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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.
00:00
Right. Okay, let's do it.
00:01
Okay, so Dennis, I was Diana. How are you? Hi, Dennis, anyone? I was telling you from outside, you were the very first person, and I'm gonna say I knew, but I did not know you. I knew of in my general stratosphere who published a book, and I just thought it was the coolest thing. I couldn't believe it. That's really moving to me, actually. Yeah, it's very sweet of you to say that. Yeah, wait, but you know, looking back, I kind of can't believe it, in a way. It came out in 1998 and it was my novel misadventures in the two on three. It was iconic, because I just don't feel like anybody had kind of done the getting to La story. Maybe they had. But, you know, there's a lot of sort of old Hollywood, right? You know,
00:54
Dave the locus kind of thing, but, but I moved here in 96 and and I must have known people who knew you, because people were talking about, I have some bizarre association with the crunch on Sunset. Did you get there? There's this chapter set there, that's why, yes, yes, I went there. Yeah. I got a free membership because I worked for detour magazine for a year when they were starting out in the 90s, people were giving stuff away. You could not go to a party without getting a gift. Bag of every fun thing in the world, 1000s of dollars worth of things. And that was the 90s and and I was broke, so it meant I'll use that shampoo. I remember one of the gift bag things that I went to they had socks that were numbered, so you could always find the pair, which is so smart, and I wore those things out, but they were a gift bag thing. And also, like, shampoo and conditioner. Yeah, I'd probably still have shampoo and conditioner from the 90s that you would get in those gift bags. So, so let's talk about that. So detour and details, I would say, which probably people confused the two back in the day. Yeah, that was, I have a theory, that's fact, which is Gen X was the last generation that said I can make a living as a writer. We were the end the death. Now I feel like we were, maybe I haven't been. I think I've checked so far out of that world, yeah, that I don't know what people think about writing. Now I interview authors on my podcast, and I don't know how many of them are making much money on what they write, it feels more like hobbyish, a hobby ish thing, yeah, and I have no problem with hobbyish things. I have a million of them, yeah. But yeah, that feels like it was possible then, and it was, I'm grateful that I was part of it. Yeah, it was really glamorous. So, so you, you get hooked up with detour, which I remember desperately wanting to, and I never knew those people. Well, here's what, here's the my magazine journey in a nutshell. So in 1990 I'm working as a dancer on Princess Cruises, yes, and I had a break in one of my stints, like you to do four months on, have two months off, and I auditioned for Madonna Blonde Ambition tour, and I was a huge fan of hers. And what if I got it like, you know, I started dancing a little late, so I wasn't quite up to I wasn't good enough, really, but I auditioned, and she was there. We went through the whole thing, and I got typed out right away. But the story was so rich and funny to me that I wrote an article about it called Confessions of a boy toy wannabe. And I went to the newsstand and I sent it to every magazine. I bought all the magazines and got the mastheads and wrote query letters to all these magazines, and none of them bit. So I did another round. Yep, you know, and movie line magazine, there was an editor there that read my letter, and he wrote back to me, and he said, If your article is as funny as your letter, then I think we might have a deal. And they published my article, and he started giving me little assignments, and they started as like they were called hype pieces, and they were in the front of the magazine, and they were, like, 250 words interviews. My first one was Florence Henderson, and you would get like $250
04:07
$1 a word. I know, I mean, I didn't mean to say something so profane on your podcast.
04:14
Yeah. So I got enough of those together that I created a little packet, and then I sent to other magazines, and detour came on board. They liked my stuff, and they gave me opportunities. But here's the catch. With detour,
04:28
they didn't pay anything. Yeah,
04:31
you did it for the sake of doing it, yeah, for the exposure and for whatever the opportunity. And I was like, okay, and these are, like, 1000, you know, two or 3000 word pieces. They were long Q and A's, but I loved it, yeah, and I had enough goodwill at detour that when they got some money invested in them, like, a couple years into my stint there, they gave me a fiction column called misadventures in the 213, and that's where the book came out of but I think the key part of that is that I wrote for free for them, for like.
05:00
Three years, big, long stories, but they were amazing stories, Rosie O'Donnell, Carrie Fisher, and those stories led to other paying gigs. But I think people might look at a journey and go, well, it always seemed to go that well, no, you try writing for free for three years for something. Yeah. Well, that's all you can do today. If not, if not pay, if not pay. Yeah, so I didn't mind it like it was, it was, I felt like it was building something. I was joyful. I got to interview Carrie Fisher in her own bed, like and I got to be a part of something. I remember going in to detour when the new issues would come out, and just looking at it. And the photos were so gorgeous, and detour magazine threw the best parties. Yep, I remember the best, and it was an exciting time to be there. And then after a couple of years, other magazines would come on board, and I would periodically send out my stuff like I was hust like that. And then eventually I was able to quit my day job, which was at the West Valley Jewish Community Center doing like, the newsletter and stuff. Yeah, I'm not Jewish, but I would be like, shalom, yeah, you know. And I loved it. It was everyone there was really nice. And I eventually was able to quit doing that and be a writer full time, piecing it together with these different freelance gigs. And you have ever since.
06:21
Well, yes and no. Like I've I have not made that much money, sometimes on writing, but I would piece it together with some other part of this creative thing I rarely had, like a day job, although I took a temp job at Crate and Barrel in 2016
06:42
part time,
06:44
because I had been through something very traumatizing. Yeah, in my career and my nervous system was a mess. I was really in a bad place, and I wasn't working and and I had a friend that worked there, and I thought, well, maybe I can do this over the holidays. It'll just kind of be something to do and calm me down and and all of that. And I remember being in the interview for it, and my nervous system was a wreck, and I was acting like I was a normal person, yeah, and I wasn't. And then I got it, and I was like, You know what
07:20
the my journey in entertainment and media and stuff had been so tumultuous and traumatizing that working in the back room at Crate and Barrel was like a balm. You know what? All I have to do is take those spatulas from there to there. Okay, it was minimum wage, but it was fair. Yeah, wow. And that felt
07:43
like a relief at the time, you know,
07:48
so I kept going. And so I would say that most writers I know use the word traumatizing in some way, yeah, usually relating to their book, but you, you came on the scene so early, maybe it was pre trauma time. Well, the book part wasn't traumatizing. It came later, when I was working on a television show,
08:15
the book was what happened is I had enough columns built up in detour that I'm like, maybe there's a book in here, and there was an article in OUT magazine the bird cage was on the cover. That'll give you an idea of the time about a new guy who had gotten his imprint in publishing named Rob Weisbach. He was the youngest guy to ever get his own imprint. It was a division of William Morrow, I think, and he had done all the like the Whoopi Goldberg book and the Ellen generous book, and he so he had made his name with these kind of comic celebrity books, and he got his own imprint. And I wrote him a letter, and I said, Congratulations. I read about you in OUT magazine. That's so cool that you're doing that. And I noticed you said that you want to bring new voices to the world. Well, I've been writing this column. Dot. Dot. Dot. I got a call, like, two days later, wow. I mean, things fell into place in the 90s. I hustled. And every one of these steps is I did something, yeah, but the phone would come ring like, I know, in a way that like, I think I used up all my yeses in the 90s. I think I used them all, but, you know, and so I had a good experience with the book. I liked working with the person. I got a decent advance for a first book, not life changing. Money, yeah, I got, I got $22,000 which in 1997 Yeah, amazing. And,
09:35
and the experience with the editor and the publisher and the creative was wonderful. I hustled. I realized early on though they had a publicist for me and they did a few things, but then I went, Oh, shit, I gotta do this. Yeah, there's no train that you get on and it just takes off. So I would go into every bookstore and sign stock. I would do readings anywhere. I was always setting up my own shit. I did a little puppet shows with them.
10:00
I was relentless in terms of trying to promote that thing. But it's interesting because social media wasn't a thing yet. Yeah, and I don't love social media, and I wonder if I had a book out now, would I get on that social media? Would I be good at that? Could I transfer the hustle that I had in that 90s, when that was, you know, not a thing to this moment. I don't love it hard. I think it's for, you know, the the following generation. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, we're both Gen X. Are you Gen X? I'm Gen X, yeah. I turn 61 tomorrow. That's So, I know, crazy, I know, I kind of can't believe it, but I'm okay with it. I'm not mad at it. Yeah, was last year a big one. No, not really. Like, I mean, I tried to do something special for it, but I didn't have, I don't often have existential angst about turning another that's good year, because what's the alternative? Yeah, it's better than the alternative. Yeah, so. But so, so, going back to the, you know, using up all the S's yeses in the 90s, I have theories about how, what the universe will do is it'll give you a gift, you know, maybe a few, yeah, they jump out at you and you, if you're me, say, of course, this is what I've been waiting for. The Universe sees my greatness, right? What you do not understand most of us at the time is that this is not just the way it's gonna be from now on, right? And I never took it for granted. I never thought, Oh, I'm on my way. I mean, I think a little bit, but not really, not in a way that, like,
11:41
I think it goes back to I realized I put this together, maybe like 10 years ago. I was an accident kid. I was there were five in a clump, and then eight years later, I came along, and I never thought about it really, but I kind of in terms of my relationship with my father, I felt a bit like a trespasser at my own home. He wasn't abusive, but I have no tender memories of him, and so there's this feeling of I'm not supposed to be here, and what that did for me is I have to be hyper responsible. I cannot assume that I'm on the list, no matter how hard I work, no matter I have a book out, there's this thing inside that's like, that you're there's been a mistake, and not because of your aspects or anything about you. It's just you're awesome, but it doesn't matter, right? There was a thing. So I think that was so ingrained in me that I never
12:37
thought, don't you know who I am, or I never really went down that road. I don't think maybe I have friends that are like, You are insufferable, but I don't think I was, I don't think you I think I knew that this stuff was a really tricky and long shot from the from the jump, but also that there's a thing inside me that was, like,
12:58
always a little bit outside, if that makes sense, yeah. And I mean, how wonderful in terms of gratitude, in terms of not taking things for granted. And I because I think I didn't, I did. I was so not conscious. I just you had your big your book, yeah, I got the word party, isn't it? The party girl, party girl universe gave me a bunch of gifts, yeah, and I, unlike you, thought,
13:26
you know, and I was the second child that was completely ignored. So I have no idea why it didn't work out that same way, but, but I kind of it was the opposite. It was like, God damn it, you don't see me. You don't value me.
13:38
The world will and sorry, I just got something in my eye. And so I was like, Finally, and I didn't understand. You know, the first freelance story I did was for Playboy, and it was optioned in a bidding war and made into a reality show pilot. And I was like, yeah, that's how it goes. Never happened again. You know, my first book sold in a bidding war, within a week of me getting the agent, you know, yeah, never have. I mean, I sold future books, but, but it so I didn't get it. But the times have changed. Obviously, there's millions of books being out, when, when, when your book came out. I mean, it was a special thing because there weren't that many, I guess so, right? And because it had a major publisher behind it, it had a cover that was very eye catching. Yeah, it was this classic vintage photograph of a woman's face, kind of a close up, and then the eyelashes were daisy petals. And when the designer sent us the cover. I looked at it, and I thought, What is that like? I think I was expecting a Hollywood sign palm trees. I don't know what I was expecting. And I was like, so I was a little bit like, what confused by it. And then I just sat on the coffee table, and I kept looking at it, and I was like, That's cool, yeah. And it's the kind of cover that people will.
15:00
Base front if you're in a bookstore, yeah. So that was cool. There was a lot of cool things that came together, but I and then I optioned it twice for television, and neither one of those went yeah. And one of the bummers of when I look at my career is that I was never able to realize a visual version of that. I've written scripts and things like that, but I never really, yet, yet, yet. Yeah, I still, I still have a dream about it. I still, I still would love to do it, um, and we should clarify, by the way, yeah, that the 213, is all but obsolete. For listeners who don't know that was the only area code that was the area code of, like, not, not the valley, but Los Angeles, generally, Hollywood, three did not exist. I remember when 3323, didn't exist. I don't even know if 310 really, 3103 when I was starting to was that fancy people? Well, 310 was Beverly Hills and stuff like that, which is not the world of this book. These people are on the fringe of show business, yeah. So and so. What happened to that debate? I've never heard of Rob Weisbach. What happened to him? Well, he ended up, he ended up moving on from there, and he was kind of orphaned for like he didn't have a setup for a while, and I wanted to keep moving ahead, so I had written some other columns for a magazine called British premieres. Premiere magazine in England, called Screening party. And they were where a group of friends would come over and watch JAWS or Pretty Woman, and I'd write about this thing. Well, I wanted to work with Rob again, but he wasn't set up anywhere. So I'm like, I'll do this smaller book for Allison. Was the gay and lesbian publication at the time. So I pitched them this book screening party, where I would combine these movie party articles and thread a novel through it with the characters that come to watch these movies. And they went for it, and it was a much smaller deal. I think it was $5,000 total.
16:52
And once I started working on it, it became much more ambitious, creatively, like it was hard as hell, but I'm really proud of it the way the novel kind of came through it. And I was like, If I had known the book I was going to end up with, I might have shot aimed higher in terms of a more
17:11
established or bigger publisher or whatever, but I hustled my ass off promoting that one and stuff as well. And I had a great experience with it, but it didn't, you know, make money or anything. We had a TV deal with that that didn't happen, but has been made. Has hasn't some version of it been made. I made it myself. Tell me about the hat, um, in like, 2005 I had written a pilot script for it, for how it could be a TV show. And then I had some friends that had just started to get into producing, and I invested my own money, and we made this pilot. I'm in it with different friends, and
17:51
it played some festivals, and we used it as a tool to I had a production company at one point partner with me to try to sell it, and we just, we didn't sell it, but I'm proud that we saw it through like I, I I like things to exist in the world, and sometimes you get paid for them, and sometimes you don't, right, but I would rather have them exist than not. You know, out of anyone I think I've ever known, you are this the person who has taken creativity into every aspect that creativity can be taken that means a lot to me, from board games that have become live games to movies to live shows to books to articles to dancing, which is a different version of it. Yeah, you know what I but I am at a point where it's very these are questions that I'm reckoning with, because I am not set up for retirement in the way that some of my peers are. I have a number of peers who came to LA to be an actor or a writer or whatever, and they ended up like an attempt job at some production company, and they just stayed and moved up, and they're set right, right? I did all the things that I've been trying to do or to the best of my ability,
19:08
and I'm not, and I don't know if, and I think it's okay, yeah, I think it's I think I could, I could be done. The thing that I don't have is, Oh man, what if I gone for it. What if I tried? I don't have that. Yeah, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and be fine. Yeah, just tell me where to stand. It's funny, because it's almost like, I mean, I don't want to. This is how I felt back in the day, the people who, quote, sold out, who became suits, who gave up the creative thing. I felt so bad for them, and then I sort of became one of them at about my mid 40s. I go, what's wrong with making money? Yeah, no, and there's, there's, yeah, having health insurance and all that stuff, yeah, and I, and I really shifted, I would say, it became more capitalistic. I was like, Okay, be almost the OP.
20:00
Opposite of the lawyer who wants to kill himself at 30 because, you know, he listened to his parents and didn't become, you know, the writer he wanted to become.
20:08
But it's interesting how I remember those people when, when I was in my 20s, it's kind of like people who left la in the pandemic. I'm like, huh, couldn't hack it. Yeah, no, no, but who left la before the pandemic, and then in the pandemic, I was like, Oh, you escaped, you know, but now I'm back to loving la again. I think I am too, yeah, actually, you know, but I went through a whole journey around personal happiness and gratitude and like, I've had enormous shifts. If things had fallen into place better for me,
20:45
I would be a totally different person. I the thing that I sort of hinted at before was the traumatizing event. Yep, in 2010
20:55
I had kind of been scraping by and a little lost, and I got a job writing on the TV show Fashion Police, with Joan Rivers, and it saved my skin, like I could exhale, and it was a hit. Yeah, I had done a lot of cool stuff that wasn't a hit. Nothing. Nothing was that things got canceled, whatever. This was a hit. I liked the people I was working with. It was creative enough, you know.
21:23
And it was financially, the most I'd ever been paid consistently for anything. And in 2013
21:31
our show was not a Writers Guild show. We were on the E channel, the two other shows in our category on the E channel, talk soup or the soup. And Chelsea, lately, had gone guild like the previous year, so now the Writers Guild was trying to get us to go guild. I was a guild member, so I was torn. You know, I was working on the show as a script consultant, and they weren't gonna kick me out or the guild or anything. But I was like, it mattered to me that I was in the Writers Guild, it meant something.
22:03
And there were freelancers working on our show. I was on staff, so my compensation and benefits and stuff was comparable to get like it was decent, it was it was good for me. It was the best I'd ever been treated. But there were freelancers that would create, contribute jokes on our show that were being so underpaid and under valued, like they would get paid for one day's work, like $600 maybe, and work for three or four days on jokes for that episode. And, you know, and they were, and it was just the way it was. And Joan Rivers a major talent. And the reason that show succeeded, and I have so many great memories of working with her, but she wanted a lot of jokes. She you there could never be too many jokes. So anyway, it built to this impasse. We went on strike, and I was torn between my job and my profession, and it blew up my life in a way that I'm still feeling like my best friend was the head writer, and my roommate, he moved out two days later, and,
23:02
you know, and I ended up not working for a long time, and I started having all these physical problems, sinusitis and digestion and all this stuff. I started taking, I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but you'll relate to this. Yeah, we talked about it at dance class, but I don't really remember the details I had before I got the job on fashion police, I'd had a bout of anxiety and depression, and I started taking Effexor, and it helped me, along with
23:31
a micro dose of Klonopin, like, yeah, like a smaller thing, whatever. So I was going through this thing post fashion police strike, I wasn't getting work, and there was a part of me
23:41
that I started to put together, that blamed myself, that I did this because I wasn't a good boy, because the way I was going to get through the world feeling a little bit like a trespasser in my life. See, the stuff about my father was I was going to be a good boy. I was going to be creative and work hard and be a good boy. And the strike I wasn't, I went against my bosses. You know what I mean? Like I I stood up for myself in a real way
24:12
for the first time, and it did a number on my nervous system. And so every day that I wasn't working was confirmation that I shouldn't have done that, that I you know that I had broken my own survival rules, and it did a number on me. So I started to try. I tried Klonopin again to see if that would help. And it was like a month, and I was like, I don't think this is right. Is the right thing, and I couldn't come off it. It was like those brain zaps, and I was taking a small amount, like, I am not substances have never been my thing. I couldn't come off it, and I was overwhelmed, and I was alone. And I finally just called the hospital and I said, I need help. And they were like, Okay. And what that meant was rehab, that's how they would treat that Yep. And so I went through rehab for a drug I'd been taking for a month and a half. Wow.
25:00
Yeah, and I was in there with alcoholics and drug addicts, and
25:04
I was, I was not in the wrong place, yeah, I needed a place to fall apart. I spent time in the hospital,
25:13
and I thought I was gonna die, you know, I thought, I thought I was gonna die, and I
25:22
thought they would do it autopsy, and then it would say that he died of disappointment. That's what I thought I was gonna die of. So when I started to come out of it and get better and find things that help, and when I started treating it like trauma and not depression, I found things that helped. Yeah, I found a medication that helped. I went to somatic experiencing. I started Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction at UCLA. I discovered meditation. I got really into the science of happiness, all of that stuff. It's a little Woo, woo, but I got into all of it, and it helped me so much. Yeah, and it's changed my relationship to success. It changed my relationship to creativity.
26:03
I now move through the world totally different. But if that hadn't happened, if I hadn't gone through that,
26:15
I don't think I would be this person, yeah, and I thought I wasn't gonna make it, you know. And so I think in one of the earlier conversations we had leading up to this, you mentioned that a lot of people talk about disappointment, yeah, or trauma, trauma and relationship, yeah. And I think being able to deal with disappointment
26:38
is what having a plan, having a toolkit for that is what
26:44
I think it's the most important thing if you're gonna pursue this stuff. Yeah, I think it's more important than, like, talent, talent, or knowing 3x structure, or whatever it is. I think it's the most important thing. And I've come to a place where I feel like I figured out how to live, and now I have to figure I have no idea how to make a living. It's different, but I figured out how to live, and it's evolving. But I'm like, okay, these are the tools. This is the approach, and I've landed here. Doesn't matter what I get or how things go, all that matters is who I'm being, if I like who I'm being, and I'm bold, and I'm kind, and I'm all the things that you step up in that way, you know inside, yeah, then the show might go, might not go, that thing won't work. And like I you mentioned the game that I co created with my friend Jeb havens called, you don't know my life during the pandemic, we started hosting virtual games. And we did. You were one of the first ones, and it led to a whole thing, whole thing, right? So you hosted one of the very earliest ones, and then one of your friends on that game hosted another game. Yep. And there was a development exec on there for a big company, Michael. Michael cost again, who I adore. Never met in person. We did zooms and we did the whole thing. So he optioned it for Jason Bateman's company, partnered with this other production company that does game shows really well, Eureka. And we did pitches and we and how I was in this whole process was all that matters is who I'm being. So I was always energetic
28:26
if, but if I had an opinion about something, I stepped up. I In the past, even if it was my book or my project that was on the table, I would always defer to the more experienced Hollywood people. And in this case, there were times where I was like, I'm the expert on this, and that's why I would say there was something I said in the pitches that was important for me to say. And I just and I did so I could stand by, okay? I stood I stepped up in the way that I wanted to through this process. We ran out, we pitched these different networks and all of that stuff, and I felt really good about the pitches, and it didn't go Yeah. And I got that email saying, well, we kind of ran the course, and I was sad about it for about five seconds.
29:10
I can't believe that. Yeah, there's a time when that would have put me I would have been down for a year. Yeah,
29:17
because I I've changed the way I keep score. I don't keep score of wins and losses and yeses and nos and like, there's too much. It's too hard. The chances are too slim. If you wanna keep going, you gotta let it go and just kind of keep going and do shit for the sake of doing it. That is so brilliant. It made me think of so many things. You know this idea?
29:43
You know I know, with my first book, I had all the expectations in the world, right? And when they weren't met, I went around going, I didn't get what I deserve. That was my refrain. And then one day, few years into that refrain, it occurred to me, what if I've gotten more than I deserve? What.
30:00
What if I think of all the talented people who never got the book deal, who are probably more talented than I am, and then I start, you know, and I was so jealous, and I wanted this, and I wanted that, and then I kind of became friends with those, a lot of those writers that got all that, and I saw they're just struggling along for the next thing too. What I want is happiness, and I've learned no thing gives me happiness. So what's the point of being jealous of it, right? So yeah, and I think you're right. I think making it as a writer, or making a living as a writer, is so, you know, I do think it was possible for a time. I did it for a time, right? And and it was good, but it's so impossible that you better have a rolling with it attitude, or you'll be miserable. Yeah, yeah. I recently interviewed this woman for my podcast named Stephanie Elizondo Christ, and she wrote a book called Art above everything, and she goes around the world and interviews all these women who have dedicated their lives to their art, whether it's dance or painting or whatever, and they sacrifice all kinds of stuff for it, financial freedom, family, all this stuff, and is it worth it? And I was so moved by this. My friend of mine saw an article about her and said, Oh, you have to have her on your podcast, because this is what you talk about all the time. Is it worth it? Was there another road that was meant to be on, you know? Yeah. So one of the things she said, Well,
31:33
we she said this, and I hope I get it right. She goes,
31:38
she teaches now, and she goes, this is something I tell my students. Because what I said to her, so I'm like, even the safe road isn't that safe anymore? Yeah. She goes, Listen, everything is essentially impossible. So if everything is impossible, then anything is possible. And that's what I try to tell my students, right? If you accept that it's all impossible, that it's all then it then it's kind of like, Yeah, but I like doing it, so I'm gonna just try. Yeah, I don't know, yeah, trying is one of my big values. Like, it's cool to try and the result whatever, yeah, yeah. I mean, the result is karma. Why do some books take off in crazy, crazy ways? I guess it was that writer's karma, because it's usually not their talent or anything, but just sheer randomness. Yeah, it seems, well, this has been amazing. When you came in, you said, I don't know that I have that much to say about publishing. I don't know about the publishing world, but I have a lot to say about creativity and resilience. Yeah, I feel like that's where I landed. So I I started this second podcast called Dennis Hensley's happy and gay. It's a sub stack and Patreon thing where I talk about some of these ideas around happiness that have helped me, like, just like, little tools and tricks and things that that have helped me kind of move through the world, like, I don't care that much what happens, yeah, but you do need to have enough money to live like, you know, and, and that's like,
33:11
kind of, you know, that's a real problem. That's the thing we need, and as humans. But I'm proud that I just keep going, Yeah, I don't know what the other I don't know what the other option is, yeah, yeah. Well, I love that. I love that is there. So people will want to find you. There are so many creative outlets, but just Dennis Hensley is the place. Dennis hensley.com I have my podcast, Dennis. Anyone with Dennis Hensley? I have a new project, and can I just share a little bit? Okay, so I have this new game that I created called search party, and we're trying to get pre orders now to pay for the printing and have it here by Christmas, like we did with
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you don't know my life and my I came up with this one on my own, but my partner, Jeb, who helped me with the other one, is helping me with some parts of it, but in terms of like selling it and trying to get the pre orders, it's not going well. And I was like, are we going to pull the plug, or
34:07
do I have to find a new way to kind of ask people to do it? Do I need to? Because at the beginning of the year, I thought, Do I try to do this this year? Everyone's freaked out. It's such a dark world. And then I'm like, no, just keep going. Like, do something. Maybe it'll bring people together. It's something to look forward to, so I decided to do it. But it we I may have to pull the plug, and I'm reckoning with, like, what do I do?
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Should I go online and beg? Is that a thing? Well, well, yes. But also, what if it's not on your timetable. What if it's not by Christmas? Yeah. So what? Yeah? I mean just to to stick with the theme, yeah, no, being like, okay with whatever happens, and with not giving up, which is what you've been talking about. So pulling the plug is probably not the correct phrasing, yeah, but kind of waiting to see when it unfold.
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Folds. Yeah, maybe that's it because, because, even as it, even as this has happened, this is land, because, here's what I thought, we did it before. We don't need as much money this time because it's smaller game. Whatever I thought, I thought, Oh, it'll, it'll work like it did before, yeah, and it didn't like it's, maybe it's not as appealing of a game, but I don't even think people are really engaging with it. I think it's just a different time and whatever. And so it was like, oh shit. I thought, yeah, I thought we knew how to do this, or I knew how to do this, and so, but even as it's landed on me today, and I have to figure this out in the next day or so, it's kind of like, oh, this is an opportunity. This isn't something bad that's happened. Yeah, this is a chance for me to step up, or to figure this out, or to be vulnerable and ask for what I want from people that believe in me and support me and would probably love this game. Yeah, you just don't want to. It just feels like a weird year to be like, help me with my Kickstarter, you know what I mean. But maybe get over it. Thank you. Thank you. And also, what you said, it didn't go like the last one. What goes like the last one in a creative project, nothing ever goes like the last one. But that's you're constantly getting these lessons of like, yeah, you thought you had a you had it down,
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and you have to go, you have to roll with it, and you have to sort of be bemused by it, like, oh well. Like, I get to, oh, well, so much faster than I used to, yeah. And I used to keep score so differently, like, oh, especially with like, peers that were doing well, oh well, they had a big win. Well, I'll have one next year. Yeah. And then a certain point you're like, Oh, you're Greg Berlanti, good, good God, go with God. I mean, this certain point that game ends not Well, yeah. And I was like, I have to not keep score like that. I have to not keep score between wins and losses and yeses and nos and they have this and when is it going to be my turn? And yeah, I like you said that thing where you thought you deserved more. Yeah, there'll be times where I thought that I deserve more, and
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not just in terms of professional things, but romantic things or whatever. And that way of thinking doesn't serve me. It's what can I bring?
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Who can I be?
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Can I have fun? Can I go for things? Can I Be bold? Can I stand up for what I believe in? Can I be generous of spirit? Like, that's where it's at for me, and it's, and there's, it's still super uncertain, so you just kind of keep going. I do have a crass bit of advice for how to get people to donate. Yes, no, I'm looking for ideas. Like, I'm like, Okay, this is an opportunity to figure out something well. So you have a great newsletter. I do send out. I do so and it's chock a block, and Tomorrow's my birthday, so I can kind of melt that. Put nothing on it, but I need your help, yeah? Or, even better, my game is in trouble, yeah? I really, because that's vulnerability. Yeah, I don't want anything for my birthday except support. Yeah, it feels super uncomfortable, because I feel like I'm begging, but I'm just gonna do this and see what happens. I like that, yeah, yeah. People will respond to my No, because I think it's a lot of people are like, oh, yeah, of course, I would do that. Yeah. It's just not, it's not a comfortable place to be well as as someone who's on your newsletter list, I look forward to that tomorrow, and I look forward to supporting it, because that's what I'm gonna do. Well. Thank you very much, Anna, and yeah, that your early support of that led to that whole thing, and it was incredible that I still believe in it like and I it was a good experience. And there was a time when I would think of it as, like, a failure or whatever, but it was a journey, and it was a thing, and I've gotten better at managing No, like, it's become, like,
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if things have gone smoother for me, I would be a different person, yeah? And I like all of this stuff. I like these ideas, yeah, I feel like it's I feel like it's really meaningful and something that I can can share with people. But I, I,
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yeah, if things had gone good for me, I would have been they have totally like, if I'd fallen into place more professionally. Well, okay, we got to wrap up. Yeah. Thank you so so much. Dennis, this was a delight. We didn't even talk about dance. We we can bust some moves together. Oh, my God, we had so much years. Here's I did two commercials this year as a dancer. I made more money this year as a dancer than as a writer. No, isn't that crazy? What commercials? There's one out on the air right now for Las Vegas called Welcome to Fabulous. And it's fabulous. It's a fabulous commercials. They flew us to Vegas. I did a self tape because I have an agent now for dance. You told me that I love it. It's crazy. I did a self tape, and I was like, This is stupid. I look dumb. I don't care. Oh, I'll send it. And they fucking picked me. Oh, I swore, but, and put us up at the hotel. And it's this wonderful story about a woman's.
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Stuck in an office who imagines going to Vegas and having an experience and and then I did another one for another major brand. I didn't sign an NDA for, but it hasn't come out yet. I'm line dancing behind a person. Did you ever do so we, we for many years. Did Ben Allen's group three class? Love it. Did you do the flash mob for Halloween? I did. We did that together. We did thriller, yes, the YouTube space,
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yeah, yeah, I got paid as a dancer. Yes, I think they gave us 100 bucks. Yeah, amazing. So fun. Was so fun. I remember that. I remember that we were all dressed up in costumes and stuff, dancing. If you told me that that that was gonna come back around in this way? Yeah, I'd be really surprised, but I've kept it up so I can still kind of do it. I love it. Yeah, you're the only professional dancer on this podcast. Okay, y'all thank you so much for listening. Thank you.
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Super fun. Oh, super fun.