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You've heard the book publishing podcasts that give you tips for selling a lot of books and the ones that only interview world-famous authors. Now it's time for a book publishing show that reveals what actually goes on behind the cover.
Hosted by New York Times bestselling author Anna David, Behind the Book Cover features interviews with traditionally published authors, independently published entrepreneurs who have used their books too seven figures to their bottom line to build their businesses and more.
Anna David has had books published by HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster and is the founder of Legacy Launch Pad, a boutique book publishing company trusted by high-income entrepreneurs to build seven-figure authority. In other words, she knows both sides—and is willing to share it all.
Come find out what traditional publishers don't want you to know.
Speaker 1 00:00
Jamie rose, welcome to the show. Anna David, thank you for inviting me. How fabulous to see you. And we have never in our years of knowing each other podcast together. No, we haven't, but I think our first books came out at almost the same time, because I the first time I met you was that I remember this Conrad Roma totally remember it used to have a reading series. I can't remember what it was called. I think it was in the hotel cafe, yeah, and you were reading, and Jillian Lauren was reading. That's who invited me. Jillian Lauren and, and I don't remember who else, but was so was that 2007
Speaker 2 00:41
my book came out 2011 so it would have been right around there. So I think you were doing a different book. Yeah, I think it was something from party girl. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 00:49
I will now, because you have informed me of the date. I know that it must have been falling for me, like my third book, but we're talking about you. So okay, so this, so this, and you have another book coming out in 2026,
Speaker 2 01:03
march 3. It's called facing Madame X, an initiation into feminine power.
Speaker 1 01:09
I can't wait. I can't wait with an intro by your mentor. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2 01:13
my mentor. It's kind of his, his work, plus some of my, my original work, but geared toward women, because both of his books that became best sellers, the tools of coming alive, were written by men, yeah, and be one of them. And I
01:30
just want you closer. I just want you closer to how does
Speaker 2 01:33
that? Does that sound? Yes, yes, yes. Sound, FM, do you do? No. FM, I don't think so. We do. We do? You know, I've been a senior citizen, so, FM radio. FM radio, yeah, anyway, so, so it's about, it's using Phil's work geared toward women, and it's about, also, it's a hybrid self help memoir, sort of, since I am a senior citizen now, and have been now through the deaths of both my parents and receiving my first Medicare card, I realize how life itself is a kind of initiation.
Speaker 1 02:05
So it's an initiation into what we're really going to experience, post life.
02:10
Post life, yes,
02:11
that's what I thought you were saying, that life is an initiation.
Speaker 2 02:14
It kind of is, because I think that now, having seen, you know, seen mortality closer and that my own mortality. Who's next, you know me, so, so the spiritual maturation is the most important thing, yeah, because that's what all we have at the end. Yeah? And like, my goal in terms of legacy, Legacy launch, yes, yes, yes, is to have people crying when I'm gone. Yeah? They will good. They will know that you'll cry, then I'll be okay.
Speaker 1 02:46
I'm a tough cry because I'm very medicated, but I'm pretty sure I would cry.
Speaker 2 02:49
Just don't take the medication at my funeral, please, because I need the Yeah, the juice,
02:53
yeah, yeah, no, I'll give you some. There will be plenty.
Speaker 1 02:57
And okay, so, so tell me about your experience with the first book came out in 2011
Speaker 2 03:05
Okay, shut up and dance. Yeah. So I had this book called shut up and dance, and I was an actor for 50 years. You can Google
03:12
me Jamie rose. I mean, it was, they may not need to. They
Speaker 2 03:16
they need to. I, you know, not really the 80s and 90s and early 2000s when I was at my my inator So, but anyway, I to me though I grown up just a totally bookish kid. So I had this idea for a book, and my friend Samantha Dunn, wonderful writer and journalist, said, You know, you can, you can sell that idea, and I'm like, and I'm not a writer, I'm an actor. So I got a book called, literally, called How to Write a nonfiction book proposal, and I followed it like, you know, writing the nonfiction book proposals for Durston, right? I just did it. And then Samantha said, Yeah, it's so funny. I heard about an agent who was looking for women writing nonfiction books. Send her your proposal. Yeah, it's a lesson proposal. She took me on in like, a month I'd sold it to penguin. It was, like, bizarre. And I was so like, oh my god, I'm gonna be published and by Penguin. And the best day of the whole experience was when I received the contract with the little penguin on it 1,000% that was the time it is all downhill from there was, it was like, I didn't know it then, no, that was it. Man, that penguin smiling, signing,
Speaker 1 04:23
absolutely I so everybody probably told you, as they told me, Look, books don't do well. It's probably not going to break out. And did you like me? Stuff cotton in your ears and say to yourself, I think it's going to be different for me. I think I'm going to be the exception,
Speaker 2 04:41
you know, I had, I had, you know, got the book, proposal book. Yeah, sold the proposal. I was for sure gonna have a best seller,
Speaker 1 04:50
right? Because you've already defied the odds, yeah. So why not a third time step is best seller, of course. And so then it comes out, and what? What what happened? What did penguin do? It didn't
Speaker 2 05:03
happen. Yes, probably one thing that's happened is I kind of went crazy, but we'll talk about that in a minute. Oh, it's part of it, but, but what happened was, so my book was a self help slash memoir like this one, using partner dance as a metaphor for relationships. But that was when dancing the stars was first really big. And so penguin kind of wanted a dance book. So they had me what they call crash the book, which is write it really fast, and I'm like, sure I can write the book in three months. And like it, I did, but it killed me, but, but they wanted it out to kind of catch that the zeitgeist, right? And so when they started, I think putting it out there to the media to see who were in, who was interested, very few people were all that interested. Plus, because of the title of my book, which was set up in dance, letting go of the lead on the dance floor and off, which was about to me, a mistake, an idea I had about what the feminine archetype was that I thought it was weakness, but actually it was power. And I kind of learned that in partner dance, but all they saw was letting go of the lead. This is an anti feminist book, which is the farthest, which is so not me. So a lot of people just wrote it off, just from the title. So I think when that happened, they kind of stopped pushing the book, yeah, and I got a bunch of like podcasts, whatever they did. You know, they tried. I don't think they tried. They just, they couldn't put their, their energy there the work. But I did have a tear, a bad thing happened, like they finally got me in. I'll just say it was a thing called Jezebel. I'll say it was an online, yeah, I remember, and someone took our pitch and just wrote a first person account as me, what's out, running it by me. And it was horrible. I was like, shaking. It depicted me as this maniacal actress. Well, I was maniacal, but not in the way that they portrayed me. Sure, someone just took fucking, or, excuse me, I don't understand, yeah, and we had them take it down. I was like, shaking. I said, What? What? What it was. It was so terrible. So that's why I don't mind saying the name. So that was bad, and they're gone. But the bad thing psychologically was, at the time, there was an app called novel rank, and it was what your number was on Amazon. And I would hit that app like every half hour, like a rat hitting a pellet to see, how am I doing. How am I doing, how am I doing, how am I doing, how am I doing. And I would watch it like so I sold my book. Number went up, you know, just Yeah, so I kind of went crazy.
Speaker 1 07:29
Oh, my God. First of all, bad name for an app because it tracked non fiction books too. No wonder they went under and Jezebel, because, you know, karma, Karma is a bitch. Um, and I relate so much the Amazon page just refreshing and refreshing and refreshing. And I mean, the good news is, since there are more books out today, it moves faster. If you sell five books, you're gonna jump up 100,000 spots. But so and so, that particular devastation, I will say that, you know, say, unlike heartbreak, it's a very slow realization that the dream died.
08:13
Yeah, it's really weird.
08:16
Long goodbye to the book sales.
Speaker 1 08:19
Yeah, yeah. And, and your publisher, this is true for everyone is lying to you. I've now learned a lot of this. I don't think it's going to happen to you with Sky horse,
Speaker 2 08:30
because I think that they're super like so my expectations are on the ground. Yeah, I think they do. I mean, not because of them, but because of my previous experience. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1 08:38
but, but so, you know, I've now learned that they basically, and there was this big trial between Penguin Random House and I think Simon and Schuster, like this huge trial three or four years ago. And I'm a crazy enough person to have bought the trial transcript $100 it's on Amazon. Publishers lunch published it. Yeah, exactly. But, oh my god, it's just so awful. It's just like 85% of books don't earn out. Something like 60% comes from back titles, back titles of people like Stephen King. So we so we are a loss leader. They're saying, look, we've got Glennon Doyle, we've got Elizabeth Gilbert coming out this year. They know they're going to earn back all that they spent on these, you know, mid tier books, and they can't tell you that. They can't say, you know, the truth is, we're really not, we're only pushing the winners. And so they, they, they lie to you. I now know publicist who said the worst part of my job was having to lie to the writers I know, and so and so. It is very strange. How did you feel when you're going out in the world and everybody is going, congratulations, this is so amazing, and you feel like you want to die because it's a failure,
Speaker 2 09:56
yeah, well, at first, well, kind of, I've got a little bit. Of that can do thing. So when I saw was happening, because also I had already been through fame and all that before, yeah, and I had, I had, like, pretty much out of the gate, gone from job to job. I was, I was by the time was 20. I was at a top 10 show when there was only three networks that I had my own show. I had that same kind of came really easy and fast quickly, and then it just dropped out. And I went through a few decades long horror show around acting and, like, also coming down from success, like, I had been on The Tonight Show. And then I'm, like, working as a sales girl 10 years and people going, so we're Jordan Falcon Crest. I'm like, Yeah, will that be cash or charge? Right? Yeah, she just looks like the shop. No, I work here $10 an hour had been on The Tonight Show floating around, so I Lear Jones, so I had gone through that, but so it took me a moment, but then when I saw it, I'll tell you what I did, which is why I think that's bringing serving me now, going in with a small publisher, which is actually arcade, which is imprint of sky horse, I went, you know, I'm gonna have a great time With this, and so I started doing my own stuff. Like I I hired a publicist, who you I won't say the name. They said they were publicist, but they weren't okay. This is the level they were okay. I didn't pay that much, but, like, I paid for a huge book party for myself, gorgeous tango dancing at the Santa Monica Bay book club. I paid for all the person had to do was bring me the friggin poster size cover of my book. They brought the wrong cover. No, because they had changed the cover my public Yeah, they brought the wrong cover. So we had to, like, hide part of cover with books. So that's the kind of support I was getting, yeah, the PR person. So I decided I'm just going to just do this. So I started, like, my book was at tango, and they had gotten me a couple readings, the faux publicist, and I went, Okay, I'm gonna be at the tattoo cover in Denver, or Denver, yeah, and I'm gonna, I reached out to the tangle community, had me, had the Meet me at the bookstore. We did a flash mob. So I just decided I would have, I'm gonna make it happen. And so that's why, going into this book, and the stuff that I think so great about your platform, and the things you have to say to writers is, there's so much we can do ourselves and but it's got to be for the joy of the book. Yeah, whether it's, you know, even if, let's say I had, you know, I was a billionaire and I could spend all the money in the world and have myself placed, you still don't know if the book's gonna do anything, right? I almost feel like they have their own karmic life, right? 100% what we can do is decide to make it a really fun, great experience for ourselves, and to really go, wow. First of all, I wrote a book. I mean, now my second book? Oh, it only took me 12 years to write the next book. My writing teacher, my first book signing, Jim Crusoe, leaned over to me when I was signing a book, and he said, start the next one. Yeah, and I didn't know what I didn't was like, oh, no, I have a book. He's gonna be a best seller. I don't have to start the next one because I wrote a book. Yeah, and it took me 12 years, because it's friggin hard to write a book. And this book I'm really proud of, and I put blood, sweat and tears into it, and it was really hard for me. I mean, it's not, you know, I I'm a writer, of course, I'm a published author, but I'm not, it's not my I think acting comes more easily to me, so it's harder, yeah, but to write a book at all is freaking hard. And then when it's out there, which is a lot we can do to spread the joy of it 100%
Speaker 1 13:12
no wonder you like my sub stack, because that's my that's my full belief system. I had six launches that were absolutely miserable. Where sick? I can't believe I know. But, I mean, I'm a very slow learner, because I kept
Speaker 2 13:27
saying also had, like, Great contracts. So, I mean, they were
Speaker 1 13:31
not great. They The first one was $50,000 just because I'll talk numbers. The second one was, I think, 15. My final book deal was $2,000 so I, I couldn't, yeah, I was, I was selling, I guess, well enough to get another small book deal. But my publisher did nothing. I have no evidence my first two books, that the editor even read my books. And I can even one up. You, they sent me to send me. I was living in New York, and I they got me in at some the big book fair that I think it's just New York book fair, but they sent over someone else's books, so I had nothing to sign, yeah. I mean, this was really well mine. So Judith Regan was my publisher, yes, and she was fired a few months before, so my book was published under an imprint that they made up called Harper. Just called Harper on Amazon, it's listed under William Morrow. William Morrow did not publish my book. They listed now that I know the back end of Amazon, I know how to see things. They listed the category as humorous science fiction. Now I've been accused of many things, but never being a science fiction writer
Speaker 2 14:43
sounds a little science fictiony. Oh, but whether with Penguin they had on my Amazon, I'd had all these pre orders, right? And then my agent was like, I don't understand why the book isn't higher just based on the pre orders. Turned out penguin had put the wrong ISBN number on Amazon, yep, because it had been with the old cover. Like I.
15:00
What? You don't actually have to change your ISBN
Speaker 2 15:03
cover, but whatever wrong ISBN number, like your, I mean, what?
Speaker 1 15:07
Well, and by the way, with with AI coming out, and all these lawsuits against, you know, Claude and chat GPT, what's coming out is that a lot of publishers have forgotten to copyright their authors books. So and, and I think I it took me many years to get over my resentment towards specific people. I mean, I resented my lovely agent because she told me it might be better to write under a pen name. And I, you know, stormed out of the the, you know, because, basically she said, and she was just being straight with me, it's better to be a new author than to be a second time author who didn't sell. Oh, my God, I know. I know. And and so I resented these people at Harbor, and then these people at, you know, the publicist, everybody. And then I realized they are actually not bad people at all. They're massively underpaid and overworked, and they're a business. And somehow, when it comes to the creative arts, I think it's very easy to forget that it's a business. So and that's why when people come to me and they say, oh, I want to sell a book traditionally, and they have, you know, 100 Instagram followers and no newsletter list, and I have to say to them, I'm the dream killer if you were your and then they think their idea is so great, and their idea may be great, but somebody, literally, an imbecile with a million Instagram followers can get a book deal with zero idea that. And so it was more fair back in our day, because I think agents and publishers actually read the manuscripts, whereas now I think that it's just based on numbers.
16:52
Yeah, I mean this book we
Speaker 2 16:55
so this book, Phil studs is my mentor. I've been working with 37 years, and I do seminars with him, and I talk to him every day. But when his documentary came out, Jonah Hill made a documentary, yes, I loved it, yeah, three years ago or something, and it was this massive success. So we're just like, well, we are clearly going to get big offers on Jamie roses book proposal, which is basically the tools for women with the tools is, is what Phil will has invented and teaches clearly, and then, like, the months go by and nothing happened. So I ended up with a small, wonderful publisher. I mean, I have a really good relationship with Tony Lyons.
Speaker 1 17:32
He's, they are not that small anymore. Yeah, I think that they've really grown.
Speaker 2 17:36
But, but, but he's just like, he just was like, I would be honored to publish this and like, and because I've been through the other thing, and because I read your newsletter, I know this really is not a it's an shameless plug, except it's really she didn't ask me to do. No, you've written me, and it means so now just go, first of all, I'm just really, I like the book. I'm really proud of the book this time. I didn't crash it. I took my time and I get what I said. I have no expectations. People go, Oh, I think it's really gonna sell. Like what? I have no idea if anybody will even know about maybe whoever listens to this, yeah, but hey, hopefully you'll get the book. Yes, but I know that I'm really proud of the book, and I'm and I'm up for the journey, and I'm gonna do what I can to help this book be read by people, and if it isn't, then, you know, that's just the deal.
Speaker 1 18:26
Yeah, I mean, what you said about karma, that's the only explanation, I think, for some of the success of certain books, and it was just what the universe had planned.
Speaker 2 18:36
There's nobody it's, it's like, it's, it's every business or everything, you know, I mean, because so many really terrible things happen to people who don't deserve terrible things. I mean, that's, that's the thing. Like, we don't have just, we don't have all that much control, as you know, we have control over our actions, yes. So I can take actions, yes. And again, you can know a lot of actions. If you read David's News, I'm a big believer you can take these actions, but the trick is, and I think especially for artists, you know, the trick is to have that, not attachment. But we know this as writers, right? If you go in and like, I'm going to sit down today and write the chapter that is, the world has never seen a chapter like this, I freeze, you know, yeah, but if I go to and go, I'm just going to be here and start writing. And for me, I get so scared off that I'll have to tie myself and say, like, I'm gonna write the worst piece of shit sentence that was ever read. And that gets me going. And then like, Okay, well, I'm just gonna keep doing that. And then you keep doing it, and something comes, but you have to have that, not attachment. And the same with the life of the book. But you can't go, oh, well, I have no control, so I'm not going to do anything. You have to be willing to do all the stuff, because the book
Speaker 1 19:49
deserves it. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely the suit up and show up mentality because and letting go of the results. Because I now, I now have great. Book releases, not because my books sell any better than they did before, but because I decide I am going to only get invested in the things I can control. I can kind of control how many Amazon reviews I get. I can just keep asking people. I can never emphasize enough how important that is. It really are important. It's continued marketing. It's the only marketing, if you are on the front page of The New York Times, that's going to go away. The Amazon review is going to stay right on. So so I can control that. I could control having a really fun party. I can control some of the media stuff, not really. I can know that media is not going to sell books anyway, and and then I can, yeah, I can control writing the best book I possibly can, and knowing that the life of the book is long.
Speaker 2 20:52
Yeah, the book will survive you. Yeah, I'm married to, I'll be married to very soon. Are you getting married? Or comments
21:01
we are, but I haven't told anybody so.
Speaker 2 21:06
But he's a very well known novel, very successful, yes, so talented. I mean, decades long career and and so he and his his friends like Brit, you said, Ellis, and they talk about the book pub day as the before the pub, day as the silence before the silence.
Speaker 1 21:26
They have a way different experience that. But most of
Speaker 2 21:29
us, like you know, you just don't like I know. And you somebody could say you think you're the most genius, the best the goat, and then you don't sell that many books. It just doesn't.
Speaker 1 21:40
I mean, by the way, I've never told you guys this. I went to Bruce's book party for I'm losing you for some reason. What really sticks
21:49
out? Oh, I'm losing you. That's a long time. It
Speaker 1 21:51
was at the chateau, and as I walked in, Candace Bushnell tripped down the stairs. If that is not that should have been in the book, it was just I was like, I moment I could, and then, yeah, and then I didn't meet him, you know, I had, he's very different than you would think,
Speaker 2 22:10
so warm and sweet and cuddly and bad ass, yeah? And goofy, yeah, we're totally goofs, yeah?
Speaker 1 22:17
And so what? So? So you are essentially married to a very successful writer. Does that give you a different point of view? I mean, I know their perception is, well,
Speaker 2 22:28
definitely, well, what is, you know, I really don't think I could have written the book without him, because I called him my book Santa Claus, because it's like he knows when you are writing, knows when you are not. Because I call him like, oh, you know, I got to write, but I really am tired. He's, How tired are you shit? So he's like in the next room, knowing if I'm working. But he also, when we, when I would finish a chapter, we'd go over it, and he would help me. I'm just like, in house friggin editor. I mean, amazing. So lucky of all the you know, in house editors I have. But also to see how he writes. So, like, a book a year almost, and it's just, it's so not how I write. He can. He just, it just pours out of him. It's clearly, like some weird, like, Dybbuk that can, yeah, it's him, and it pours out. I have to, like, muscle it and but it just his books have have sold, not sold. It just doesn't matter the quality. I mean, he had a book that he got like canceled a few years ago. He did a real, oh, a brilliant book called Marvel Universe that happens to be dedicated to Jamie rose. I'm totally objective about this. Of course it is. It really is a brilliant book. And he had a deal with a publisher who says small publisher, who smallish but really respected, who said they totally knew his work. And if you know his work, you I mean, it's really dark, dark, it's dark. It's pornographic, right? It's not PC, right, any level, right? And he sent in his manuscript, and they and he had a character who what her goal was to be a ton or something like it was hurt. She was like a social media influencer, because there's a guy, a real guy, who used to call himself the fat Jewish, oh yeah. He still she was calling herself the fat Joan, the character in the fictional book. And they said, You can't use the word fat, yeah. And he said, what she's calling herself that? Because, as he said, No, she can't even call herself that. And like, If that's a problem, yeah, that's, that's like the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg, with the kind of language Bruce is gonna be
24:36
exactly, fat is the nicest word.
Speaker 2 24:38
Bruce pulled the manuscript and published it himself. Public Domain. Anybody can read it. Go to Bruce wagner.la, download it. People would say, Can I print copies of this? He goes, go for it. Wow, his public domain. Wow. He was like, fuck you. It's, this is the work. I'm not changing any of it. And I just love that.
Speaker 1 25:00
Influence, yeah, well, the world is shifting now, I think so, thank God. And I actually think it's really interesting, because Tony Lyons is a is a part of that, yeah?
Speaker 2 25:11
And there's a lot of books that, like, I would go, like, trife. Trife, like, Get that away from me, yeah, the people he works with. But I know Tony personally, and he's like, such a warm, amazing guy, and he's so pro writer. Yeah, he loves writers. He supports writers. And you know, that's, I'm so glad he's out there in the world.
Speaker 1 25:36
So let me ask you this, because, I mean, this is a personal question. Is there any jealousy with Bruce from him? No, no. Do you have jealousy? There's a wonderful essay, okay, by Jonathan Franzen, girlfriend, okay. Do you have any of that? You know
Speaker 2 25:55
what? I don't. Here's the thing, because I Okay. Here's how I fell in love with Bruce Wagner, and he knows this. I met him. I'm like, Oh yeah, he's that guy that he was big in the 90s, whatever, 2000s of wild palms. I just kind of like, put him in a category. I wasn't terribly interested. And I never read him, yeah. And my friend said, you know, I think I there might be a chemistry here. Would you read this book? And I, I I started reading the book, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I love him. Which book this was, I'll let you go. Okay? And it was just, I the genius of his prose. I was like, oh, because I'm like, I get crushes on talent, same that's my thing. So I have Bruce on such a pedestal, you know? I just, I so respect him, yeah, and I guess because I don't think of myself like, I don't think of myself as a writer. I don't mean like, Oh, I'm not a writer. I don't mean like that. I mean I don't care about, like, my career as an author, right? I'm a coach, right? Teacher. And my book, like, your thing, on good authority, that thing, my book is so pitching you all the time. It's so sincere.
Speaker 1 27:04
I care less about the pitching and more that like you remember it leave
Speaker 2 27:07
in your work so much, and I'm rereading it now, with this book launch coming. You are good, yeah, like highlighted and dog eared, yeah. Come on so. But, um, so my book really is, is, is for my business, yeah. And I have to say, I'm really proud of the of the pros, and part of that is because Bruce was like, they're helping me, you know, make it better, like, yeah, just helping with line editing and stuff. But because I think I'm not, like, want to, I don't want a career as an author. I don't, it doesn't come come in,
Speaker 1 27:38
yeah, yeah. And I find that's so it's such a good relationship advice too. Like you have reverence for him, and guess what? He's gonna have it back for you. You know it's, it's very much I relate to that in in my relationship, because I've had competitive ones.
Speaker 2 27:53
Oh yeah, I was married to an actor who I love. I don't want to put this after down, but there was, I was the one at the beginning, what said at the beginning of our relationship. I remember he we went up for the same movie, and he got a call back and I didn't, and I was so upset. Yeah, it was terrible. And it's not like, we're up for the same parts. He's like, six foot two and a man, right, right? But he got the call back and I didn't, and I was really upset. And that's like, was an ugly moment,
Speaker 1 28:15
well, and I think it is interesting, kind of what you were saying in the beginning about having this big career as an actress, the two careers you should not go into unless you can think of something else to do, kind of anything else to do, are acting and writing. And you have done this to yourself twice. Well, I
Speaker 2 28:31
was raised, you know, my parents were in the business, so I was kind of raised for it. But I think because I went through so much as an actor in terms of really having the, like, Brass Ring, catching it pretty young, and then having that brass ring, like, torn out of my hands. I'm thrown off the carousel. I'm in with the carnies in the in the alley. You know, I quick, my more quickly saw what when I got that first book, and I had this sort of, Phil calls it hyper signification, like, oh, I have a contract with Penguin, la, la, la, you know. And like, it is I have now arrived, like, this fake fantasy world I cut. And then I was checking that book rank, how am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing? It was I just did the same insanity I did about acting with writing. And I saw, Oh, okay, I'm taking this, this craziness, this pathology, to just another category. And I did it with guys too. When I was dating, I met him. I'm in love with him. Yes, he lives in a yurt and there's no running water, but, man, I can make it work. He's very avail story, by the way. Oh yeah, that's the definition of unavailable. So now I just, I'm really so happy about to have this book happen now, because I just feel right sized about it, but still, and when I have to be careful, though, because some people say, Oh, I really think it's gonna do well, I I erase it, but I almost go the negative. So the humility, right? Is I'm not the best, but I'm not the worst. Yeah, I. Just on the whatever plan, and that's what I go towards. Like, I'm going to do every action I can. I'm going to do it. Anna tells me to do I'm going to do it. And it may work or may not. I've lived, but I have lived through so much rejection in my life. It's like, what are you going to do? Reject me. Got it?
Speaker 1 30:16
Like, I mean, I think. And the irony is, when we have that attitude, not always, but a lot of the time, it actually is successful in the worldly way.
Speaker 2 30:25
Phil studs calls it the potency of not attachment. Yeah, right. So I call like, the fuck you money, yeah, I go in to do negotiation, and I have two years living expenses in the bank, yeah, or I can't pay my rent that month. Yep, I'm going to be much better at negotiation, obviously, with, with the money in the bank, the fuck you money, yeah, if I have fuck you money emotionally, yeah, like, I got it, yeah, I I'm proud of myself. I got this. And then that's just more attractive. Yeah? It's just makes you more powerful. So whether there's a spiritual compound component, law of attraction thing or not, we know, just at a practical level that who we are in the world is going to be much more attractive and enticing and open if we already are satisfied.
Speaker 1 31:11
Yeah, and it's the same thing with dating. I remember trying to play the games, and I'm not going to text him, I'm not going to text him. Guess what? People can feel that you don't need to text for him to know that you're obsessed. It's really true. It's you can feel that like fear and desperation penetrates not just people but energy. I agree, and so and so. How are you in a practical way going to use this book to blow up your business.
Speaker 2 31:40
Well, that's why I need to have some conversations with you. Good. I mean, yeah, I'm kind of finding that out, yeah, because that's what, that's my goal is. I want to do workshops around this book, yep, and, and it's also, it's my, you know, I start. I met Phil in 1987 and so his work, along with the work I've done in 43 years in the recovery community, my I have a lot of experience using spiritual concepts and techniques in my life. Yep, and I am so I think the book really shares that. So I want that information in the world, mine and also Phil's. Now, there have been books about Phil, etc, but I have such a long relationship with Him, yeah. And I feel like I have a perspective that not people haven't read yet. And I also my acting teacher was a man named Roy London who was very, very big in the 90s, and like Geena Davis thanked him when she got her award. And he became famous, but he never wrote a book. And someone who was one of his teachers, who told his, taught his beginning classes, etc, wrote a book, and this person used all of his techniques and didn't credit him once. And my book, I'm a credit junkie. Back to a fault. I'm like, Well, I heard it here. I heard it there. It there's a person. That person heard it here. And I want to say, Okay, here's how Phil taught it to me. Here's his version. Here's how I applied it, here's how I've adapted it. Here's how Barry Michaels his co writer of the co author of the tools and coming alive. This is a Barry Michael meditation. Here's how I've changed it, but I'm big on giving, you know, giving homage to our teachers, to Sir with love, or to ma'am with love, or to them with love, right? Just, it's important to carry the message and to carry where the message came from in an honest way.
Speaker 1 33:38
And so why didn't you call it the tools for women?
Speaker 2 33:43
I was going to and it ended up being kind of more than that. Yeah, it ended up being more for that. Because it's kind of still right. It's a little too writing on the coat tails, in a way, because already it's introduction. He wrote the introduction. Yeah, so my book already has his name covered in the in the description. We'll probably say the tools
Speaker 1 34:01
were and his blurb is on the cover, because I just, yeah, but we're probably,
Speaker 2 34:05
I'm hoping with not that I don't love Phil, but it's like a joke on a joke. I know I saw that. I was like, I want to have all women blurbs. So, you know, I we're still, I just turned it in. I just did my first round of edits. So we won't have, like, galleys till October or November. So I haven't even tried to do the blurb thing yet. So I really want all women, because,
Speaker 1 34:25
yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And so it literally, what is your plan for getting business through the book?
34:35
Well,
Speaker 2 34:38
well, I have a newsletter, and I'm talking about the book and the newsletter. Are you on a sub stack? I am, but I have, like, two posts. I just started a sub stack facing meta Mac, but I have a newsletter. And I'm also going to do some events coming up where, if you buy the book and have receipts, you get free entry to these events. So that's one. Ideal thing I'm doing. What else should I do?
Speaker 1 35:02
Well, you know, my big thing is, Where, where are your ideal clients? So who is your ideal client?
Speaker 2 35:11
Well, one is sitting across from me. It's, it's, it's women. I work. I work with. I said, I'm sorry, the books for women, but I work, I think, with more men than women. Actually. It's really, I feel like everybody really struggles with generally the same problems. It's just the women have a lot of other ones that are really female specific, right? But okay, so Phil has a concept called part x in recovery. They call it my disease, right? But everybody has a part x, and part x is the part that wants to kill you, either literally or spiritually, makes you want to feel like dying. And it's the thing that says to the gambler, you know, okay, you've lost the house, you've lost your family, but if you just put $1,000 on 13 black, if there was a 13 black, I don't know, you know, you can get it all back. Yeah? It's that voice, or it's the thing that says, Jamie, you can't write. You're not a real writer. You can't do this piece of shit. You're stupid. It's everybody has that, men, women. I have very wealthy clients. I have artist clients. Everybody has this voice. So what was I, oh, you said, Who's your ideal client? It's kind of everybody. Know It. It's just people who want help moving forward. And I think I've really demonstrated that in my life, because I've been hit a number of times business wise, especially, and like when I had mentioned earlier, I was on The Tonight Show, I was top 10 TV person. I had my face the TV Guide, just my own face for the show. And then in the mid 90s, I lost everything, went bankrupt. I had bought my first house when I was 23 lost everything, and that's when I was like, I'm the shop girl. Hello. And came back, and at that time, I thought, Okay, well, clearly I should just kill myself, because I see no way forward. I dropped out of college. I'd never had I didn't have any other skills. I started acting when I was six. It was my one job, yeah, and a long story, but I ended up putting one foot in the front of the other. I ended up teaching at university, creating online courses in dramatic literature, teaching them. Got grants this without a BA because they brought me in because of my life experience. I taught Chekhov, I taught Shakespeare. I then I ended up having my own acting classes, separate private ones. Then I wrote this book because I fell in love with Argentine Tango, got an idea for the book, wrote the book. The book I called Phil Stutz, my old shrink to say, Hey, I write this book about feminine and masculine archetypes, and I want to interview you for the beginning. And he goes, Oh, I'm writing a book too. It's called the tools. So we start hooking up. I'm like, you know who's coaching your work, and I've been using your work for 20 years now. Yeah. Well, come on, let's do some seminars together. I mean, so now I look back at this time when my life was over, I thought is when my life started. Yeah. So I have a lot of experience with like, you move forward, you move forward, you move forward. Even if you have no I had no idea, yeah, no, it there. If I tried to look at it logically, I was like, No, well, clearly you need to just kill, yeah, just die, yeah, just die. So over 10 years, yeah, I wasn't gonna drink, because I would then be like, you know, drunk and yeah, yeah. So it was like, Well, clearly that it's that this is it, yeah, you know, but I just stayed alive and just moved forward well. And I
Speaker 1 38:25
think that's really interesting, because I, you know, I know the years that I spent in traditional publishing, I just thought, well, I got to make money off book sales, I got to do this, I got to do that. And then when I realized that wasn't going to happen, I was 39 and I said, I have no skills beyond writing. What do people like me do? And I had read a Guston burrow, so I was like, I guess we go work in advertising, I don't know. And there was a guy who lived in my building in New York whose girlfriend worked at an ad agency. And so I asked her, and she said, yeah, yeah, you'd come get an internship. And I was like, Okay, this is not good. And slowly, I put this business together, and it was not because I'm a genius, but because I was out of options, the gift of desperation, yeah, and the joy. First of all, I find business just as creative as writing. And second of all, it actually pays off. I mean, writing to me is, is, is business, but it's just volunteer work, pretty much, yes, and so and so, realizing that the point of the book is to have another source of revenue. And if that sounds tacky, I've got no problem with you going, anyone listening, going and doing volunteer work. I just think there are easier forms of volunteer work than writing a book. Oh, yeah. So as we wrap up, what final words do you have to say really about traditional publishing and your experience
Speaker 2 39:52
that the the idea that the the scent, the the aura of traditional. Old publishing is kind of all there is in terms of the benefit. I mean, you get to say, like, Oh, I was published by Penguin or, you know, but beyond that, in terms of the life of your book, I really do, because my book, when it finally got fun was when I started doing my own stuff around it, and I took the bull by the horns, as they say. It wasn't because anybody, I don't have a resentment about it. I just saw what was happening and that stuff that anybody can do, self published or not, just you get to have a ride with your book. So traditional publishing, publishing, great. You have to do the same things, whether you do are traditionally published or not traditionally published,
Speaker 1 40:41
100% genius. We got to end on that. Jamie, if people want to find out more about you, you're going to be doing more than two posts on your sub stack. Where else should they go?
Speaker 2 40:50
Jamie rose, coaching, calm, amazing. Well, thanks. Oh, you picked a good time.
Speaker 1 40:56
Mic drop. Mic drop, when she said her website, which is interesting. You guys, thanks so much for listening. You.