← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
The Year in Review
00:53:42
Jeff and Rebecca look back at the books & stories that defined 2024.
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- [00:01]
Jeff O'Neill
This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app you can talk live and have a real time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things.
- [00:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like if you want to practice for.
- [00:11]
Jeff O'Neill
An upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 to use Gemini Live.
- [00:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks Dutch Bros is all about you choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our Rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros app for a free medium drink plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards offer valid for new app users only. Free medium drink REWARD upon registration 14 day expiration terms apply.
- [00:54]
Jasmine Marie
See dutchbros.com this is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill.
- [00:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [01:00]
Jasmine Marie
And we have made it to the end, Rebecca.
- [01:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
We're crawling across the finish line but we're gonna cross it.
- [01:07]
Jasmine Marie
We come at last to the end of our 2020 for programming, at least in the main feed and we have one more 2024 show that's news related but that's flipping the calendar. We get. We're looking ahead a little bit this. We're putting a button on the year that was 2024 today.
- [01:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
Rebecca Little auld lang sy moment.
- [01:32]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, that's right, that's right. So we've been, we haven't covered news in a couple weeks as we're doing a year end wrap up and a bunch of other things that have gone on. Hasn't been a lot of news. A lot of people are doing pretty quiet here at this point. You prepped our document for us. Thank you very very much for putting this all together here.
- [01:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh man, it's such a delight to scroll back through what become dozens of pages over of podcast agenda in our now like 800 page long Google Doc.
- [01:58]
Jasmine Marie
I know one of the when we get to a thousand we may have to archive it and start. I don't know what we're going to do about this. It's if it's good luck, it's what's going on with that necessarily. So we're going to get into what was going on in book news this year, what was going to book conversation this year, bannings, the writers. We lost things that we're going to keep track of that we learned about this year into the future before they do a shout out. The 2025 Read Harder Challenge. So it's one of our great traditions. We're doing it for more than a decade. It's a year long. Well, you could do it as fast as you want. It's intended to be a year long project in which you try to read harder. Get outside your normal reading comfort zones is something that's good for all of us. Can be expansive. Try new genres, authors, genre format, media topic areas, all those kinds of things in there. Link in the show notes there. Also, the 2025 reading log is now live. If you like a spreadsheet, you need a spreadsheet. You can keep track of all of your reading and across various vectors. We kind of provide you with it's more than a placeholder because it's pretty full featured but you can customize it. This is all in Google Docs so you can make a copy and use it as you will there. All right with that Rebecca, we're going to do our first sponsor break in and talk about the news that was 2024.
- [03:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
This episode is sponsored by Black Girls Breathing by Jasmine Marie. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook provided by our sponsors at Hachette Audio. Harness the power of breathwork with this compassionate healing guide for Black women. As a Black woman, Jasmine Marie knows the impact that intergenerational trauma and systemic racism have had and continue to have on her community. Those experiences, along with her own journey through chronic stress, are why she created Black Girls Breathing, a movement dedicated to helping Black women understand the power of the mind, body connection and its impact on their holistic health. One breath at a time In Black Girls Breathing, Jasmine Marie offers you the power of breathwork and the revolutionary nature of slowing down and turning inward. With each intentional breath, you'll learn how to sink deeper into your body to begin to undo the trauma that's long been stored. Sharing exercises from her unique somatic philosophies proven by data and utilized by tens of thousands of participants to date, Jasmine will also help you connect more fully to your body. Give yourself permission to rest, heal the chronic stress you carry in your body and your nervous system, address emotional pain and rebuild your sense of self and your community. Black Girls Breathing is a long overdue resource for every strong Black woman, the woman ready to break cycles of trauma, heal the internalized beliefs of perfectionism and follow the wisdom of her inner voice. Again, stick around after the show to hear an audiobook excerpt from Black Girls Breathing by Jasmine Marie. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%.
- [04:59]
Jeff O'Neill
Meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more.
- [05:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
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- [05:42]
Jasmine Marie
Well, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but I thought we might say if there is a story from 2024 that we'll remember without having to spreadsheet it, without having to Google docket, without Remembering, was that 2024? Will anything stick out to you?
- [06:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
I mean, it's been a wild year. This was a year, I think, of publishing really getting back on track. Last year there was a lot of disruption and a lot of layoffs. Some smaller scale layoffs have continued this year even into but publishing's earnings rebounded in the first half of the year, I think continue to hear that story as the H2 earnings come out in early January, maybe February. That's the overarching theme for me in terms of a story, like an individual story from 2024. I think the Cormac McCarthy details are going to stick with me because it was just so weird.
- [06:41]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, I think that's right. A couple of the major tectonic plates began before and will continue through 2024. I think that's AI. I think that's romantasy, and I think that's book bannings and censorship. So those continue to be stories that we're going to track. I don't think we'll think of them as specifically 2024 stories by any stretch of the imagination. But certainly those are the, the calendars and arbitrary, you know, 365 days. They don't neatly fall into how other things happen. So if I were to pick out three of the big stories, I think all three of those things are still the most important thing outside of maybe publishing rights. You know, steadying its feet, you know, taking a Drama mean and looking into the horizon on the boat to get get the stomach under control.
- [07:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
Really a global story or a multi industry story more than it is a publishing story. This is a post Covid resettling in a lot of industries and we just happen to be, you know, seeing it from the publishing perspective. Yeah, AI and book ban will continue to be big deals, but we didn't get any real resolution to those in 2024. They got more complex and interesting and strange and challenging. And you know, we're really starting to see the ways that people are going to try to apply AI and some of the scammy things that are coming out around it in publishing. I don't think that's going anywhere. And if I had to really put money on it, I would not bet that we'll have any sort of like legal resolution to how AI is going to work with copyright for years. For years especially the incoming administration is very friendly to big tech companies and wants big tech companies to be very friendly to them.
- [08:25]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. And on the other hand, conservative judges tend to be more protective of intellectual property and copyright. So that could work a couple of different ways there. Yeah, sure. In with within the industry settled the wider political and geopolitical world unsettled. More probably than than 12 months ago. I, you know, I haven't seen anyone do a piece on this yet, but I am more disturbed than I thought I would be by some of the threatened lawsuits. I mean, suing Ann Seltzer for a poll. Why would Basic Books or the New Press or Pantheon be interested in putting out Trump or Republican MAGA critical books if that's the thing they're going to get? So I think that's one that's maybe a bud of something to watch where the knives really seem to be out in a way they weren't before for whatever reason. And the chilling effect is probably here. And I can only imagine it's going to get worse. It's only going to take one publisher getting sued for this to be a huge story in our business.
- [09:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
I mean, Trump is already in the process of suing Penguin Random House over the Bob Woodward books.
- [09:26]
Jasmine Marie
Right.
- [09:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
And it's like his knives are out. They have been out. They're kind of always out. He has such a long and storied history of trying to sue media over coverage that he doesn't like. I think the chilling effect that we're feeling right now is that ABC News settled with him, which is not encouraging. The speculation that I've encountered in reading Commentary about it is ABC News has a lot of lawyers. That's a Disney company. Disney knows how to get out of lawsuits that they don't want to deal with. And I, I would guess, I think it's safe to try to assume that there was maybe something in discovery that they did not or that would have come out in discovery that would not have looked great. You can get into the details of, you know, what George Stephanopoulos said or didn't say and whether it was correct or incorrect in that particular lawsuit, if you want to. But we're going to continue to see this from him. Hopefully. This, like, this is kind of a, an outlier right now. The ABC News settlement is an outlier in Trump's history of suing media over negative coverage. And I hope that it will stay that way. But certainly a chilling effect and a scary time, especially as he's also talking about, you know, like, the January 6th committee and everyone who's ever challenged him should be in jail. And I, I think that opinion of his extends to, you know, like Maggie Haberman. Plenty of reporters have covered him in ways that he doesn't enjoy. So it's not just about a financial lawsuit, but about a person who's at least willing to threaten to use his powers well beyond the place that they should extend to in order to punish folks that have criticized him. And it will be very interesting to see how publishing handles this, especially in like, two days after the election was it Hachette rolled out with the announcement of conservative imprint and there's cover for more of that now. You know, he won the popular vote. So we're just trying, trying to make books that people are interested in. Seems to be the way that Hachette is justifying that there is certainly a market for it. So we will continue also to have the conversation in publishing about what responsibility do publishers have for the impact of the material that they put out into the world.
- [11:31]
Jasmine Marie
Another one I was thinking about the other day as people get their finances in order, you know, Simon and Schuster completed the transaction with kkr. That seems a lot smoother. We've talked to some people there, and it seems like there's calmer waters ahead for them. Another I guess we're sort of talking how the political climate could affect the business and the industry that we cover. If Simon Schuster's finances are good. KKR tends not to be in the business of holding companies forever. They might be interested in the next four years while they have a mergers and acquisition friendly Department of Justice, ftc, other kinds of regulatory bodies into selling that business we haven't seen a non publishing entity by one of the big publishers outside of KKR they have been largely an ouroboros of mergers and acquisitions to some degree there's few out there would a PRH would Hachette would a Holtz Brink and I'm saying Holtz Brink I guess Lagadare or Bertelsmann let me say rather than those are multibillion dollar conglomerates they certainly could swing a Simon and Schuster acquisition. I think PRH probably would be gun shy about something like that and rightly so though maybe if you get a win the nod from whatever disgraced Congress person's going to be in charge of the Department of Justice by this time this rolls around maybe they like you know now's the time before I don't know a different kind of administration Republican or Democrat probably this will be the probably the most conservative administration to people buying things that shouldn't be legal that anyone's ever going to see in their lifetime. So someone's going to roll the dice.
- [13:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
Well yeah corruption is just going to be widespread because it's been normalized among this group of people. So we will see that I was reminded scrolling back through the year's agendas that at one that it came out during the collapse of the PRH Simon and Schuster deal that at one point Meta looked at acquiring Simon and Schuster and decided not to and the idea of Mark Zuckerberg with a book publishing apparatus behind him is pretty scary to me. I don't think we'll see that at this point but always a possibility we could have all kinds of surprises and.
- [13:40]
Jasmine Marie
The stories that made waves looking back and what kind of has like the residual burning embers of these stories still around I think PRH dismissing Reagan, Arthur and Lisa Lucas is a thing people remember they may not remember it this year necessarily but there's wave of another those are the two headline names that happened but that pulling back or the perception of pulling back and maybe those for the public consciousness of books reading are effectively the same thing of inclusion, diversity, hiring even sort of soft political power progressively speaking happening there's just there's not as much cover as there was not as much interest for reasons that are both sad and understandable frankly at this point and I hope doesn't stay that way forever but that felt like a big deal haven't seen secondary ways of that really happening at this point. The most fun story for us I think was the top 100 books of the century so far from the New York Times Is it wrong? Is that our favorite. That was our favorite thing that happened this year.
- [14:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Well, it was, I think it was the most interesting to talk about. There were so many different pieces of it and we had the fun of getting to participate in it. So yeah, that was one of the biggest stories in the world of books. And reading that thing went everywhere.
- [14:54]
Jasmine Marie
It was huge.
- [14:55]
Rebecca Schinsky
Packaged it beautifully. Everybody. You know, one thing that we know to be true having done this for as long as we've done it, is people love to tell you what they've read and how many books they've read and that the times built into the design of that, that you could tick off what you wanted to read and what you had read and get a nice little graphic with your my number is 62 or whatever was really, really smart. Also, everybody loves to quibble with a list on the Internet because no list on the Internet is ever comprehensive. And so it was just fodder for a lot of conversation for their. Then watching the reader's response where they did the top 100 as readers voted on them and how different from the list voted on by professionals was. That was really interesting. I think that was one of my. That was just kind of a pure fun and interesting thing that happened in publishing this year. There were not like big negative consequences. We didn't have to think about what it meant for the industry, any of that stuff. Just look at the consensus to whatever degree we've arrived at one with several hundred folks in publishing voting on the books that matter to them this century. Really fun.
- [15:57]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. I mean interesting people remember that more the story than what number one was like you and I will ever always remember. That's my brilliant friend. But I think a lot of people, like if you asked him today. Oh yeah, I remember that. What was number one? They're like, huh, I don't really know which is it just a horrible look for the Ferrari. But I, you know, I think there's no arguing that it was right. I mean we talked to Gilbert of course about their mythology. You could quibble with the methodology, but I don't know, like I said before, I wouldn't do a whole lot different there and that it is what it is. And my brilliant friend sort of being the To Catch a Mockingbird of the literary tote bag wielding crowd, I think makes a mockingbird. What'd I say?
- [16:42]
Rebecca Schinsky
To catch a mockingbird.
- [16:43]
Jasmine Marie
To catch a watchman. To kill a watchman.
- [16:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sure.
- [16:46]
Jasmine Marie
Who watches, who watches the mockingbirds?
- [16:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
There it is.
- [16:50]
Jasmine Marie
Okay. That was really fun as well. You know One story that people really cared about, even though most people do not live in Denver, Colorado was Barnes and Noble buying the Tattered Cover. And I think it wasn't. Well, what do you think? I think it wasn't that it was the Tattered Cover, but it was that it was an indie. It could have been, it could have been whatever. Indie in whatever town.
- [17:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
In retrospect, I think that most of the negative reactions to this that I saw came from people seeing the headline Barnes and Noble buys indie bookstore and freaking out about like or I think some of the early headlines were like Big box retailer buys indie bookstore. And people were scared that it was Amazon buying up indies. This seems to have become kind of a nothing burger. Like there was a. An update in Publishers Weekly a few weeks ago when the acquisition took place. Barnes and Noble stated that they hoped to retain most of the Tattered Covers employees. They re interviewed everyone during that process of, you know, finishing the acquisition. Yeah, right. Re interview for a job I already have. And they did retain most people. They laid off a handful of folks, but they did retain most employees. I haven't seen any, you know, big negative response to the. The fact that some folks were let go and it doesn't seem like they have changed much. So so far the things they told us at the top of we intend to, you know, keep the vibe and spirit of the store. We intend to keep the employees and Barnes and Noble wants to see what we can do and how we might be able to like bring to this store. It seems that that was true. Barnes and Noble is back.
- [18:28]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, they are. I'll be curious to see. I mean the whole indie bookstore, Barnes Physical bookstore and physical retails story is good. I've even some stuff about people malls being rejuvenated. Like that was a real cratering which is a wonderful story for Indigo up in Canada, but certainly Barnes and Noble here and then books, a million and half price books and some of the smaller chains that tend to do well and, and strip malls and locations like that we talked about on the adaptation look back that we did probably the most 2024 story is that Taylor Swift totally definitely wrote Argyle and Argyle was a huge success and everyone loved it.
- [19:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh man. Taylor Swift TikTok is just really its own whole separate phenomenon and that we spent like a good week or two with people putting Easter eggs together because like a character in Argyll had a cat in a backpack and at one point Taylor Swift also put her cat in a backpack and these must be the tea leaves that we should read like this, that's the one that you should put in the time capsule so that when the aliens come, whenever they come, and we need to tell them what did 2024 feel like? You give them that and then you give them election results. And it's like this is basically the whole thing.
- [19:41]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, I guess related to that we didn't mention the top. Maybe the fourth tectonic plate is short form video. Right. So there's book bannings and censorship, romantasy AI and short form social video. Those are the four things that are at the forefront of, you know, they are the pillars that seem to be holding up or at least shaping or repressing, depending on where you are in relationship to those pillars.
- [20:10]
Rebecca Schinsky
Another year gone by and publishers still have not figured out how to harness the current social media to manufacture the viral hit that they desire. Lather, rinse, repeat.
- [20:20]
Jasmine Marie
And we sort of did get though. And I was looking at the best selling books of the week recently from Publishers Weekly. The circana excerpt that. Publishers Weekly. I mean freedom McFadden is not selling at the. At the same peak, but it's. It looks like an echo boom. Right? It has multiple titles. There's a bunch. There's three or four in the top 20. This is something we were super curious about with Colleen Hoover. Would there be another one? And the answer is sorta. Which is kind of the hardest thing to parse.
- [20:49]
Rebecca Schinsky
And you know, Sarah J. Maas has also benefited from having a pretty deep backlist. I think this is one thing that publishing hasn't talked about very much is like it really helps if you're trying to become a TikTok sensation to have a deep backlist before you go viral the first time. So that folks get obsessed with whatever the one book is that gets passed around and then they have a bunch more so they can keep reading you.
- [21:13]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, the wildfire needs kindling. Right? Like the only way the wildfire can really blow is if there's a huge forest to burn. And some of that is you need giant backlist there. And I guess the other. I think I will remember this for sure. I mean I'll always. I mean James is a masterpiece and we're gonna be talking about it for a long time. I think I will remember that was 2024. That's probably the one book that I'll be able to put in a year because I will remember it so well. I mean, after that it's God of the woods and Beauty, Land and Martyr and so many things. Like the kind of the four to six pack that have been.
- [21:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
And it's been a while since we had a year where there was like just one book that was really the book of the year.
- [21:53]
Jasmine Marie
It's. I should say also I was going to tell you but the sales have really picked up. It's made a bunch of. It's the number two best selling hardcover fiction.
- [21:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
We'd love to hear it.
- [22:00]
Jasmine Marie
And I screwed up. I guess. This is my mia culpa. And. And we got the December it book thing. There was a December it book. I just didn't realize what it is. And I have to look it up because it's how bad I am. Anyway, it doesn't matter. No one who's listening, you either know the title of this or you don't care. Because Brandon Sanderson had a new book in his Sword Storm Light Bringer trilogy saga and it sold 128,000 copies in its first week. Like it's a huge rando sando and I just missed it because he has a lot of books. This was the one in the series that people more care about. It wasn't some other thing about trees or offshoot of an offshoot. I don't know. It's so hard to keep track. But within that universe it was a huge deal and it matters. The other thing I could have said is there's a new diary of a Wimpy Kid that sold 238000 copies that week. Actually. Is it a Wimpy kid or Dog Man? Hold on. I need to get this right. Right.
- [22:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
Because I think it's a new Dog man and the Dogman movie is coming out soon.
- [23:00]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. Let me just do this real quick. I'm so sorry.
- [23:02]
Rebecca Schinsky
And that is the extent of my Dog man for much longer.
- [23:07]
Jasmine Marie
That's Maggie. This is. This is real print. This is research. This is gum shoeing.
- [23:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
He is flipping through the pages of a publisher's weekly.
- [23:14]
Jasmine Marie
It's Radio of the mind. No. Theater of the mind. Radio of the Mind would just be thinking.
- [23:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
I guess ESP.
- [23:19]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. Yeah. Dogman 12. No, 13. And then Wimpy Kid 19 is the number two best selling book. And then Dogman 12 is the number four best selling book. Impossible Creatures by the Rundell continues to sell very well. Anyway.
- [23:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
We're not going to do very well. Yeah. I can't remember if I mentioned to you around the same time you were reading Impossible Creatures. A friend of mine was listening to it and just texting me like facts about hermit crabs.
- [23:43]
Jasmine Marie
They liked it. Whoever this person was. Okay, terrific. Let's see turkey prizes. We talked about a couple nanowrimo falling on a sword made of AI was real tough.
- [23:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
It was. I don't know that it actually has long term consequences for NaNoWriMo. That was an extremely online conversation, but it was a moment and that's worth putting into the memory box for this year.
- [24:12]
Jasmine Marie
And the question that will haunt us for the rest of our days is how?
- [24:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
Can't be possible.
- [24:17]
Jasmine Marie
What does serious reader of lit fic mean? So what is serious? What is a reader and what is litvic are all contested spaces? And then how many people are there and where and all that.
- [24:27]
Rebecca Schinsky
Where did the claim that there are only 20,000 of us come from? Where and how?
- [24:31]
Jasmine Marie
I mean the James, the James discourse is like that's, that's more about what serious is how many of us are going to pick up. I don't even know what the rental house, maybe, something like that. I mean, that's river, that's still, that's not. Yeah, $2 radio or soft skull or.
- [24:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like they're gonna sell more than 20,000.
- [24:52]
Jasmine Marie
Copies of Echo or something like that. So hard to know. It's. It's certainly smaller than people would like. That's all. That's the most definitive thing I'm comfortable saying about that now. All right, let's do another sponsor break and do a quick rundown of book banning news and low lights looking for a pickup truck to get just about anything done.
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Rebecca Schinsky
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- [26:08]
Jasmine Marie
You look at these together and it's amazing how the Overton window of my sadness has changed. Because yeah, if you would have shown me these headlines 10 years ago and said this is what the future is going to be like, I'm gonna be like so am I going to be wearing size 14 jack boots? Like, what is happening? Like, what literally is happening at this point? I mean, these are wild. Rebecca. So, like, Idaho libraries have become adults only because they don't want to deal with people freaking out about their kids. High school shuts down a library due to book banning law, giant lawsuits in Florida, major publishers hiring public policy roles, states having to ban book bans. If there is a silver lining to the political moment we're in, is there as much energy for getting chuffed up and fired up about what your kid's reading when your party's in power is something I, I, I floated before the election? I don't know. Or do you double down? Or does this, is, does this a place where blue staters in their or in their communities decide? I can fight locally? Like, the, the big thing is too big. But my school board, my school district, my local library, my local, my local school library, those are places where I can, you know, throw my bodies against the Gogs, cogs, bureaucracy and see what happens.
- [27:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I mean, my sense of it, and this is just a Spidey sense, and, you know, from paying a lot of attention to politics, probably more than is good for me, is that we may see a slowdown in the book banning stuff because as Kelly Jensen always reminds us, it is not actually about the books. And now that the party that has been using book bans as a thin end of the wedge, really, to suppress rights of LGBTQ and trans folks, now that they are in power, I think we're going to see the door opening for more attempts at anti lgbtq, specifically anti trans.
- [28:13]
Jasmine Marie
Yep, that's right.
- [28:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like that they have used the book bands to shift the window, the Overton window, in that direction to try to paint trans people as scary and dangerous. And enough voters either buy into that or are willing to go along with it because they think that they're going to get other benefits from having voted for this party, that now there are more folks in office who will feel empowered and emboldened to pursue really horrific and violent legislation against trans folks. So I think we may see the book bans continue because it's like, oh, we've had some success doing that. Let's just knock all of them off the shelves. But that was their way of getting a foot in the door towards bigger and more dangerous efforts. And I think we've already begun to see it. You know, Nancy Mace is doing this in the house right now, so. So that's my take on that one.
- [29:07]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. And unfortunately, we didn't see there was some data and I think we talked about one of these stories of some Texas school board races where the book banning friendly folks kind of lost. But it wasn't a wipeout, you know, wasn't. It wasn't a. Oh man, I don't want to touch that because everyone who is a local runs for local or even Congress is going to get wiped out if they touch this because it's unpopular. But it's just not unpopular enough. Other people are voting about other things.
- [29:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Even here in Virginia, in some of the school districts around Richmond, school boards and individual like individual parents have already started movements to try to roll back protections for trans students and that picked up like on the day after the election.
- [29:50]
Jasmine Marie
Right. Okay, let's see where else do we want to go before. I think we'll end with looking ahead to things that are coming out. We lost some folks this year, Rebecca. We did our beloved Daniel Kahneman, my beloved John Girac, me and Bob Ed. No Brian, Francine Pascal, Nikki Giovanni recently which we haven't talked about and then Paul Oster I'd add to the list as well. Alice Monroe as well this year which leads.
- [30:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah she's on a different list.
- [30:16]
Jasmine Marie
She's on a couple of the Me too simmers and I think the it's interesting the lower level the smaller names we're not hearing as much about but there's still was it in potential energy around long histories with big time authors Neil Gaiman, Cormac McCarthy we've talked about before and I would think it would be a fool's bet to suggest these were the last three titans that will have something come up about them in the future. Let's see where else do we want to go? Audiobooks.
- [31:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
Audiobooks. Spotify cooking. They are cooking. I expect to continue to see this to go up.
- [31:07]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah there was a new there was news in publishers lunch I think yesterday that Bloomsbury has signed on notable because they have one Sarah J. Maas in their repertoire. So interesting as we've seen we talked about the Spotify the most listened TO Books of 2023 White ladies reading popular white lady books seems to be a real place that works on Spotify audiobooks right now and there is no better candidate for that list in 20. If you're going to make a list of authors you're going to see on the end of the 2025 audiobook wrapped Sarah J. Moss it's like a minus 900 or something like I don't know betting it's a.
- [31:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's going to be a new. Yeah, there's new Rebecca Yarrows in January. I mean, actually, there's a new Rebecca Garros right now. She has an adult contemporary romance called Variation out this month from one of Amazon's imprints. And that kind of is nowhere. It was on the COVID of Publishers Weekly, which is Shinsky's dictum that if you are buying the COVID of Publishers Weekly, you don't have confidence in your book.
- [32:09]
Jasmine Marie
Let's do. Let's do something even if it's wrong. As my roommate's father used to say in college, which is one of the great Fiasco man. It is.
- [32:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
Let's do something even if it's wrong.
- [32:21]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:23]
Rebecca Schinsky
My version is. That sounds like a bad idea, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun.
- [32:26]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, that. The story behind that was one of the craziest nights I had in college. He would come out with us when he was in town and your friends died. Oh, yeah. Would come with us to the bars and there was one night when there's some sort of dust up. It wasn't like a roadhouse situation, but someone bumped someone, someone said something to somebody. And my roommate and his dad like to fight and are good at it. So they're always looking.
- [32:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
I have so many questions.
- [32:51]
Jasmine Marie
And so they're like. And so he. And so this guy goes. I'm like, no, come on. We're just like, this is not fun. He's like, let's do something even if it's wrong. And I'm just like, it's just such a great. I think it describes a lot of behavior actually. Is this like this let's do something.
- [33:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
Even I just want to do something. Yeah, you just have energy that needs somewhere to go. I'm having such a hard and wonderful time. I'm picturing you like dropping my mental image of 20 year old Jeff into like a roadhouse adjacent situation with Fiasco man and Fiasco man senior.
- [33:26]
Jasmine Marie
Well, when you're 19 and you're, you know, it's your soft first semester of sophomore year and you're going out on a Friday night to like student bars. Like, I don't care who you are, you're adjacent to weirdness happening.
- [33:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like it's just gonna happen. That is very true. Yeah.
- [33:43]
Jasmine Marie
Anyway, things. Speaking of sales to watch, we are going to get the first slate from Bite Dance's 8th Note Press. Bite Dance, of course, is the parent company of TikTok and they are publishing print books in 2025. I was actually Looking at the Catal their catalog, kind of interesting on the whole. Some of the people have some kind of TikTok following, but I don't see someone with like a million followers. It's like, I'm not sure I really want to talk to them. I'm trying to get the editorial folks on. On the whole, for first edition to talk.
- [34:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's not just TikTok sensations, like, they're, I think, trying to publish books that they can use TikTok to publicize. But you don't have to have a big TikTok audience to be a contender for them.
- [34:25]
Jasmine Marie
And the big hole in the middle of our interest in that and I put the publishing industry's interest is what levers will TikTok make available to 8th notepress and then will TikTok be legal in the United States by the time these things are published?
- [34:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Stupid questions.
- [34:41]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, we've had some conversations with them and they see, I mean, they don't have a choice. They have these books. They bought them. They're going to have to forge ahead. Were these, Are these books going to be carried in Barnes and Noble? To me, that's kind of the interesting thing because what are those book. You know, we. We had this spade of and I haven't heard anything about it. Was it called Bindery that would. That would partner with influencers?
- [35:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
Their first slate came out earlier this year.
- [35:08]
Jasmine Marie
Have you heard anything about it? I don't remember.
- [35:10]
Rebecca Schinsky
No. It's been a nothing burger.
- [35:11]
Jasmine Marie
Seen anything? I don't even know if they report to books. I mean, I don't even know if they have ISBNs. I'm not. I'm sure they do.
- [35:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm not sure I follow. One of the folks who became like one of the influencers who became one of their editors, I guess, or like acquire, acquiring, whatever has their own imprint and so. Right. Like they call you an acquiring editor, whatever. And I saw that the book that she was ushering into the world had come out. None of the Bindery titles that I've seen have like gone anywhere in terms of sales. I do believe they're being distributed through standard channels, but they're really relying on those individual influencers networks to try to generate interest and sales. And they're just like. I was looking around because I wrote a big piece about it earlier this year of like, why would an author think about it? Is this something that you. It would be worth exploring. And there hasn't even been like enough information about it since the book started coming out to put my teeth into Anything as a follow up piece like it would have been a paragraph in today in books of like remember this thing we talked about 10 months ago. It's happening but nothing is happening. Yeah.
- [36:13]
Jasmine Marie
And we're still circling around the can you get out? Can you have a hit and have a career in a mainstream way and get out under the let's call it structure thumb ecosystem of publishing. Because the other thing that happened earlier in the year that we talked about quite a bit was this new publishing venture called Author's Equity which was going to. It is. And I don't think they have any of the books out now. I think some of the titles are coming next year.
- [36:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. The first slate is announced but none.
- [36:45]
Jasmine Marie
Of the books are out in which it is a publishing house. But it's trying to I guess displace some of the cost of publishing return that to the author in exchange for that person's already their brand, their willingness to do the extra things that go along with making a book happen. So mostly it has been authors that have a name, a platform, recognition of some kind. So that the publicity and marketing arms that really I think when you think about what publishing offers there certainly is production though that's large. They don't own their printers by any stretch of imagination. They have cover designers. Many of them are freelance. They have editors to be sure. But what publishing gets you more than anything in this day and age is the chance to get into the main of bookselling of retail. And it hasn't really. This is something you and I've been tracking for a decade now, Rebecca. That there hasn't been consistent success of mainstream successes that are self published, quasi self published, whoever A lot of romance there's a lot of people that are doing well with their own titles in different ecosystems.
- [37:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
Romance especially. But that's been the story for romance for as long as especially ebook. Self publishing has been a thing.
- [38:05]
Jasmine Marie
But there ain't no book on the New York Times 100 notable list that is anything other than traditionally published. And I guess 10 years ago if you would have asked me would there be one I guess it said your over under is a half. So if I get one I win. I think I take the over 10.
- [38:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
Years ago I think that if the New York Times had used your definition of notable as in these are things worth talking about rather than the it's notable.
- [38:34]
Jasmine Marie
So the right definition. Okay, I'm tracking. Okay, gotcha now. Gotcha. Okay, go ahead, proceed.
- [38:37]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah sure. We'll go with that right now that 50 shades of gray would have appeared on. On that. And that was originally a self published, you know, early 2000s.
- [38:46]
Jasmine Marie
But by the time it was a hit, it was traditionally published. Right.
- [38:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
It got a boost from traditional. Like a big boost from traditional publishing. But she was. It was pretty big before.
- [38:57]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah.
- [38:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
PRH put it out.
- [38:59]
Jasmine Marie
I don't know. I mean remember the five thousand dollar checks everyone got like by the time you and I were talking. Well, the time you and I would have been talking about. I think it was already ran anyway.
- [39:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. I think that's the only contender like for your. Is there.
- [39:10]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. At this point. But then there's the. And then the exception that proves rule again. We just talked about this. I'm not gonna believe it. Again. Is this Taylor Swift eras.
- [39:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes.
- [39:17]
Jasmine Marie
Tour thing. Document, swag, merch, memento.
- [39:23]
Rebecca Schinsky
Right. And the fact that even when you have been really successful as an independent author, self publishing, which is also how Colleen Hoover began, when traditional publishing comes a knock in with all its infrastructure and ability to cover your overhead. Those authors who have had self publishing success, like in those that make the big stories, they go into traditional publishing, that is still what traditional publishing has to offer, is still appealing because you're not having to do it all yourself.
- [39:54]
Jasmine Marie
Well, and even Swift. I'm sorry, go ahead.
- [39:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
I was just saying I think it's possible someday there will be a self publishing model that disrupts more of the pieces of traditional publishing. I don't know what that would take. It's just possible someone will come up with a way to do it at some point. But I think we're going to be be seeing this. This is what we've seen and we're going to be seeing this for a while. What traditional publishing has to offer authors outweighs the things that folks who have been gate kept out of traditional publishing don't like about it.
- [40:26]
Jasmine Marie
And even Swift, I think, left book sales on the table in exchange for Target promo dollars. Essentially.
- [40:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Totally.
- [40:36]
Jasmine Marie
So I think she would have sold more copies faster if it was everywhere. Now maybe she could have done that outside of publishing, but that adds in the labor infrastructure. You got to do Baker and Taylor and get stuff to indies and all the things that go along with it. That making the sausage matters.
- [40:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. And that's like it's a gift book. Like she's not going on a book tour to promote it. It's not a big celebrity memoir. Like I said when we talked about the Taylor Swift announcement, and I'll stand by it that I think if we got like the announcement about a Beyonce Memoir that would be with traditional publishing. She would, like, have some big event tour. She'd at least be going on all the big TV shows to promote it. And she would want it to be available in all the places that you can sell books. But this for Taylor Swift was about, like, giving the fans, like, if this was fan service, give them a thing, make it easy for her, sell it in one place. You don't have to deal with traditional publishing when you're as big as Taylor Swift. But Taylor Swift is the only one, right?
- [41:29]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. And like Freedom McFadden, too, is not dissimilar from Colleen Hoover in many ways, but principle among those is that she was originally a self publisher, and then her new books are traditionally published. And, you know, even those people who have maybe the most exposure to what self publishing says looks like when given the option still seem to be saying, you know, I'll sign up for the. The old way of doing things a little bit. Okay. The I can't, I'm. I'm laughing through tears story is the Florida Department of Education recommending Pride and Prejudice, a book about American pride, because they don't know anything. That's the only. That's the only way to put this. Rebecca.
- [42:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, My headline on the agenda was this is why literacy. And just, of course, it happened in Florida.
- [42:13]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. People are trying to figure out what AI can do to make reading more interesting, better, or different. They're like, can we do? I mean, Roxane Gay and Margaret Atwood, always game to try stuff. Stuff, God love them, are among authors that are helping to create AI reading guides. I forgot I care so little about this, I cannot remember the specifics. Some other people are trying to. You can have a conversation with a dead author because we put all of Mark Twain into an LLM and you can talk to Mark Twain. I've got to admit that there isn't one of these things that I don't dread. I couldn't imagine having fun time doing any of these things so far, nor can I imagine anything I can imagine having a good time with.
- [42:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
The only thing I've seen that even seems halfway appealing to me or to maybe the average reader is from NotebookLM, which Steve, the author, Steven Johnson, who we both really enjoy, he's attached to it, but it's also connected to Google and Gemini, and it lets you pull in, like, if you're doing a deep dive on something and you've got 95 tabs open and a bunch of, like, quotes and individual references, you can drop all your tabs and all your stuff in there and their AI through NotebookLM crunches, all of it. And there's a button you can hit where they will AI generate you a two headed podcast you can listen to. That's like 20 minutes of synthesis about that thing which if you're trying to like write a big paper, I think, you know, most of the ways that people are leaning on AI related to books are like homework help.
- [43:45]
Jasmine Marie
It's like, it's a. It's like, it's like Spark notes, meet iRobots. That's what it is.
- [43:49]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. Yes, yes. But that's the most interesting one that I've seen. I don't think anybody has hit on a big winner yet for how to use AI to make books interesting. But also like I don't really even know how ripe books are for that kind of disruption. People who read books, like the experience of reading a book, the AI stuff is for people who aren't going to finish the book.
- [44:12]
Jasmine Marie
When's our next half baked ideas? I've got a half baked idea. You know what, I'll burn it now. We've got a lot. I've got one.
- [44:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay.
- [44:18]
Jasmine Marie
So I was trying to think of this and I don't know how this would work. Hence this is not all the way baked. This is, this is soggy bottom half. This is soggy bottom. This is soggy bottom all the way down.
- [44:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's underproof.
- [44:29]
Jasmine Marie
It would be sweet if when I bought a book, audio, ebook or physical book, I could get some sort of code and I could have an LLM model or something and I could plug in my code and everyone have to opt in. Yes, we're all opting into this.
- [44:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay.
- [44:46]
Jasmine Marie
Right. And that now that book's text is part of my LLM. I paid for it so I can populate my own because then I can do stuff like what was the book that had the story of the magic trick with the, with the card that was in the tree? I mean, this is from Adam Gottna's Real works. That's one I remember. It's the ones I can't remember like. Or there was there was this scene of a guy, you know, like that would be so cool.
- [45:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
It would be very helpful.
- [45:14]
Jasmine Marie
That's one I would do that.
- [45:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
I like that half baked idea.
- [45:18]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah.
- [45:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
Especially when you read a lot of non fiction and like the single subject deep diving stuff. I'm walking around with a head full of hey, did you know facts And I cannot remember which book they came.
- [45:27]
Jasmine Marie
From and then we mess up the details because we're aging and at least one of us could plausibly be going through perimenopause, I guess, at any given moment.
- [45:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
So maybe I should revisit all.
- [45:37]
Jasmine Marie
Whereas I am just aging poorly. I have no. I have no hormonal excuse at this point. Let's see things coming in next year. Of the coming attractions here, Rebecca, I ask you, which are you most Not. Not excited for has the highest variance.
- [45:53]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, take a ytt. Directing the adaptation of James, trying to.
- [45:58]
Jasmine Marie
Do something that wasn't that. I was like, what can I get? What. What question could I ask where that's not the answer at the best they.
- [46:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
Could do that is the highest variant.
- [46:06]
Jasmine Marie
More. More. Highest variance than Taika Waititi directing Claire and the Sun.
- [46:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
Well, we're gonna get the answer to the Clara and the sun question in 2025. We're gonna have to keep wondering about the James.
- [46:22]
Jasmine Marie
Right. Because this one's not. It's not a done deal. The James thing, it's just like.
- [46:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, it's just like in talks. And that Steven Spielberg would produce it, but that has not been confirmed. I would guess that those talks got more feverish and more interest was expressed by more parties after he's won all of the awards. So I feel very nervous about it. But how nervous I am will go up or down depending on what happens with Clara and the Sun. If that's great, my confidence index for James will be a lot stronger. The one I'm most excited about.
- [46:55]
Jasmine Marie
That's what I should have said. If you had one of these on your cue tonight through magic. Magic, it would probably. Well, you say. I have a guess.
- [47:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
Meryl Streep in the Corrections.
- [47:03]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah, I just. I need this so bad.
- [47:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
I know, I know. And I do just want to make sure we mention to folks, if you listen to the episode a month or so ago where we had the folks from the Blacklist on talking about how they've expanded into fiction. The annual Blacklist did come out last week. Traditionally, it's just the best unproduced screenplays that are floating around Hollywood. But now, since they're dealing in fiction manuscripts and talking in publishing, they have the adaptation list as well, where they consulted more than 80 editors and agents about the novels that have not yet been adapted that they most want to see adapted. And they released that as the adaptation list. And that's pretty fun to look at. And some of the ones that are currently in production, like Clara and the sun, is on this list. James has been in talks. It's still on the list. But if an adaptation does not actually exist, it's fair game for that list. And it's a fun one to take a look at.
- [47:56]
Jasmine Marie
I think that's kind of the year I was looking at Lithub did their countdown to the 50 biggest book stories, Literary stories of the year. They had number one is something we haven't talked about and it's worth mentioning here because it was more of a. It continues to be a story, but it really, in hindsight, the climax of the story in books and reading, at least in the public imagination, whether it should have been or not, was the National Book Award ceremony last year. And about Israel and Gaza.
- [48:23]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, yes, okay.
- [48:24]
Jasmine Marie
And there of course have been all kinds of boycotts and all kinds of discourse around how Americans. I guess we're really talking about America here. I should say American writers and writing related establishments could or shouldn't or has to be involved and take a side or not take a side. By not all the whole discourse has gone into it. The air is really coming out of that balloon. Sadly for all parties involved over the last six weeks. What happened? The American election of November is not going to help anybody in the Middle east, unfortunately. But they had it number one. And I can sortly see it. But I think it's also telling that it's kind of not being talked about much at all in the world of books. And it wasn't an issue at the National Book Awards ceremony this fall and it's sort of gone away. And I think that's. I don't know. I don't think it's good. I think it's more telling than anything at this particular moment. I don't know if it's going to come back. I just don't know if it is. So there you go. Speaking of. And then Project 2025. Idiot. Siri, I don't know what that my watch is doing to me right now. It's decided to make an appearance. It heard me bad mouthing AI and say, you know what? I'm. I'm stupid too. The whole project 2025 is not a real thing and we're distancing ourselves. Well, that didn't turn out to be true.
- [49:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
I mean, raise your hand if you ever believed that they were actually not connected.
- [49:54]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. And I'm. And I'm prepared as my, my parting take to you, that how am I going to say this? I'm calling Peak Rooney. Intermezzo was Peak Rooney.
- [50:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
Ah, I'm willing to believe that.
- [50:12]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. I've been thinking about it. Okay, Unless she's got a real zag in her, she hasn't proven it to be it. But if she's. If her next one is a speculative sci fi about a bus full of.
- [50:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
Muppets, right, Then we got a conversation again. But I think you're right. I think if she stays in the lane that she's been in, the folks who love her will continue to read her, but it will be less and less, less of an event that there is a new Sally Rooney novel.
- [50:37]
Jasmine Marie
So anyway, that's one thing we also might remember from 2024 if we missed anything. Podcast.com Rebecca Anything you want, any takes you want. Again, any, any takes that are only have downsides for you because you get them right, no one will remember. And if you get the wrong people, definitely will. You want to throw. You want to give me a little cover?
- [50:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
Shoot. Enough takes this year?
- [50:53]
Jasmine Marie
Yeah. Okay, that's good. Well, thank you all so much for listening. We appreciate your time and attention. If you want to do Patreon stuff, we are doing our best of the rest. And I've just got to tell you that it's a real mixed bag of stuff that I'm bringing to the table that we're recording here in a few hours.
- [51:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
The having of the conversation is almost more fun than what the details are.
- [51:14]
Jasmine Marie
So that's where we talk about the rest of our lives from 2024. I've got. Yeah, just a real, a real mishmash. When you look, when you open the junk drawer of your life and this is what you see, you really wonder if maybe Maria Marie Kondo wasn't on to something. We got to do something about this. This is not. All right.
- [51:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
Glamorous bookish lives we're leaving here.
- [51:38]
Jasmine Marie
Rebecca, thank you.
- [51:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Thanks y'all. Thanks so much for listening this week. Now please enjoy this audiobook excerpt from Black Girls Breathing by Jasmine Marie. Thanks to our sponsors at Hachette audio.
- [51:56]
Jeff O'Neill
In early 2014, my stress levels reached heights I had never experienced before. I was constantly at the doctor's office with a new physical symptom that after further examination, the doctor would affirm was due to stress. I was one year post graduation from NYU Stern and working in global brand marketing as part of a fast track leadership development program at the second largest global consumer goods company in the world. The program was meant to take undergraduate graduates and in three years put them on the same career trajectory as an MBA graduate with five to six years of work experience along with the demands of the global projects. I was leading and collaborating on. As a 23 year old recent grad, I was also in a relationship with a narcissistic partner. My body was operating in fight or flight mode all the time which was normalized in the culture of success over everything at a top business school in a corporation based in nyc. Consistent sleep was hard to come by when my stress levels soared and I always brought work home with me since my primary concern during the week was to stay on top of all my projects. I had no concept of boundaries when it came to my work or my romantic relationships and my self esteem and health suffered because of it. Chronic stress led to more bouts of depression and anxiety creating a never ending cycle. My personal story and experience with chronic stress is reflected in many other Black women's experiences. I know I'm not alone in that my personal and professional experiences to date have allowed me to bear intimate witness to the damage that stress has on our ability to have a thriving, full and healthy life. Throughout this book you will be invited to deepen your inhales this isn't just a relaxation exercise or some kind of woo woo experience. It's a direct weapon against the high cortisol levels wreaking havoc in our bodies due to chronic stress. A symbolic call and response, if you will, urging us to address the stress that might otherwise build up and contribute to our early deaths. The stress doesn't stop at sparking our cortisol levels, but causes other physical and mental ailments. In the United States, Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and ovarian cancer than any other demographic. Underpaid, under resourced and the sickest demographic in our nation, Black women are robbed of the quality of life that our ancestors dreamed we would have. This likely isn't the first time you've seen stats indicating that we're more stressed out than any other demographic, but something tells me that in this particular season of your life you picked up this book ready for change and seeking practical tools, a new outlook and a healthier way of coping with traumas to create a new way forward. The first step to any long term change is awareness of the problem, and though the realities presented in this chapter are hard to swallow, looking these truths directly in the face will give us the clarity to understand what we're up against and find the tools to combat them. A leading cause of stress the Strong Black Woman Archetype what I witnessed while building the Black girls breathing community reaffirmed to me that at the root of much of our stress was a deeply ingrained belief reinforced generation after generation, that we had to be strong. The strong Black woman, or sbw, is what I'll sometimes call her. You may identify with her characteristics. The strong Black woman has to be perfect. She shows up for everyone in her life, including colleagues, family and friends, and she does so cheerfully, without a complaint, at least not expressed directly to them. Notably, the strong Black woman doesn't consider herself to be part of the equation when she makes many of the decisions in her daily life. To do something for herself would be considered selfish not only by her, but also by her boss, her friends and her extended family, all of whom have learned to judge her against an impossible standard. With those external environments shaping her life experience, she has internalized these pressures and expectations. Deep, deep down, she believes things like it is selfish to consider myself Saying no is selfish. Who do I think I am to prioritize myself? She knows that if she doesn't meet everyone's expectations, she will become the subject of familial gossip at the next holiday dinner, or she will be excluded from consideration for the next promotion. This deep seated fear keeps her constantly showing up for others, no matter how badly she is neglecting herself. Even as we observe these patterns in our own lives, we need to extend grace to ourselves. After all, we didn't learn to operate this way on our own. The SBW archetype was handed down to us Black women through societal and familial conditioning.