Speaker 1: This is not.
Speaker 2: Don't expect to be night sat down.
Speaker 3: It's a stray from.
Speaker 1: The Tota because you'll find no be surb side coast.
Speaker 4: Hey, everybody, and welcome to side Quest. The episodes we
do between the episodes for which this podcast is named,
and an intro which goes more convoluted with every passing day.
Why did I damn myself to this eternal curse?
Speaker 5: Who knows? But today I am True Hayes, joined by M. K.
Gibson and Steve Weatherell.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, I like the little fancy the Weatherell. I
like it's like like you're like the knockoff, like Kryptonian
that didn't make its Weatherell.
Speaker 5: You know like.
Speaker 4: Sounds Now, Now, if you're gonna if you're gonna reference
the weird language things, you really should call it Crypton.
Speaker 5: Go full brand crypt Welcome to Crypton.
Speaker 3: It's just a shitty island off the coast of northern Scotland.
It's just like there's four sheep and one farmer. This
is Krypton.
Speaker 5: Steve, what maybe get a second take on that? Go
fuck myself? Okay, go fuck myself, got it? Got it? Brand?
Speaker 3: I'm reading the Q cards off the US years of
comic book law, shut up shop and go to hell.
Speaker 2: Okay, what have you said?
Speaker 5: I will send you my only son ham Sandwich double rye.
That's the order sheet.
Speaker 4: That's the order sheet, the services mister, all right, I
guess Joel likes Haim. Now I got I guess that's
in cannon.
Speaker 3: Jor l loves ham Sa.
Speaker 2: So I mean it was implied.
Speaker 4: Well, so waistline give me and Steve got the pre
warning before we started rolling. But this is going to
be a bit of a goofy one because I am
two days back from Dragon Con, and one of those
days was spent launching a book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm like that after a regular con. Fuckly
knows what I'd be like after a dragon Now that
means that I have massive DC fomo because I've never
been to one and I never wanted to. I've been
a bunch of cons is this stage of my writing career,
and I'm cool with that. But after watching all the
photos ever like that come through, I guess in my
head it was I know it's bigger than the cons
I've been to, but it just looks like the same
con just spread across nineteen hotels, So it's just a
lot of that that running around business. So yeah, I
got the fomo and I really want to try to
get there for twenty twenty five. Or I got the
wife kind of coming on board because that's right around
back to school time for us, so it's kids in school.
She's a teacher, and I can't just say fuck off,
I'm gonna go nerd out for like four days in Atlanta,
but I'm trying to for next year. That's my goal.
Speaker 2: I think you've been the spot.
Speaker 3: Well it's I also see like cool stuff like I
know that person out of that person, I would love
to have met that person. Oh fuck, I know that person.
I could have met that person to that person fuck me.
So yeah, I uh yeah, I got the fomo.
Speaker 4: It is really cool getting to meet a lot of
other folks like who do this job, because you know,
we love our job and we're lucky to have.
Speaker 5: A and D. It's an isolating job.
Speaker 4: It's hard to talk to people, you know about the
particular challenges and whatnot of this job because one complaining
about your writing job really just immediately feels like you
should be kicked in whatever genitalia you have, right right right,
because it's like, all right, oh again, go fuck myself,
go fuck myself. Uh, but they're you know, there are
challenges to the job, and sometimes it is nice to
talk them over with other people who are going through
the same hurdles, compare strategies, commiserate.
Speaker 5: Et cetera.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you know, going to a con that's so
big that brings in so many other folks who do
this job. It allows for like a level of socialization
that you don't get even at a regular con. That's
all also part of why we're so exhausted for it.
It's like I went out and like hung out with
people at a bar.
Speaker 5: I don't do that anymore. I'm old.
Speaker 3: I tend to say that because I have certain friends.
We get to see each other every so often, so
every time we're together, we have some drinks. But as
far as they're concerned, I drink. I don't drink when
I'm not hanging out with my friends. There's my date,
my nine to five. I tend not to drink so that,
but I do miss it. I do miss just like
everyone's just going out to the bar, but ere's my
go to a con. I go to the bars, have
a few drinks, get to actually talk about this business
of other people and learn things I'm still learning. As
I go, I realized, Oh fuck, I don't have the
tolerance I used to have. Oh God, why do I
feel so bad that next morning? Why am I doing this?
And yeah, I'll have another drink? Just give it to me.
Fuck yeah, heir of the dog, just give it to
me now.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, every con I've ever been to, this
being an A and D con, the trick is to
not stop drinking. You just kind of roll that for it,
and then it will catch it. You just have a
massive existential crisis on the cheese day. That's the only
way I can possibly uh socialize with people and pretend
to be a acceptable, accessible human being with a personality.
Speaker 5: I could have sworn that you went to a con
with us before the Vegas one. Did you know Charlotte
before Vegas?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was kind of a I classed as
like an A and D con genesis.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were, we were hatching a scheme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were other people there, but they weren't that
interesting to me. I sensed my tribe. Yeah, I don't know.
I suppose I've never really even tried a can outside
of the A and D safety net, by which I
mean Bevan's coller. So I don't know, going to going
to a corn and not just standing in the smoking
area for eight hours blaring at people about chubby naked wizards.
It sounds frightening to me. It sounds like a frightening step.
Speaker 4: I will say Dragon Con is special. Dragon Con is
the only one I make an effort to go to.
At this point, this sounds like ego, but really it's exhaustion.
I just don't apply to cons anymore. If someone wants
me and they invite me, that is awesome, But like
I have so much to do so much of the
time that if it's if it's not a major event
such as dragon or folks who are going to save
me the hassle of jumping through the application process. You
know where I know that there is an audience of
people who want me there, I just I'm probably not
going to invest the time and apply to another con.
Speaker 5: I like them, but they wear me down to.
Speaker 2: Where age is flat out says I'm not really interested
in any convention that isn't about me.
Speaker 3: I've not there yet, so you can see me.
Speaker 2: It's Steve Con twenty twenty eight, or you can fuck.
Speaker 4: Up as much as I do. I love the A
and D cons. There is something to be said for
not being a center of attention at a con. And
this might be a little bit me, a little bit
more me specific, like folks who know my idiots and critics,
idiots and critsies.
Speaker 3: There you go, you right for a living. Come on
you guys, there you got write.
Speaker 5: I'm tired.
Speaker 4: Oh man, know that I tend to keep pretty firm
divisions between my public and private life. I really like
the idea of fame is not something that particularly over
appeals to me. Like I would love my books to
be famous. I don't need me to be famous in
the same way like name sure recognizable on the street.
Speaker 5: Oh I don't. I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah really, I mean, uh, I kind of I don't
really remember anyone's name or face anyway, So I'd be like,
who is this person? And is this Am I related
to this person? Am I supposed to know? It'd be
very confusing for me.
Speaker 4: Gibbe, I'm I'm six foot four, and my baseline of
talk is other people's yell. Like I don't need more
I met you, sir, I understand you know, no I
met you especially like I got it. I got it
very quickly who you are as a person, and I
respect it, you know. I that being said, I I
wouldn't lie. I wouldn't mind a little fame whore, just
a little bit a little bit more, you know, like
there had a heart where all writers want people to like,
you know, here's your here's our work, here's our here
are our thoughts.
Speaker 3: It comes from us. There's a level of narcissism that
comes with it. I'm not I don't need to be
like I don't want to walk around like j R. Martin,
like Dub somebody or Chicken Wing as they bring me
food and things like that. Not not to that, but
just a little bit, a little bit, It'll be nice,
a little bit more than where I'm at, you know,
a happy balance.
Speaker 5: Yeah. And that's like I said, that's fine.
Speaker 4: I I think given where our culture is on the
overview of fame, I feel like I might be the
one out of step.
Speaker 3: With your man here and I truly and here's why.
Speaker 5: And this is just the the.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be shitty for a second. As people, we
love to prop people of as heroes on our above
our shoulders and hold them up high, and then thirty
minutes later we like to let them go and watch
them fall and laugh on their way down too, because
society does that over and over and over and over.
So I understand, like, I don't need to get up
here to get dropped back down. Just a little bit
of recognition for the work of being done cool, you know, so.
Speaker 5: That I get it well.
Speaker 4: There's also speaking also kind of more to the work
and legacy and stuff, you ey, Steve, All of us
as writers, we are the weakest point of our stories
inherently because we are not set when we're done. A
good example of this is the you know, the The
Rise and Fall of JK.
Speaker 5: Rowley.
Speaker 4: You know, she was very beloved by so many people.
Those books meant so much to so many people, and
then she rolled out her incredibly hateful series of views,
and because of that, that tarnished the work for so
many people. That made a great deal of the readers
who loved that world, who found its escapism, who you know,
that was something special to them, and it took part
of that away. And that is a simple truth of
we are. We are the weakest link of our stories.
And I feel like the more we put ourselves at
the forefront, the more opportunities there are for you know,
missteps or fuck ups, or just saying things that kind
of break the suspension of disbelief, you know, or muddy
the characters.
Speaker 3: Oh, I get that. I mean there's certainly take the
wonderful lady who writes the Wondering in books. I know
she is huge introvert, and she doesn't even do interviews.
When she she gets a list of interviews and she
answers her questions and her narrator reads them back to
interviewers for her, you know, the pirate applegaal And I
respect that there's a level of privacy.
Speaker 5: They want to have.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a little bit more open about my
life like that because I but I know what you
also mean there. You don't need to open the door
all the way. People don't need to see because there
is a level of private life you have to have.
And because you know, when I started writing, When I
started writing, people were like, hey, can I send you something?
I'd love to But I don't have a po box,
not yet, you know, And like so I was very
careful to who knows where I really live and stuff
like that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely in my case, I mean, it's probably
not something I'll ever have to worry about. But uh,
there's a reason i'd dress up in like dumb outfits
that a con. It's because I thought that's just how
you dressed.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, sometimes when I'm feeling special, but no,
it's I like the product.
Speaker 5: I like.
Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty much the same when I was
in a band. I liked the songs, I like the
idea of the band. I didn't necessarily want people to
talk to me afterwards, because then they're just going to
realize I'm a drunken a bit of a dick, and
I'm not really interested in people knowing Steve Weball. I
b rather people knew Brandon Fiemester or stand Andy Liver.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought you meant the clothes you were when
you're standing outside, and yeah, I got it. Smoked doctor.
Speaker 2: Meant sorry, And the audience listening was was definitely laughing along.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I just gotta like drown put the heads
orse underwam kicking a little bit. Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I like authors and dragons. I like the books.
I like the characters. If somebody, I quite like Orphans
and Dragons con because familiarity breeds contempt, and most of
them know me enough by now to be comfortable in
that contempt.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I will say A and D CON is
definitely special. Like there's no other con where I would
willingly be focused on for that many days, which again
sounds very egotistical, but it's a con dedicated to the
cast of a podcast. It's like nine people deep at
this point, so they're there. It's very I'm talking thankful.
I'm thankful that because the two cons I've been to,
I was there to work. I was a guest so
I could just sit behind my table and work and like.
And since we didn't have one this year, I don't
have to like. Mentally, I'm still behind the table. That's
my favorite place to be.
Speaker 3: If I'm not at behind the table, it's either at
the bar at this or at the smoke doc talking
just talking to people, sharing stories, listening, having a back
and forth. I I, you know, honestly, like I'll go
up on a stage. I don't always love being there.
I don't mind doing it, but there, and I don't
mind doing all the bits, but you know, I like
just talking to people one on one more than being
a show, if that makes sense. That's why I love
the podcast because I feel like this is the time
we get to hang out, so it's good.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I definitely. Uh, I definitely agree about the
stage thing.
Speaker 5: Truly.
Speaker 4: I think cons for me, I am on stage the
whole time, like from the minute I leave my room
until the moment I'm like back in privacy. Like I
do consider myself on stage because at a con you
have a high chance of just running into people. That's
one of the only times you really have to worry
about being recognized, which is part of why I've started
doing like the If y'all have seen pictures from social
media of me from Dragon Con this year, you will
note that every day I wore funny shoes, a three
piece suit, and a ridiculously vibrant hat, and that was
impart to make me more distinctive and more recognizable as
Drew Hayes when I'm out, like, I truly have started
treating it as a stage with a costume so that
I am immediately distinct because you know, it's still awkward
for people to walk up to you outside of like
a dedicated.
Speaker 5: Panel or anything. And I feel like if it's.
Speaker 4: Immediately clear that that's Gibbie, that's Steve, that's Drew, that
takes a little bit of that pressure off people.
Speaker 2: M hm true. Yeah, I'm kind of I think the
only I think the only one in the crew has
got complete podcast or what do they call it, the
rest as cafebe cafe. It was constantly just exactly as
you'd expect him to be.
Speaker 3: Oh no, he is Rick Flair. What you see is
what you get.
Speaker 5: He is living that cafe. If there's no distinction, we don't.
Speaker 2: We don't know that there For all we know, he's
just sitting there like he probably does have an English accent.
That's probably a real accent. We don't know. Everything else
is the.
Speaker 5: Is the product, that's the twist we're waiting for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's pure k fabe. He's But me, I can't
do it. I'd love to kind of maintain the kind
of podcast. Yeah, about twenty percent more of an assholed
than I actually am all the time.
Speaker 5: But I can't do it.
Speaker 2: I'm too much of a chicken. I'm just nice to people.
It's very boring unless I get really drunk. Then you
can wrap that twenty percent right back up. But you
were also promoting a book, so you have double reasons
to be tired at.
Speaker 5: The car I do.
Speaker 4: I was promoting a book both at the con and
the day after the cod and that book is Roverpowered,
a family friendly novella about an aspiring alchemist and her
ridiculously powerful dog for folks who are fans of I
always fuck this up, Okay, I believe it's progression fantasy.
There's no numbers or anything, so it's not lit RPG,
but very, very light, very fun. It's meant to be
a format in the style of Animorphs and Goosebumps, because
I just I loved those as a kid, like grabbing
that that easily accessible, it's not too much, you can
you can tear it down in a couple hours kind
of thing, and I wanted to, you know, I've had
a lot of people ask me for books for a
younger audience for a few years, and I've also sort
of just found that a lot of our fans are
getting older and having kids and sometimes want to share
their fantasy passions with their family, and they might want
a book that doesn't use the word fuck quite as
often as I like to pepper into mine.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, true, that's what Shingles was in.
Speaker 3: I just give Jack, I just give my I give
my son Bevin's books like here learn Well's an awful place.
Speaker 4: You walk in on him shoving firecrackers and a horse.
But yeah, and that went actually so much better than
we were expecting. I gotta tell you, you're not supposed
to change genres as an author. That's that's pretty well
accepted term. That's why you'll have people like Seanan McGuire
who also have hermire grant like, you write different genres
under different names, you do things under different specific pens
because you're supposed to keep your your name into a
genre and and kind of sort of keep that aligned.
And I did not fucking know that when I started
writing books, which is why I've jumped into like five
different genres through the years, Willie.
Speaker 5: And thankfully because I set that precedent out of the.
Speaker 4: Gate, my fans have gone along. But even for me,
kid friendly novella is a big swing in terms of format.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you.
Speaker 4: At Dragon Con, when I talked to other writers and
people in the book industry about the book, that I
was promoting. The general reaction was, oh really, And I
do not fault them, because I went into this with
the full knowledge that like this goes in the face
of current market wisdom. Bigger is better, you know, more,
more adult tones are generally considered better. But this was
what I wanted to write, and that has always sort
of been my guiding star of just I'm gonna write
what I think I can do the best and what's
what I feel for right now. And also, you know,
my dog died and I had to process that shit
through my art, and the way I apparently processed that
was by making a dog that no one can fucking kill.
And so yeah, and so it went really well. The
signing was great. We had a lot of people turn
out for it. We had even once the line kind
of wrapped up, there was people who would be walking
by and just stopping their tracks upon seeing the cover
and several of them picked it up. I mean, that
cover does so much of the heavy lifting. And yeah,
the launchment really well. That that pre release went great.
Apparently they sold out of the entire stock that Athon
had brought. Ethon Publishing is doing the U or they're
the publisher for this book. I paired up with them
because I don't know jack shit about marketing young adult stuff,
so I really wanted to work with somebody who was
strong in the progression fantasy space. And they have just
been kicking ass left, right and center. And it's also
probably worth mentioning that I talked to several of their
authors before ever making this discussion or this decision, and
got a sense of how they felt, how they were treated.
Speaker 5: Et cetera.
Speaker 4: Like if you're if you were a perspective author and
you're looking at working with a publisher, you know, it's
the same as working for a company.
Speaker 5: Talk talk to the employees. Yeah, yeah, talk to the.
Speaker 4: People who are showing up and punching that nine to five,
because they'll they'll always tell you the real shit. And so,
you know, I was really comfortable and they've been so
great and supportive on taking this again admittedly big swing,
but we.
Speaker 5: Did really well in the charts.
Speaker 4: The audiobook got a whole bunch of got a whole
bunch of We got number one in a few categories.
Speaker 5: That was that was hyperbole there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it went well. It seems to be doing well, folks.
Folks appear happy, with it. My biggest concern was always
that people wouldn't realize it was a novella and would
feel cheated, and I really but I wanted it to
be that format for that younger audience appeal and to
make it accessible for new readers, et cetera. So it
seems like people got the message and they know what
they're showing up for and so hopefully they like the story.
Speaker 3: Like I messaged you the other day, are you afraid
that people will the average Drew Hayes book is what
you know, sixteen to twenty seven hours long, and you
sneeze for nineteen seconds consecutively. I mean, you can't do
anything short base. I think it's just because you're so tall.
I think that's what it is. You just life is
long for you. So is that what you're afraid of?
People going to get the novella and like, well, where's
the other nine thousand words or ninety thousand words?
Speaker 4: So a little bit that, A little bit you You
just always want people to go into the book they're expecting.
A marketing, a cover, a genre, all of that is
just a language to make sure that people are getting
the product they want. And so, you know, I My
thing is I never want to misrepresent what I am
selling to someone, So I always want them to be
to be clear. And I know some jooks aren't going
to be interested in a novella, and that is completely okay.
I just don't want them to get bait and switched
in by accident.
Speaker 2: Reasonable like say, even for you you do have you
got a couple of genders on your arms, I guess,
but like you say, suddenly children's book. Oh you know, yeah,
it's a it's a weird one to play out. I
wasn't surprised when you did that, because you do you
you tend to go around in the houses a bit.
It's sort of flex your way into whatever it is
you you're currently feeling. I think that's You're right. It
doesn't seem to happen too much in the mainstream. I
always thought out as something that's pretty cool about self
published authors really a little bit more freedom to do,
I guess, not belong specifically to one thing if they
don't want to.
Speaker 4: We we have the capacity to experiment in ways that
traditional folks probably aren't afforded. Because, like you know, I
was able to take this risk. But if I was
going if I was in contract with a traditional publisher
and I was like, Hey, I want to write a
family friendly novella series and they were like, no, well,
that's probably it unless this hypothetical Drew is willing to
go querying around to a new Age Gin. Because I'm
that's not part of my genre. So my hypothetical agent
probably