Jenny Wheeler – 100 Podcasts – and new book

Jenny: Welcome to the 100th episode of The Joys of Binge Reading podcast. Yes! We’ve reached 100 episodes. I can hardly believe it! Hi there. I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and when I started this podcast two years ago, my first modest goal was to reach a respectable number  – 50 in fact – and now look at us! I’m absolutely thrilled. We talked to a hundred fantastic mystery, thriller and romance authors, recording their wins and losses and giving you, their readers, a chance to discover new books you’ll never want to put down. All to be found on the website with links in perpetuity. To me, that’s an exciting achievement. And I’m just as enthusiastic about adding the next 100 new Authors to the list. But we’re pausing just for a moment to celebrate by doing something a little different for our centenary podcast.  For our 100th birthday. I’m swapping seats with thriller author Annie Seaton and she’s going to ask me the questions for a change.  Annie was on Episode #62 of the podcast talking about her romantic-eco thrillers. So when we met up again and got talking at a writers conference recently, she seemed like the perfect guest host to put me in the firing line, asking about how we got started, what we’ve learned and where we might go next. And just as a cherry on top of the cake, we’ve also got an exciting Giveaway. Five ebook copies of my latest book Unbridled Vengeance, out this week, is offered in a draw for lucky readers and listeners. Here’s how to enter: Harvey: A harsh land, a bitter rival. Will a vicious double murder destroy a Sacramento rancher’s hard fought legacy? Strong on suspense, light on romance, Unbridled Vengeance is Book #5 in Jenny Wheeler’s Of Gold & Blood old California series, easily read either as a standalone or as part of the series. Enter the draw on  The Joys of Binge Reading.com or on the Binge Reading Facebook page. We’ll select one winner a week for the next five weeks. Offer closes November 19th. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: How the Binge Reading podcast got started Why Jenny was a reluctant blogger Why she loves 1860s California The most enjoyable thing about doing a podcast The lure of historical mysteries What she’s learned from podcasting Where to find Jenny Wheeler: Website: http://jennywheeler.biz (for Books) And of course, www.thejoysofbingereading.com (for podcast) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JennyAtBingeReading/ AND @JennyWheeler.Biz  Twitter: @Jenny_Biz Instagram: @Jenny’sBingeReading Pinterest: JennyWheeler Books What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: Thanks for that. And now, here’s Annie. Hello there Annie, and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Annie: Hi Jenny. Thank you so much for letting me sit in your chair today. It’s lovely to be on the other side and to be asking the questions. Jenny: That’s great. I’m sure you do really well. Annie: ]So shall we start? Jenny Wheeler – Podcaster and mystery author Jenny: Yes, let’s. Annie: Okay. So Jenny tell me what made you to want to begin a podcast? Jenny: Well Annie, when I started in this writing game nearly four years ago now, it took me a couple of years to basically understand what the new publishing landscape looks like.  I was starting to get all of this information about how you had to do blogs and have this thing called an author platform,  I’d never really heard of author platforms before that, and I’d done lots and lots of blogs in the past for a business that I was associated with. Nearly a thousand blogs for a business that I was associated with and the idea of trying to start another blog just left me absolutely cold. I couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for it at all. So I thought maybe I could do a podcast and that would work in the same way as a blog. It would help me to just get a little bit more credibility in the publishing scene, but it would be a lot more fun and a lot more interesting. So it honestly was a bit of a blatant attempt to help to establish an author platform, but it’s become so much more than that as I’ve gone along. Deciding where to go Annie: Well, it’s certainly been successful to be up to our hundredth episode of The Joys of Binge Reading it. So what I’m interested in here, is how did you come to decide on the format that you using, interviewing mystery authors from the viewpoint of readers? Jenny: When I looked around at what podcasts were out there and I was already listening to a few podcasts myself, the market seemed to be very well supplied with people who were giving other writers advice about how to write books. Many of the writing podcast were in that vein, they were from writers telling people how to write and market their books and although that’s a fantastic area to be in, # 1 it seemed to be well catered for, and #2 i was just starting out so I didn’t really feel as if I had enough knowledge myself to  be able to give other writers advice. Poisoned Legacy, Book One in Of Gold & Blood, for FREE download here:  And but by the same token quite a few of the reader podcasts seemed to me to be very serious and they mainly tackled literary fiction and I thought wouldn’t it be great to do something that tackled genre fiction, which is the area that I’m working in.  I guess I’ve got a little bit of a bandwagon in that I really think genre fiction has been undervalued in terms of the level of skill and craft that’s that’s put into it and especially in New Zealand. Giving genre writers airtime We still seem to focus more on the literary fiction writers than the genre fiction writers. We’ve got some great genre fiction writers who’ve got a popular following, maybe a dozen books published, and they still have difficulty getting reviews in more ‘serious’ magazines. So I thought that’s where I’d focus it and I’ve really enjoyed doing it Annie: That’s fabulous and certainly good for those authors. So what have been the high points of doing your the podcast. Jenny: I think that it is really honestly talking to the writers. Every single person that I’ve spoken to, I’ve loved the interview, and  I feel as if I’ve learnt something. In some cases I’ve had a real sense of making a friend that I could sit down and have wine with somewhere in the world. And every single one, I’ve learnt something from them. So actually, even as I go along it has helped with the writing and craft side of things. And also I make a rule  that I will read at least one book of everybody I interview. I  usually try and read the most recent book they’ve published so we can talk about the most recent one from the point of view of readers. And honestly, that’s kind of given me a tremendous – almost what you would call speed-dating kind of approach to getting a whole wide range of books and authors read in a short time. So  I feel more and more as if I’m starting to really get a feel for what we need to be doing as writers. What’s next? Keeping things fresh Annie: That’s great, and I’m sure that other authors will be listening too, and I have had many authors, colleagues of mine, say that they have listened to it and got a lot out of it. So, that being said, do you see yourself carrying on for another hundred episodes? Jenny: Yes. Look it is time-consuming there’s no doubt about that. It really is. Probably fifty percent – almost – of my time –  is spent either trying to find new authors to interview –  and I have a great strike rate in terms of people saying yes, but every now and then you’ll get two or three in a row that you either don’t hear back from them or they say “No they’re too busy” and so it takes quite a bit of time to both enlist the authors and do the reading. But it’s really worth it. And so yes, I will keep going but I’m not saying that it won’t evolve. I’m going to put out a bit of a questionnaire to the people who listen to the podcast asking them if they want to see any changes. I think I’ve let it get a little bit too long. I should maybe carve it back to 30 minutes. I might even vaguely consider getting a co-host in, or getting other guest hosts now and then, just mix it up a bit, so it doesn’t get too boring and predictable, but I will keep going with it. Entering into the digital world Annie: So you’ll certainly learning on the go as you continue with it. What other  lessons have you taken away from the experience? Jenny: I think it’s interesting because you know, we very much in this digital marketing world as authors and there’s a very wide range of appreciation for that from the authors that I interview. Some are really switched on about digital marketing and  social media. They are comfortable promoting themselves, and  promoting the podcast. And some are not really on that page yet. So it is a little bit of an introduction as well to the very wide range of different authors that there are out there from traditionally to self-published.  I don’t focus  particularly on indie authors or traditional authors. I more just allow myself to be led by the spirit in terms who are who I will chat to next, but there is a very wide range of appreciation of just where the market is and what’s happening. And of course it’s changing all the time. Was there a Once Upon A Time? Annie: Well, you’re an author as well and you’ve been writing full-time for the whole time you’ve been doing the podcast. So let’s put you on the spot and ask you the question that you always begin with. And that is, was there a Once Upon a Time moment for your fiction writing and if so, what was the catalyst for it? Jenny: Quite honestly no there wasn’t. I couldn’t  pick any particular moment, but I think I always had a little bit of a underground thought that someday I might try my hand at fiction. It wasn’t anything like I would die unfulfilled if I didn’t do it, but it was always there is a little subterranean thing. I remember at one stage in my midlife when I took a holiday from being a newspaper editor and the minute I took the holiday. I got sick and was in bed.  I spent a week in bed and I started a novel in bed. And I thought the stop thing here that I feel as if I need to do, and the minute I get a bit of spare time, that’s what I do. Brother Betrayed: Book Two in Of Gold & Blood mystery series by Jenny Wheeler And then of course when I had to go back to work that novel never ever saw the light of day again.  But when I finally “quotes” retired, I mean, I’m not retired, but I sold a business.  Four years ago. I was in a business with my business partner for 17 years and when I sold that business, I thought now’s my chance to see if I can do this fiction thing. I had one really close friend from school days and quite often when I meet her socially she’d say to me something like “Jenny, you haven’t written any books yet. I’m really surprised. I thought that’s what you do”. Why ‘Old California?’ Jane was like a little bit of a kind of a little prodder  in my side reminding me that actually all those years ago, we both thought  that’s what I’d end up doing and I hadn’t yet done it. So yes,that’s really what came about. So when I had time and space. I thought okay. I’m going to try this now. This is my next project. Annie: And you certainly started. But of most interest to me, why historical mysteries and most particularly why old California? Jenny: Well, I have spent years as a member of the Romance Writers of New Zealand. I’ve been a member  probably for 12 or so years.  I have attended their conferences and I’ve learned a lot of craft from their conferences, even before I started writing. I originally thought I would write romance because that seemed the obvious area for a woman if you were looking at genre fiction, but over the years, I mean number one the romance scene changed a lot with 50 Shades of Grey and things and secondly, I became less and less enamoured of the idea of trying to do romance myself. Veering away of romance It just didn’t fit quite for me as the main thrust of a story. So I turned to thinking about other sorts of fiction and mystery was an obvious one mystery with a romance subplot. I think the romance is absolutely necessary for the emotional content and I love having that but I didn’t want it to be the main point of the story and I think partly because I have never felt that getting a man is the main point of a woman’s life or that “quotes” getting a man is going to solve all your problems. It’s probably going to create more problems than it actually solves, sorry to say. So I didn’t want to do anything that would promote the idea that the point of life was to find the right man. Historical, because honestly the contemporary scene is changing so fast now and I feel so out of touch with what the younger woman would be doing and how they’re living their lives that I didn’t feel I could write contemporary urban fiction very convincingly. I might still think about trying my hand at contemporary fiction set in a provincial town which is less up to speed with all the new gadgets etc. Skiving off hunting quartz boulders But I didn’t feel comfortable about contemporary and I love history. I did a history degree. I’ve always loved history. So that was the historical mystery at all. And California? I grew up near a gold mining district in New Zealand  on the Thames Coast and my childhood we spent holidays there.  It’s horrific to think of it now, with health and safety regulations, but as kids we used to just hive off in the hills and go into these old mine shafts, and I used to often lump home lumps of quartz. I don’t know why. I just was quite fascinated by this quartz from this old gold mine. So when I started thinking about a historical period, the Gold Rush period really appealed to me, but I didn’t want to set anything in New Zealand. I felt California gave a wider canvas and I wanted an international audience. It was a strategic thing in terms of where I wanted to place myself as a writer. Double Jeopardy – Book 3 in Of Gold & Blood mystery series by Jenny Wheeler The changing world of publishing Annie: It sounds very well planned for me and obviously successful for you. But you seem to have chosen right from the get-go beginning to Indie publish rather than seek it traditional publisher. Can you tell us why that is? Jenny: I guess it’s because with all the other stuff I was doing.  The podcast and stuff. I was getting a sense of how the publishing landscape has changed and I came through newspapers and then through magazines and in each of those environments I was in a period of great disruption of the industry. I saw what happened.  I was in newspapers in the 1980s and I could sense that newspapers were changing. I know they’re not quite dying, but the sort of newspapers we were doing were definitely dying. And then I moved into magazines and a similar thing started to happen there with digital competition. And so I came into it, I guess with a bit more of a mind as to how the industry was changing.  When I first started going to Romance Writers annual conferences my utter goal would have been to get a contract with the people that you write for. Mira. I thought they had great books. I would have loved to have been a Mira author. Time marches on, things change But by the time I got to actually writing myself, I just felt that that was a completely unrealistic and unsuitable goal for me because I because of my age. I need to start writing fast and getting a lot of books out there to establish a backlist.  Traditional publishers mainly want one book a year from you. Well I need. to do more than one book a year if I’m going to get any traction as a writer while I’ve still got a brain, so I realized I had to write fast. And also just at my age, I honestly don’t think that trad publishers would want to invest the money. When they take on a new author, they’re really looking at your production period. It’s a bit like having, you know, a prize bull or cow, you want to know how much how much production you’re going to get out of them and someone at my stage of life, they probably think the years are pretty limited and I’m not a good bet. So for all of those very realistic things. And also because indie actually is really exciting? It gives you so much more control, and after years in the corporate world, where I had to always be dancing to somebody else’s tune, I think that was also a great appeal to me. A vibrant multicultural world So it’s certainly not easy and it’s probably even harder than I thought it was going to be, but I definitely think it’s the right choice for me. Annie: Well, you certainly got a plan worked out for your writing which is fabulous. Now changing the subject again, why 1860s California particularly? Jenny: Because the Gold Rush itself 1849  – that first 20 years of the Gold Rush, it was a very hard society where women had a very limited role. I mean the histories all say that the women were either boarding house keepers or soiled doves basically. And I wanted to be able to write about a society where women had a lot more agency. Where there were children, and  institutions were starting to be established like schools and hospitals. So once again, I really wanted to have an era where women had more choices, had more respect; they weren’t just a sideline to what the men were doing. And the late 1860’s going into the 70s seemed like a really interesting time. California’s developing incredibly fast. They’ve had this huge influx of people. California – a great place to be The other thing I loved was that it was a very international society. When you give us what’s happening in the US at the moment that seemed like a lovely challenge. To present an international society, where although there were some very well-known conflicts, there was also a lot of acceptance of new people and a new nationalities. So yeah all of those reasons that struck me as being extremely interesting. The thing I didn’t realize actually was that publishers and agents regard 1860s California as “the West”in capitals. I did make a couple of pitches to agents at conferences and they said “oh, you’re writing a western” and I said “no ,no, it’s actually not Western.” But it gets categorized in a Western category and that has made it a little bit more difficult from the marketing point of view. I don’t understand why 1860s California isn’t a period a bit like Regency England which has got dozens and dozens of people writing in it. And I’ve realized as I go along that I’m almost trying to create a new exciting period in genre fiction as well as sell  my own individual books, but that’s a whole other story. Starting a trend . . . Annie: Well, you know start a trend where we’ll wait with interest. Now, you’re six books in the series. How many are you planning? Jenny: I hope in this particular series that I’m doing to get to at least 10, maybe more, but I have got ten in mind and then I think I will stick in this period but maybe do some sort of spin-off. I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I do love this period and it aligns itself a little bit, you know with what I was saying earlier. The fascination with Regency. how it’s so hard for historical romance authors to break out from that Regency period And yet I’ve discovered this author. Actually. I came across her at that last conference we went to, Joanna Shupe, who is having quite a lot of success at creating an interest in the Gilded Age, New York period and that’s another period that I think deserves just as much attention as Regency England and I hope that we see lots more writers pile in and look at Gilded Age New York. How about Gilded Age California? And I think Gilded Age California also would be another very interesting time period so I feel as if we’ve got these time periods that haven’t yet really been mined for their stories. So there’s plenty of room for the younger ones coming on behind us to find new territory. Annie: So many stories to be written. Tangled Destiny, A Christmas Novella. Book Four in Of Gold & Blood series by Jenny Wheeler Annie: Let’s move to your wider career. You had a very full and busy life as a journalist and a newspaper and magazine editor before you turn to full-time writing. How has that life experience helped your writing? Jenny: I think that I mean, obviously the podcast was easier for me probably than it would be some people, because I was used to interviewing people and the reason I was a journalist is that I’m naturally curious and like asking questions. So and I think that as a journalist you develop a bit of a sixth sense for the things that people aren’t saying that that will produce some spontaneous  line  of enquiry that becomes really interesting you’ve discovered little things you didn’t expect. What being a journalist teaches you But also I think the other major thing is, it trains you to write no matter how you’re feeling. And I mean, I don’t want to feel as if I’m attracting some sort of curse, but I truly don’t allow myself to ever think that I’m going to have writer’s block. I just know that I get up and write and I’ve heard a lot of journalists say the same thing; that the one thing journalism taught them was that they just keep writing. That you don’t have to feel like it,you just have to do it.  That’s a real benefit on the days when it feels hard. You just can say to yourself. Look you doing this. It’s not whether you feel like it or not. This is what you do. It’s that work ethic kicking in. Annie: Is there one thing you’ve done perhaps more than any other in your writing career that you see as a secret to your success? ‘At least 6 and possibly 12 books’ Jenny: Look I honestly don’t think I’ve had that much success yet. I haven’t managed to sell many books yet. But I really live by a quote that I heard from romance writer Stephanie Laurens, who came to one of the early RWNZ conferences and I was really impressed with her. I think she’s an oncologist turned romance author. She was a very smart lady and she says her advice to aspiring writers is to not expect to get anywhere unless you’ve written at least six and possibly as many as twelve books. So at the moment, I’m just more or less using that as my flotation device. I’m reminding myself. Stephanie says, you shouldn’t even expect to get anywhere until you’ve got at least six books out there. And I’m going to be publishing five and six later this year.  Two new books before Christmas Book #5, Unbridled Vengeance, is coming out October 2019, and Book # 6 Hope Redeemed, A Spanish Novella, in November 2019. So I feel as if I will have reached some plateau at the end of this year and I can take stock and perhaps give a bit more thought to marketing.  I certainly haven’t mastered the marketing side of it. Annie: Sounds like you’re going to be busy if you’re heading for another four or five. So when you’re not working  – if there is time for you’re not working – how do you relax? Jenny: I love the outdoors.  I’d love to spend more time in the garden. I regard the garden as something that’s a reward I give myself if I worked hard enough and unfortunately I’m not getting in the garden as much as I’d like to. And I do quite a bit of outside exercise.  I do walks. Bush walks and that kind of thing, so yeah outside is what I love. What Jenny likes to read Annie: Sounds fabulous. Okay, let’s turn to Jenny as a reader. The series is called The Joys of Binge  Reading, providing inspiration for people who like to read in series. So turning to your taste in fiction. Who do you binge read? And do you have any recommendations for your listeners? Jenny: Yes, I like that idea of people have got used to binge watching with Netflix. And so now they turn more to binge reading and also with digital books, you know, if you get a sudden urge to continue with the series at midnight, you can just download it and start reading it immediately. So books are a lot more accessible than the days when we used to have to wait a year for our favorite author to produce the next one. I’ve been a real bookworm all my life. I started off with Enid Blyton and I’ve read all my life. When I was at University I remember finishing off University exams and binge reading on Ian Fleming and the James Bond series for about 2 weeks just as total relaxation. Fellow genre authors I enjoy In more recent times one of the people that really attracted me when I was thinking about writing was a writer called CS Harris who is still writing this terrific historical mystery series called the Sebastian St Cyr series and she was an inspiration for me when I was thinking about what sort of books I would like to write. I thought I would love to do something just like CS Harris. I mean my voice is different from hers. So they’re not really like CS Harris, but she was a real inspiration for me and now since I’ve been doing the podcast there’s quite a few authors who I’d really like to continue to follow, although with the amount of reading I have to do, that’s a bit of a luxury. I don’t get the chance to just read the books I’d like to sometimes because I’m prepping for the podcast, but  at the moment I’m reading the Scottish crime author Val McDermid and I think she is just fantastic. I’ve just got really gripped by her voice. Bruno and Josephine and time travel And there’s another, an English journalist living in France called Martin Walker who’s doing a Bruno Series in a little French village in the Perigord where this policeman is situated .  I love those sorts of mysteries and then some of the ones that I’ve talked to on the podcast,  I loved Rhys Bowen and historicals like Nicola Upson  and her Josephine Tey series. They are magnificent. And I love Jessica Fellowes and the Mitford Murders. I like mysteries that weave in some real factual information, you know, like a little bit of the journalism coming in with the fiction So things that have got real history, real life in them, that you learn information about places and people and events as you go along. They appeal to me. Julie McElwain’s Kendra Donovan series a time travel series where an FBI agent goes back to 1815 in London. I think she did that one very cleverl What if . . . crystal ball gazing So yes, there’s a whole lot of people that I’d love to be able to continue to follow and when I have a little bit more time, they would be on my reading list. There’s not enough hours in the day. Annie: Okay. So at this stage of your career, let’s circle back to the beginning. Now if you are doing it all again, what would you change or would there not be  anything you’d change? Jenny: Look honestly, I’m one of those people who believe that you make the decisions that you have to make. You know when you’re faced with the range of options that you’ve got and so no, I don’t actually regret anything. I mean, you know, a lot of people would say. Oh, you’ve left your run too late. It doesn’t matter to me really what happens in the end with my books. I mean, obviously I’d like to be able to continue writing and produce a good body of work, but I am just really enjoying doing it so much that it’s kind of like my next adventure and we’ll just see where it leads. If I  have another good 10 years of life with my brain power still reasonably functioning then I probably will end up with a good body of work. Just doing what I love to do But you know, I have had my threescore years and ten. So who knows what the next ten are going to hold? I just really don’t know. But no I wouldn’t change anything. Everything that’s happened, I’ve got a faith walk and I do feel that God’s hand has been over at all and that what’s happened as meant to be. So yes, I’m happy Annie: And that’s a great philosophy in life. So tell us. What’s next for Jenny’s the writer?. What are there any different projects in the works for the next 10 years or the next year? Let’s start small. Hope Redeemed – Book Six in the Of Gold & Blood mystery series, due in November 2019 Coming up . . Books 5 and 6 Jenny: The next year. I’m just going to be continuing with this Of Gold & Blood series .I’ve got #5 Unbridled Vengeance coming out in October 2019  and that’s actually just gone to the formatter. And so all the editing has finished. I don’t do my own formatting. I’ve got these lovely people in Tasmania, Polgaris Studios, who do my formatting at such a reasonable price and they’re so good at it I don’t think it’s worth me trying to learn it. So #5 is with them. #6 I’m just finishing off the very last scenes.  I must admit I cheated a bit because #6 as a novella, When I went to Romance Writers this year I was a bit depressed about the fact that I was only going to be putting out one full-length book this year and I went to a workshop about writing to length and I thought , look I should do another Novella before the end of the year just to say that I’ve done two books this year. Hope Redeemed . . a Spanish novella I had a couple that I knew I wanted to write a novella about. They’re a couple that appear in Book #5. It was a natural progression. So I came back from Romance Writers in August and immediately plunged into this Novella, which is now just about finished, so I can say that I did two books in  2019. And I had what was going to be Book #6  which is another full length one,  I’d already started quite a lot of plotting for that  earlier in the year. So I’ve got that to jump into in January and I hope to have that one through by about  March April next year. That’ll be Book # 7 now.  And then I do have to take a deep breath because I haven’t really thought much about Book # 8. But Yes, I’ll keep powering on with Of Gold& Blood. Then I might look at doing a spin-off series in the same. I really love this period and in California history and moving in and to the 1870s and the Gilded Age. So I really see myself continuing to progress through that.  Something completely different In the back of my mind I’ve got the thought of maybe doing a provincial mystery series set in a Coromandel town in New Zealand like Whitianga. I had a long association with Whitianga.  My business partner for many years lived there and we owned property together and I still have a section there with a caravan on it. So I have a great place in my heart for Whitianga and I thought a town like Whitianga,  I’d love to do a mystery series. My partner was a retired Radio talkback host and there’s a dangerous possibility that the hero of the series might be a retired talkback host.   So I’m not quite sure where that’s ever going to happen. What future for podcast? Annie: That sounds fabulous. Hey, let’s move on to Jenny the podcaster. Do you see forsee any changes coming up there with your podcast? Jenny: I do think that you probably have to keep changing to be recognizable and interesting and I know that podcasting is changing hugely. The way it sounds on the web now is that it quotes “everybody is trying to get into podcasting” There’s  this huge surge of the interest in podcasting. So I haven’t really had the time to look at the whole podcasting field and try and analyze it and strategize about it. I’m just kind of plodding along with what I’m doing.  But yes, I do think there will be changes. But what exactly they are? I don’t know. I just want to stay relevant and interesting. That’s all, and  not get predictable, and I’m not quite sure what that would look like. Where to find Jenny online Annie: Well, we’ll watch that with you too. So Jenny just to finish up tell us where readers can find you and your books online Jenny: My website is www.jennywheeler.biz   Everything there is about my books. And then the podcast site is www.thejoys ofbingereading.com Every writer that I interview, we do an extensive transcript of the interviews with links to their books. So there’s now over a hundred authors there that listeners can have a look at, dig around see the ones that they might enjoy following up on it and find a new suggestion for what they’re going to read next. So I’m found at both of those spots. I’m on social media and we’re just about to launch a Pinterest site. I’ve been really doing quite a lot of work in Pinterest because I think that the books greatly lend themselves to a Pinterest presence. So that’s what I’m doing and I’m using an Australian author actually an Australian romance and mystery author called Lucinda Brant as my model for that.  She’s got a fantastic Pinterest page. And maybe it’s an ambition of mine to interviewer sometime. I haven’t yet looked at that. But yeah, so Pinterest is the next big adventure. Don’t forget to enter the #5 draw! Annie: Well, you’re certainly one busy lady.  I admire your work ethic and I’m so looking forward to going and getting out your books and having a read when I finish my next deadline, so congratulations on your 100th podcast, and thank you so much for providing such a fabulous service to both readers and authors Thanks, Annie. It’s kind of you to say that. Thank you Harvey: A harsh land. A bitter rival. Will a vicious double murder destroy Sacramento rancher’s hard fought legacy? Strong on suspense, light on romance, Unbridled Vengeance #5 in Of Gold & Blood Guinea old California series is easily read either as a standalone or as part of the series. Enter the draw on www.thejoysofbingereading.com or on the Binge Reading Facebook page. We will select one winner a week for the next five weeks. Offer closes November 19 Annie podcast – and her new book If you’d like to hear Annie talking about her Australian romantic eco-thrillers head over to Annie Seaton and Eco-Adventures. And check out her new thriller, Undara, set in spooky lava caves in Northern Queensland. Today’s host Annie Seaton was the guest on the Joys of Binge Reading Podcast, Episode #59… If you liked Jenny Wheeler’s historical mysteries you might also enjoy Rebecca Rosenberg’s story of Baby Doe Tabor, once one of the richest women in America, in the Golden Women episode of Binge Reading. Rebecca Rosenberg – Baby Doe Tabor’s story of The Joys of Binge Reading podcast…. Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]