance of Indian girls. And that was something completely unknown to me. So I had to actually immerse myself.
Randy Overbeck: I met with Indian leaders tribal leaders and I did everything I could to learn the reality of what that was like, as well as researching the town, all that. Anyway, my point is, all of that kind of prepared me for the next leap up in terms of research to make this book authentic.
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: So even though it's fiction, yeah the reader will feel like he's really walking the streets of New York City in 1776. The reader will feel the heat of the fire that happened in New York City. They'll they'll be in the room with with benjamin Benedict Arnold when they're plotting his his his defections. So that that that was my goal.
Jo: That's amazing. And one of the things, okay, we both have PhDs and we both know what it takes to make one.
Randy Overbeck: right.
Jo: And i don't think either of us would get that far without being able to research. It's just not possible in our you know and our academics. That skillset,
Jo: that we take from other parts of our lives apply directly to the craft of writing, where I think more people could benefit that true scholarly look at it. And for those you at home, most of us here Benedict Arnold, we know the name and we kind of get, oh, he's a traitor.
Randy Overbeck: Right. Right.
Jo: You know, we, it's all we get, but we don't know the setup. We don't know the why people didn't just, okay. Turncoat is also from that era. They didn't just turn coat because it's not like an episode on TV where like, oh, he's a random bad guy today.
Jo: There has to be a setup. There has to be a reason why there has to be the humanity to him. And, and like seeing books like yours, and that's exactly it Right.
Randy Overbeck: Well, you're setting me up because of my, so what I've tried to do in both this book and the second book, which is almost finished, is to tell both sides of the story.
Jo: Put them in the room.
Randy Overbeck: So in this book, there's actually two, two narrators, two POVs. The first, of course, is Abigail Trench, this, who is a teacher who,
Jo: right
Randy Overbeck: Comes to America to teach in a small town school. The school gets closed because the British attacked the town and people leave. So she's trying to find a way to support herself. I'll make a long story short. She finds her way into as a tutor in a British officer's, a rich British officer's house, which is how he she ends up becoming privy to secrets.
Randy Overbeck: I tell the story of the British from that British officer's point of view as well.
Jo: There you go. Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: So there's two parallel stories going on at the same time that intersect several times throughout, but it also gives a sense of what it was like for a principled British officer who came over to the Americas to fight what they thought was, to put down what they thought was an insurrection.
Jo: yeah
Jo: Insurrection. Yeah. And that gives it more weight. For me, that gives the flesh. Other things that we see, some period pieces, especially like even like the doodling historical, are the bones. They're missing the sinews and the flesh. They're missing the actual muscle.
Jo: And the people become caricatures instead of of a living person. And especially for historical realism, they were living people. And sometimes authors don't do them justice. as I'm so glad you do.
Jo: And this is from both sides. it's It's an interesting way of telling the story.
Randy Overbeck: And as we were talking about Benedict Arnold, so in the second book, I've done the same thing. Only it's told from a nu the the primary POV is another member of the Culper ring, an individual called Culper Jr., who has a minor role in my first book. His name is Robert Townsend.
Randy Overbeck: But the second POV is from Major
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: Andre. Okay, Major John Andre, and Major John Andre is one who's, quote, credited with turning Benedict Arnold.
Jo: Really?
Randy Overbeck: So you get the entire story of that turncoat from when Benedict Arnold, and most people don't know this, but Benedict Arnold was the most successful general in the Revolutionary War in the first two years of the Revolutionary War.
Randy Overbeck: He won more battles than anyone and anyone else for for the for the Colonials. So it was, I wanted to take him from that to what everybody knows him as the despicable trader.
Jo: And that's the whole point of it. When we we're hearing his turncoat from modern film, the turncoats are always the outcasted people who didn't win much. or You see the the movie 300, for example.
Jo: The turncoat is the guy that's like, get away from us. It wasn't a sex boss.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah.
Jo: You can't be one of us. It was always the outcast that they treated poorly. No. And this one, like, no, like, historically, like you just said, he was on a major winning streak. It's kind like,
Jo: I'm a huge Laker fan. It's like, Kobe Bryant going to the Clippers. Like, you can't have that. Like, is it's like is your major star doing this. It's not just some role player. Like, this is big This is huge.
Randy Overbeck: So, and that's how I tried to balance the and the, in the second book, again, we're seeing this from Major Andre, who from all indications seemed to be a really good guy, Major John Andre, and what his role was in terms of trying to catch spies, it all all of that.
Randy Overbeck: I think it's a captivating story, elements of which most people don't know anything about, you know,
Jo: It's interesting.
Randy Overbeck: and it it was And that was deliberate because we don't really have any understanding of this. In those days, in their day, being a spy, if you are a Briton, being a spy is just a notch above being a murderer or a robber.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: It was considered very despicable behavior, very dishonorable. And to the British at that time, nothing was more important than your honor.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: So most everybody involved in that game, what we would call game, didn't want there didn't want anyone else to know. that that they didn't In fact, nearly all of these, none of their families knew. that that Robert Townsend's family, in reality, never knew what he did.
Randy Overbeck: We only learned that Culper Jr., so we have lots of dispatches of messages from Culper Jr. that ended up in George Washington's files.
Randy Overbeck: So we matched his handwriting from those dispatches to personal handwriting from, we did, a historian did, of personal personal handwriting of Robert Culper, or Robert Townsend.
Jo: Oh, the historic way.
Randy Overbeck: That's how we discovered he was Culper Jr.
Jo: And that is the part where if people wonder why education is important, that people wonder why, like, oh, all these, that that's why you're discovering connections that were always there, just waiting to be uncovered. And if no one looks, they remain dark.
Jo: Right. And by uncovering these things, we learn more about our history, our culture as Americans, because I know, even though I'm currently in Ottawa, I, I'm American. And i think that's what's missing a bit from today, that realizing we come from a shared culture of the United States of America, right?
Randy Overbeck: And it's, you know, It's kind of helpful in today's political culture to recognize that the people that we idolize were all flaming radical liberals at the time. you know of
Jo: overthrowing yeah governments and stuff, right?
Randy Overbeck: well
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: you know I was taught in my American history classes that this was you know when the Declaration Independence came out and people were rallying around it, the best historical records indicate that somewhere between only 30 to 40 percent of the people wanted an independent country.
Randy Overbeck: Most people wanted to remain with England, but have some level of autonomy.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: That was what they really wanted.
Jo: yeah which is, uh, as we will call it the Scottish problem currently. Like they're like, we don't want to be independent independent.
Randy Overbeck: Exactly. That's exactly right.
Jo: We just want more autonomy to do what we need to do. And yeah.
Randy Overbeck: The irony is this, so this is not, this is my book, but this is really fascinating.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: The leaders, the colonial leaders sent a request specifying exactly that in 1774 to Parliament. We wanna remain part of the empire.
Randy Overbeck: We wanna remain part, we wanna remain British, but we wanna elect our own people. wanna enact our own taxes. We wanna, and the Parliament said,
Jo: Right.
Randy Overbeck: screw you but no you know
Jo: Oh.
Randy Overbeck: You need to pay back for all everything we've put into this. Anyway, three years later, parliament changed their mind and said, okay, now we'll give you that.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: But by that time, there was too much bloodshed, many battles had happened.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: And now now the colonial leaders were no longer interested in doing that. It's an interesting, i mean, because it could have come that close. you know
Jo: Yeah. What was the old saying? Like, uh, all the war usually comes down to the same thing in the beginning, sitting down and talking, like you could have skipped the middle part and just did it then.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah, right. Yep.
Jo: And I wouldn't have to look for a different passport to go to Ireland now. But that is, that's the interesting part. Cause you know, I grew up and it was like the same thing we were taught in civics class that It's like a small percentage actually wanted this and only a few people so came to the things and they couldn't decide and all things like that. But we didn't, i had no idea that they sent their, not really demand, the request to have self-governance instead of, and not leave the empire, but just be more self-sustainable.
Jo: You know, all
Randy Overbeck: Which, in in fairness to Britain, okay, now Britain, you know, Britain at that point had colonies all over the world, in India and Ceylon and in the South America and in the Caribbean, and Ireland was part, none no other place had self-government.
Jo: over world.
Jo: Yeah.
Jo: The sun never sets on the British Empire.
Randy Overbeck: It was a brand new, yeah, the sun never sets on the British Empire.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: So for the Britons, for the Americans to ask that, they're going, what well, if we give that to you, everybody will want that. We can't have you do that.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: So, but, and you know, one of one of the things of our writers group says, you have to learn all this stuff, even if you don't end up putting it in the book, because it helps inform what that what the what the actual narrative becomes.
Jo: Yes. Yeah. The research isn't always going to the book. your' app That's absolutely correct and great advice. It helps you formulate the rationale the characters take.
Jo: It flashes them out as a full character. And you said writers group. Now I'm going to shift to the me giving congratulations and stuff like that. I know. I know. I know. I know. And you said it.
Jo: Who's your publisher?
Randy Overbeck: The publisher is a publisher called Diversion Books, and the distributor is Simon & Schuster. and um'm
Jo: Simon Schubert, excuse her.
Randy Overbeck: I'm really excited.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: there are just the it's It's a big jump up from the other my other previous five books were published by Wildrose Press, which is a wonderful small press in New York, and they do a great job.
Jo: Amazing. Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: But I'm thrilled to be you know the next step up in terms of mainstream, one of the main publishers.
Jo: And hitting Simon and Schuster and, and you're still for people that don't know it can go any direction for publishing and any director for distributing to like independence, to doing a small, to small publishing to Simon Schuster. And there's, there's always that little step ladder.
Jo: Right. And you're still going to writer's groups though.
Randy Overbeck: Right?
Randy Overbeck: Oh, yeah. and And I'll be honest, but, you know, I have a really great writers group.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: I don't think my work would be near as good without that, do without the input.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: We meet every week and whoever has worked, puts up work to share and the other three, four, five, six members in the group then critique your work and give you feedback.
Jo: Yeah, it's invaluable.
Randy Overbeck: And they always see things that I don't see. They have ideas I wouldn't have. you know It's always, it it helps make it a notch better. there's I don't have any doubt about that.
Jo: Yeah, it's it's great to do a writer's group. I do support writer's group. because One of the things I miss going through university was our writing classes were basically writer's groups every semester.
Jo: Like you had to do this and you had to get feedback and you learn how to take feedback and give feedback.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah.
Jo: is is one of those items where if you're writing and you're like, I'm writing, I'm writing, and writing a book and you're not getting feedback along the way.
Jo: Well, that's 75,000 words that might not sustain itself. That's a hundred thousand words that might not, they could have caught early by getting feedback on chapter two, you know?
Randy Overbeck: Yep.
Randy Overbeck: Right.
Randy Overbeck: Right, exactly. Yep.
Jo: So I'm so glad you're saying that because even, Folks, even people as successful as Randy with different genres and publishing with Simon and Schu... I mean, all these things, still do writing group.
Randy Overbeck: Oh, I submitted last week, I submitted one of my new chapters to the writing group and asked them for some help on as they're doing this.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: And the the key to having a good writing group is you got to have people that aren't afraid to say that's not working. You know, that this part's great.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: This is just not accomplishing what you wanted to do.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: And I'm I am now I'm a little different than others. what I, I actually have three different levels of feedback to me before the novel gets to anybody that would revise.
Jo: Really? There.
Randy Overbeck: So the first level is the the writers group. They're seeing it as it's being, you know, I give them this chapter. They don't see the whole, because why I think my newest book is at 65 chapters.
Randy Overbeck: They've probably seen 25 of them, but they see enough of it to give me direction. Next level is I have a group of beta readers. I have about a dozen beta readers and they, they get the book in process. So they might get a third of the book or a half of the book and then a whole book.
Randy Overbeck: And when they get it they'll get a homework sheet with six questions that says that I'm a little concerned about this. Did you find any place where the book sagged?
Jo: Yep. Okay.
Randy Overbeck: Did you, so I get that. That's my second level of feedback. And then the third level is I have a, and I have a really great editor that does a diagnostic edit, not a line edit, but a diagnostic edit on the whole manuscript.
Randy Overbeck: And she'll she'll see, again, she'll see something that I had missed. She'll say, well, and this part needs this. All three of those are really critical to for me to be able to get the book to what I consider to be the best thing I can put out. That's that's that's my goal.
Jo: And I smile because although I am missing the writer's workshop, I've had one pandemic happen and and it it's on me. It's one of those. And the beta readers, yes, I am for one of the Isaac Thorne's books.
Jo: I was his beta reader. i hope I didn't violate NDA. I think that was public knowledge anyways. and that you get the homework sheet from the author. Like, how did this work out?
Randy Overbeck: Yep.
Jo: All these little things. We have questions like <unk> exactly it. You give the readers homework and then you have the creation. You grind. I did mine and Looking at that and not the line editing, but the actual, does this, you know, plot wise and the other thing, all the little sparkle things that move.
Jo: Yeah. People will pick out stuff that you didn't see in your head. I had someone say like, who cares about this character? like, well, didn't read my last book? Like, noah no, no, and it no, I didn't like, okay, now I need to front load some stuff. Now I know.
Jo: And without these things, if it gets to the arc status, like advanced re revert copy status, it's too late to fix those. You can fix this, some stuff, but the reviews are not gonna be good.
Randy Overbeck: exactly.
Randy Overbeck: but and one of the one of my goals, Joe, is that I don't want to put anything out that isn't the very best I can do.
Jo: so I'm still. Yeah.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: You know, I think we talked about this beforehand, but in the first book of the Haunted Shore Mystery Series, I was so intent, I tried to get that to an agent, tried to get that to a major publisher, didn't succeed, but I ended up with Wireless Press, which is fine.
Randy Overbeck: But I was so intent, I actually redid and rewrote the first chapter 14 different times.
Jo: It
Randy Overbeck: It took me 14 times to get it to where it was, this is exactly what I needed. And but it it worked and won several awards, so it must it must have been the right thing to do. But
Jo: must have been the break 14. Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah, yeah. I haven't had to do that since then, although there have been several chapters that, well, as you well know, I end up throwing a chapter out, I end up moving a chapter or switching this around, you know that's all part of the that's all part of what your responsibility is.
Jo: It's.
Jo: Yeah, that's exactly it Like throwing a chapter out, making it I'm making mine a downloadable for after people that buy the book. Like if you want to read more, here's a chapter. I don't call the chapter a top stop. I, I, I gussy it up more than that. Like, but that's basically it. Like the chapter at the end of the book, like,
Jo: Mm, that's how the book really ends. It's a new, uh, it's a short story now. Sure. Same world. And that's exactly it we We have to be able to take advice from criticism, really, from fellow writers or readers and some of that. And you have to be able to shift at every level because your mind will do you wrong. Your mind would tell you everything that's not in the book, but you think it still is.
Randy Overbeck: Right.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: one of the strengths of our writing group is the people are all over the place in terms of genre. So one guy's a poet, one guy writes horror, another guy writes science fiction, another one writes mystery.
Randy Overbeck: I mean, so... know, most people say, well, I want to have a writer's group with somebody who writes what I do. I find the fact that they come from a different perspective actually beneficial. They look at things with a fresh eye. the The poet, he writes children's poetry, which is hilarious children's poetry. Fantastic. I can't wait to see what happens to this book that he's finishing. But he'll see things from a different perspective, very globally about the chapter,
Randy Overbeck: Okay, another person will go, well, you missed these three details. This detail not right, you know. So I get all kinds of really valuable feedback because they're coming from a different direction.
Jo: No, that's brilliant and very correct. It's people who are, i just had an interview with someone earlier today. And if you go to a specialist, that's all they see.
Jo: I use this. if if If we watch these podcasts out of order, a spoon sees the world as soup and ice cream.
Randy Overbeck: Okay.
Jo: Because that's all a spoon is for.
Randy Overbeck: yeah
Jo: You know, it's not going to see it like, oh, a steak. Like, what's the steak? It can't.
Randy Overbeck: right That's an interesting metaphor.
Jo: You know, so if like it goes, okay, can I do with the steak? It goes into the steak and it starts seeing what the steak is instead of like, going okay, super nice. cream I got this, you know, it makes that critical judgment and allows it you to see your book through someone else's eyes.
Randy Overbeck: That works, I think.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: So all of those pieces are all of what what has been, what's required to be able to get the book.
Jo: And
Randy Overbeck: did that I'll tell you though, Joe, what has surprised me is that I, mean I mean, did get a decent advance. I did, I did get some support, but if you're an author, you got to be out there doing everything that you would do for an indie book. Even if you're published by Simon and Schuster, doesn't make any difference.
Jo: yeah Yeah, exactly. That's one of the things like, exactly. People like, oh, I can't wait to it. It's like, no, you, it's still a business. It's still a business.
Randy Overbeck: ye
Jo: They will spend money on their top two, three authors and they'll spend like, okay, we'll get you all this other stuff. We'll put everyone up.
Randy Overbeck: That's exactly right.
Jo: It's a business.
Randy Overbeck: If you're not...
Jo: It's the latter.
Randy Overbeck: i they call
Jo: the latter
Randy Overbeck: yeah I'm a mid-list author, you know. so But the Virgin Books, is I've been really pleased. It's a really, really great imprint. And prior to my book, they hadn't done fiction, so they've opened up a whole new fiction realm, and I kicked off their historical fiction division and stuff.
Randy Overbeck: So it's pretty exciting. you know it's And it's done so far.
Jo: That is cool.
Randy Overbeck: The the reviews are off the charts, right? I think from a little information I get that one of the real, as you know, one of the real frustrations as a writer is somebody asked me at a, at a get together last night in the neighborhood.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: They said, well, Hey, how's your book selling? I'm going, well, I don't really know. i won't get any information for like three months or six months.
Jo: yes
Jo: yeah
Randy Overbeck: You don't really know anything. yeah,
Jo: Yeah. Ask me November. Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: Yeah, but exactly. But based on what little information I can get from Amazon, which is not much, it looks like it's doing really well. So not good.
Jo: yeah And that was my quick one. So for Abigail trench, where can we get this one?
Randy Overbeck: Abigail Trench is available anywhere that you would get your books. It's said Books a Million, Barnes & Noble.
Jo: Sorry.
Randy Overbeck: it's right Currently, right now, it's available as a print book and an e-book. the The publisher is working with recorded books or one of the... They're going to an audio book, but it's not available yet.
Jo: I can't wait for the audio audio books or my drive, my commute a hundred percent. I can't wait for that.
Jo: Oh, goodness. I'm getting, you just, you just made me so happy. I'm getting all this serious right now.
Randy Overbeck: and I'm like you, i've always i always have an audio book in the car. When I'm out walking in the neighborhood, I'm listening to an audio book. Yeah,
Jo: yeah no that Or as I got made fun of saying before, you know, books on tape.
Randy Overbeck: yeah i I still say books on tape.
Jo: Right? It used be in the Barnes & Noble shop. You'd buy it with a book on tape and you...
Randy Overbeck: Books on tape, yep.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: I was actually in the library the other day and they still had books on CD.
Jo: Still? Oh, that was nice. I like that. MP3s coming.
Randy Overbeck: But everything I do now is pretty much downloadable from audio version. So, yeah.
Jo: Same, same, same, same. And if we want to find you online, where we find you, sir?
Randy Overbeck: Very easy. Check out my website, which is just www.authorrandyoverbeck.com. A-U-T-H-O-R, randyoverbeck.com.
Randy Overbeck: I also should be should put a plug in for my podcast.
Jo: Nice.
Randy Overbeck: So I have a podcast called Great Stories About Great Storytellers.
Jo: Yeah.
Randy Overbeck: So there are it's about a 10 or 12 minute episodes about famous authors, directors, and poets. And I tell in the my podcast the backstory that people don't know about their famous authors, directors, and poets.
Jo: And
Randy Overbeck: It's done really well. it's In 25, it was in the top 50% of all podcasts in the United States.
Jo: wow, that's amazing. We had good storytellers.
Randy Overbeck: Listen, any place any place you listen to podcasts, great stories about great storytellers.
Jo: Yeah.
Jo: Absolutely. And that's a sweet spot. It's a nice little John is the morning breakfast. You're making coffee you're you're using 20 Horton's wake, shake and activate. And it's a 10 minute boom and you're gone.
Jo: You know, it's a great story. miss those. I grew up with Paul Harvey.
Randy Overbeck: That's not well, and I call this the rest of the story for authors, directors, and poets.
Jo: That's why I miss those.
Randy Overbeck: So right now there's about 53 episodes up.
Jo: Yeah.
Jo: Thanks.
Randy Overbeck: I record one a month. So it's, we're done it's done really well.
Jo: amazing sir and it's always a pleasure to have you here welcome back every time anytime can't wait i honestly i can't wait for the series this is this is my jam i'm gonna get into it very much and if you can get into it abigail trench by randy overbank go get it now don't be standing here go get it now okay sir thank you for everything been a pleasure
Randy Overbeck: My pleasure, Joe. It's good to talk to you again.
Jo: On behalf of myself and Dr. Randy Overbeck, we bid you good day. bye everyone.
