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Travis Makes Money
INTERVIEW | Make Money Building an Audience and Surviving the Attention Economy with Jo Piazza
00:24:00
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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis what is going on everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you all make a little bit more money. Today on the show I have a new friend, Joe Piazza. Joe is a best selling author, podcast creator and award winning journalist. Her work has been published in 10 languages in 12 different countries and four of her books have optioned for film and television. Her podcast have also garnered more than 25 million downloads and regularly top the podcast charts. She's an editor, columnist, travel writer. Her work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, New York Magazine, just a few others, and some, you know, more stuff that you've definitely heard of. So I think she knows a thing or two about the space that she's in and I'm super stoked to have her on the show today. Joe, how's it going?
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C
Great. Good to be here.
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B
Welcome and thanks for taking the time. I want to start by going back in time here. Did you know when you were a kid that this is what you were going to be doing for the rest of your life? Or was there another more, let's say, traditional path that was on the table?
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C
Oh gosh, this is a great question. So, and by this, you know, which one of my 19 jobs do you mean? Like, I will tell you that I never thought that I'd be doing this much or you know, constantly pivoting in so many different ways. I knew that I always wanted to be an author. There was a brief stint in college where I thought I'd be an investment banker because I went to Penn and that's what everybody did. But I quickly realized that was not for me. And I knew that I wanted to be a journalist. I knew I wanted to be a writer. I really thought when I started out in my career that I would be at one Outlet for a very, very long time that I would be at one newspaper, one magazine, or maybe switch. But I would switch every 10 years. Right. I did not see that, like, major explosion of traditional media that came two years after. After I started. I started out in newspapers in 2000. And. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm old, and so I'm an old lady at this point. But I started out my senior year in college, and so, yeah, I knew that I wanted to be a storyteller. That said, I did not know what form that was going to take.
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B
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you knew this, this is the practical kind of vision that I have. Or not, not practical, the. The. The big vision that I have. But I'm not sure what the practical steps are going to look like. When you, when you graduated, was that. Was there immediately a job on the table? Was there like an immediate first step for you, or was there this period of like, well, I don't know how this is going to happen.
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C
Yeah, well, I graduated college and I went straight to Columbia J school, where I was working the whole time. I had been an intern at the New York Times in their Trenton bureau while I was at Penn and thought that I would maybe just go there, but they were like, no, you have to move somewhere very far away and like, cover like school board meetings in Missouri and then you can come back in 10 years and work for the Times. And I'm like, that's not going to work. I'm going to live in New York where all my investment banker friends are living. And so the only job that I could get at a daily newspaper in New York was as an assistant at a gossip column in New York City at the New York Daily News, which was the best training ground to become journalist in every sector possible and also to become a novelist. I gotta tell you, it was wonderful. So I was working and going to J school at the same time. I didn't have a job lined up after college. I graduated into one of the shittiest economies in the past 50 years. And so, yeah, but I have worked steadily since graduating college, even through grad school.
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B
You said it was a great training ground for all of these things. Did you have that insight at the time or did you just add something you only see looking back?
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C
No, no, at the time I'm like, oh, my God, I'm 21 and I'm going to Bungalow 8 and doing a lot of drugs with a bunch of celebrities. This is amazing. Now, like, this is. This is like 45 year old woman. Hindsight.
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B
Yeah. So what. How do you. There's a young person listening right now, and they're looking at a potential. You know, there's a plethora of opportunities at their fingertips. How do you. How would you help them decide on a path where they could be in a really great training ground?
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C
It's hard because I think that there's less and less training grounds now than ever before. Like, I would genuinely try to work with someone whose career you respect and that you want to emulate, work with them and try to learn as much as you possibly can from them, truly make them your mentor. Because I think we're seeing so many of those pathways shut down now, very unfortunately, because a lot of those things that I did as an assistant are being taken over by AI, right? Or they're in unpaid internships, which is completely suck. Everyone deserves to be paid for their labor. And so I would. I would really try to search for that mentor for that person that is going to work your butt off, too. I mean, when I was an assistant, it was literally, I did not complain. Like, we did not grow up in, like, the age of complaining. It was like, okay, you want me to work until 9:00 o' clock at night? Cool. You want me to, like, smoke a pack of Parliament Lights with you while you, like, moan about your relationship? Okay, I'm here for that. Right? Like, there was no toxic workplace. You just freaking worked. And, you know, I think it gave me a really good work ethic. It taught me how to pivot, it taught me how to hustle. And so to look for those opportunities where you're just going to work your butt off in the early years and then work.
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B
What about some of the other opportunities that might be available, especially in this. In this sort of career field now? Like writing specifically, what about when you
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doing stuff like just getting started, like pick up a substack or write a blog or something? Like, if those opportunities were available to you at that time, would you even have the time to pursue them? Is that a worthy pursuit of your time? What's your overall view on that?
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C
I do think that if you want to be a writer, you just have to be writing, right? So, you know, blogging happened a couple of years after I got involved in newspapers. I started one of the first blogs on the daily news website and then was instrumental in moving a lot of magazines to the digital marketplace. So I've embraced these technologies at each and every turn and then watched a lot of them implode terribly. So yes, if you want to be a writer, you should start your substack right now. If you want to be a creator, you start your YouTube right now. My 8 year old son asked me if he could start a YouTube and I'm like, what the fuck are you going to make a YouTube about? And he's like, he's like, obviously Lego stop motion animation. And I'm like, cool, you do that, little bro. Like, you know, I think you have to use. Our attention economy is very fragmented right now. So like build an audience early, often and use everything you can to try to do that from, from, from the very start. Because yeah, you know, people ask me how to become a writer these days. I'm like, I don't even know what to tell you. Like the, the traditional path that was available to me is not available anymore. So, you know, you want to be a poet? Start putting your poetry on Instagram. Become an Instagram poet. Like, look at, look at Kate Bear's career and how she just exploded as like this beautiful poet who was posting her things on social media. That's how she got attention. Even me. I mean, I'm a best selling author. I published so many books and I'm now on a book a year schedule. But I'm still constantly trying to figure out how to break through the attention economy. My next book, the Parisian Heist, which is a delicious feminist art heist, comes out in July. Everyone should order it right now. Everyone just stop what you're doing and order it right now. But I'm constantly trying to figure out how to get into that conversation. So I don't think you should make time for that I was writing books also at my day job. I'm not telling you to like quietly quit your day job, but my first, my first three books I was writing while I was at work. Okay. So like again, there's so many things that take our attention. Stop using like stop scrolling. Right. Stop reading Wikipedia all the time. Write your substack. Write things that are important. If you want to be a journalist, go places and report. And that sucks because you may have to self finance it, but go to places in the world that need really great reporters and then hustle like hell to talk to the outlets that have cut all of their foreign bureaus. They want real reporters and boots on the ground in places. You know, I think it's harder, but I do think that there's opportunities.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's. The opportunity has not gone away. It's just the pathway to the opportunity has potentially changed a little bit. And I mean has changed a lot, a bit in the last.
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C
A lot of it y' all like so much.
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B
What was, what was the what. What pulled you in the direction of writing novels versus, you know, obviously starting in journalism, you're writing non fiction by definition. Right. And then. And something called you in a certain direction. What was that?
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C
Well, and also I was. My first books were nonfiction as well. My first book was Celebrity Inc. How Famous People Make Money. I had one about feminist nuns called if Nuns Ruled the World. And honestly, I tried my hand at fiction and I loved it. And so number one, I loved it. I really, really enjoyed it. Number two, I started having babies and it was a hell of a lot easier to make shit up than to try to go out and report and do interviews all the time, constantly be fact checking. And number three, there's more money in fiction. So like all of, all of those three things, you know, I'm really open and honest about the fact that I adore writing books. I'm really lucky that that's what I get to do for my job. It's also a job like this is what pays my mortgage. This is why I do do so much marketing and publicity and why I do hustle for them so hard because I want to be able to keep making them. And so I absolutely look at market trends. I never write something I don't want to write, but I am looking to see what is interesting to readers, what is interesting to consumers and will these books reach a large audience?
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B
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the business side of this then. So you started writing books while you Were still working. Were, did you have publishing deals for those first few books? Were you getting paid to write those books?
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C
Yeah, so I did my first three books with smaller imprint with Open Road Media. They didn't do advances, but they had a really high split on the back end. And at the time it was really, it was a really innovative company. It was really interesting startup for me because they were very ebook forward and this is back in the days when we thought that ebooks were about to replace, you know, paper books and so and they also did a lot when it came to other kinds of rights, so movie license and things like that. It was very attractive to me as a person who was very also into tech in the startup world. They did my first three books and then I went more traditional for the next ones. I ended up getting a really great agent at ICM and then started publishing with the big five. I've published with. I've worked with four of the big five at this point and now I work with United Talent as my agent and I. My publishing house is PRH and the imprint's done.
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B
And when you are talking with new authors, which I assume you get a lot of inbound from people who are trying to have a career that emulates what you've been able to accomplish. What's your advice on the self publishing world now? Obviously like you probably could have done it back in the day, but now it's just, it's so easy, right? There's like over 5 million books came out in 2025 and like 80 of them or something are self published. Like anybody, like you could do it, you'd spin it up in an afternoon almost with AI tools and then publish it with getting your own number on Amazon. How do you, how do you view that world coinciding with the traditional traditional publishing world?
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C
I mean, I will say I think there's too many books being published these days. Like I. There is absolutely something to be said for a book that is well written and well edited and you know, fact checked, fact checking is so wonderful. So is copy editing. Right. That said, the traditional publishing world is very siloed and oftentimes very elite and real snotty. So it can be difficult to break into into. I was already a media person in New York City. Like I knew how to do this and how to navigate this world. So I think that self publishing is a more interesting and more viable option than ever before for authors that have been published also traditionally by publishing houses and those who haven't yet. Because getting through the Process is a lot. Finding an agent is so time intensive and difficult, honestly. And then that agent, finding the right publishing house for your book. And the tools are really good. They're much better than they ever have been before. There's also a much, much better path to self publishing into traditional publishing if you're able to develop a platform. Right. So micro communities that are emerging from social media, from substack, from different fandoms. I think a lot about the Dungeon Crawler Carl series like that is much more of a possibility than it ever has been. So I don't want to tell anyone. You have to do this traditional. Get an mfa, get an agent, go to a traditional publishing house path, because that takes a lot of money. I don't have an mfa. I'm also not a literary writer. I don't even read literary stuff. I don't like it that much. But I'm a very commercial writer because that's what I like to read. And I want people to enjoy my books and then also maybe talk about dismantling the patriarchy, but to enjoy them first and foremost. So, yeah, I think self publishing is absolutely a viable option. I think about it a lot too, because I've built up my own platform and this is what you have to do. I mean, I built up my Instagram following to 30, 36,000, my 15,000 on my substack, like I have. It's not huge, but it is a baseline, right? Sure, yeah. And it. And, and you know, my podcast.
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C
It's got millions of downloads, so. And that's the main engine for it. But if you can build a platform, because Traditional media is so fragmented. Then you can just sell your book directly to people and you'll keep more of the money, I mean. And ip. Yeah, I mean, I. Well, you also. I also keep IP for books. Publishing houses don't take. Publishing houses don't take ip.
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B
Oh, really?
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C
Okay. No. So I have the ip and then we option that to development studios, things like that. But, yeah, I think it's definitely a viable option. And if you want to try it for your first one. I think there used to be a stigma if. Then you were like, oh, my gosh, I want to try to get into traditional publishing. And then you're like, oh, but I can't because I already did this thing. And I think there's less of a stigma. Right.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Well, I tried. I tried this and now I'm. Now I'm trying this with my next book. I got this many sales on my own. That's really attractive to a publisher to see that you're working for those kinds of things. So, yeah, I'm really bullish on it. But that said, I think that there's a lot of crappy books published these days. So. Yeah, I want people to publish good
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B
books is what I am on the same page there for sure. Pun intended. I feel like there's. I unfortunately feel like the problem's only going to get worse. I think there's just a lot of AI slop that's being thrown out.
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C
Yeah. 100%. Yeah.
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B
And it's. It's unfortunate for. I mean, I, I say that, but, like, the, the bottom line is those books are never going to take market share from authors like you because it's just not a good product. You know, you're not.
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C
You're not. You're actually not. Right. So you're not. No, because it's an attention problem. And one of the biggest problems right now is like, Kindle Unlimited, which is filled with AI slot at this point. And so a whole generation of people believe that books should be free. They don't want to pay for books. Books are free at the library, by the way. You can still do that. But so they're not being trained to buy the books that they would have to pay for. And some of the AI slot. It's not as good as what I'm writing, I will tell you that. Not yet. I'm not saying what it's like, how it's going to be trained in the future, but for a lot of people, it's good enough. And they didn't used to have a good Enough alternative. So it's absolutely cutting into traditional authors.
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B
I appreciate that perspective. That's not something that I've thought about. Now, you mentioned the book agent processes can be really difficult and time intensive. What is there? Like, should you have your own. Like, this is what I'm looking for in a book agent. This is what I really want to get out of this relationship. These are my goals here. Or is it sort of just like, hey, somebody please represent me and whoever will represent me, I will allow you to do that. Or should you be like really stringent about that?
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C
I mean, it depends what you want, right? Like if you are a per. If you're querying agents and querying is kind of like the sorority rush process, right? Like you're, you're sending out your manuscript, hopefully it goes through the slush pile. Hopefully an agent wants to have a call with you. If you just want representation and you're not getting it, then take what you can get. Right. But I always say that an agent is first and foremost your business manager. This is a business deal. And so if you do have the opportunity to talk to more than one agent, if more than one agent is interested, absolutely. Find the agent that is going to best support your career. Not for this one book, but for ongoing books to support the entire arc of your career.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Similar to what an athlete would want. Like somebody advocating for you for your work, who's going to help negotiate better deals, not just on this first book, but on book three, book six, book 12, type of a thing.
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C
Well, exactly. I mean, for instance, I just told my agents at UTA that I want to write a middle grade series. I have an 8 year old, he's a Dino kid. There's a massive hole in the market for, for kids like my son. And I'm like, great, I'll write it. Here we go. And they're really great and amenable to being like, okay, now we'll pitch you as a middle grade author and like, that's what you want. You want an agent that is flexible and also excited about you doing all of these things.
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B
Sure, sure, yeah. Why? Why the podcast, Joe? It's not like you need other things to do, right? Is this something that you just really enjoy doing? What's the purpose for the podcast?
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C
Yeah, I mean, I've been making podcasts for 10 years now, you know, since before every celebrity under the sun had one. And. Yeah, right. Like, I love them. I love, I think that there is something really intimate and fantastic in the audio medium. And it's I mean, it's how I built my audience and now it is a way for me to communicate directly with my audience. Also it's a great job. Like I get to talk to interesting people all day, which is amazing. And. But it has gotten, it's gotten easier in a lot of senses because there's better tools. I mean, I used to go into a studio, right. Like we used to go to people's houses and do these interviews.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And now there are tools like this, like Riverside and Descript, which is really awesome. But then also much like books, everybody has a podcast. And so like there's just so much fractured attention now. But it's a way for me to maintain very regular communication with my audience. And monetization has gotten a lot harder on it. And I used to make podcasts to with iHeart, now I make them on my own. But yeah, monetization has gotten trickier, especially as there's so many more celebrity podcasts coming into the market.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Flooding the space with their massive brands already. Yeah, I've been. I, I feel that, I feel that your. Tell me, tell me now about your. About your new book, Joe. What's the driving factor, the driving force behind riding the Parisian heist?
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C
Yeah, well, I mean, my goal is I write delicious summer reads. Right. And if you want to call em a beach read and that gets you to buy it, awesome. Read it on the beach. I don't care where you read it. So the Parisian heist is dual timeline. In the modern day, it is an all woman art heist at the Musee d'. Orsay. And in the past, it's the untold story of Jo van Gogh, who was Vincent's sister in law. She inherited 300 of his paintings. When he died, they were completely worthless. No one wanted them and she had to make him famous in order to survive and support herself and her son. So it's. You actually learn a freaking ton about the art world and art generally. But it's also a delicious heist narrative and so much fun.
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B
You've optioned a few of your books now for film adaptations and things like that. How's that process been? How do you enjoy that?
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C
It's terrible. No, the development option process is like fucking hell. So it's, I mean, just a lottery win, like right, like did you talk to the right person on the right day? Like, did they get laid last night? Yeah, it's just, I. Again, like, if anything like actually makes it to tv, that will be amazing. I think it's really hard when you're not actually in la. Constantly taking. Constantly just schmoozing and being in person with people. Five of my books are in development right now. We'll see what happens.
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B
Yeah, because basically what happens is like they'll option the rights to the book, but that does not require them to complete a project essentially.
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C
Right, exactly. They get to just like fuck around for as long as they want.
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B
So. Yeah. Well, I will. I will be on the lookout for one of those for when.
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C
One of those. Me too. Me too. Yeah.
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B
Joe, I appreciate you taking the time. I know you're very busy person. I do not take that for granted at all. I want to get you out of here. Where can people go to get more from you and everything you're working on?
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C
I'm on the Instagram at. Joe Piazza, author. Like, that's a great entry point. My newsletter is over the influence. The podcast is under the influence. And everyone get your order in for Parisian Heist. The best girl math of all time or just person math is if you order it now, it will feel like free on July 14th.
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B
That is a fact. That is a fact. So, Joe Piazza dot com. You can go pre order a copy of the Parisian Heist right now before you do anything else. Unless you're driving. Do it.
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C
Just do it. Just pull over.
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B
Just hit the pre order button. You will not regret it. Joe, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for taking the time. Everybody else tuning in. Remember, money only solves your money problems. But it's usually a little easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got some money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in everybody. We'll catch you next time. Peace.
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E
Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or Crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com.