More Thrills with Steve Berry // Ep 215

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Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of 13 Cotton Malone adventures and four stand-alone thrillers. His books have been translated into 40 languages with more than 22,000,000 copies in 51 countries. They consistently appear in the top echelon of The New York Times, USA Today, and indie bestseller lists.

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TRANSCRIPT by OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

book, malta, deal, van, rv, places, interesting, called, check, plotting, houston area, character, thriller, bit, author, kevin, people, thriller writers, decided, changed

SPEAKERS

Wordslinger Announcer, Kevin Tumlinson, Steve Berry

 

Kevin Tumlinson  00:01

Hey slingers, it's been a while Welcome back to the word swinger podcast and today we're revisiting an old friend and old guest of the show Steve berry thriller author, and I'm excited for this one. So stick around. Hey, how you doing on money? I know it's a touchy subject, but I got some that may help you out. See, I'm using an ap called acorns. And it helps me manage some investing. Put some money back, get a little interest. It's kind of nice to watch my money grow. So I want to share that with you. Go to Kevin tumlinson.com slash acorns. And you'll get some free money. See you there.

 

Wordslinger Announcer  00:48

It's the word slinger Podcast, where story matters. build your brand, write your book, redefine who you are. It's all about this story here. What's yours? Now? Here's the guy who invented pants optional. Kevin Tumlinson the word slinger was

 

Kevin Tumlinson  01:16

the word slinger and thank you for sticking around for another word slinger podcast. I know it's been a while. We are in so so much has changed since the last time I talked to you. And the biggest thing is Karen and I are no longer living full time in the travel trailer. Because we are now living full time in a travel van. So hashtag van life so we pardon me we we left kerrville, Texas, which is last time you heard from me, and we were heading back to the Houston area so that we could spend some time going through our storage unit here and kind of consolidating a couple of different storage It's, and what we decided was we would stop and we kind of had this discussion discussion about how it would have been nice had we gone with a van over the travel trailer, because the travel trailer was great. And we really loved it. I really, in some ways, I kind of miss it because it had a lot more space, a lot more living space than the van. The van is built to accommodate two people. Most of the time I think it's designed but it actually is much more spacious and I'm making out the sound. But the idea was Kara and I have discovered we're road trip people we like to hop in. At the time we'd hop into the truck, we'd leave the travel trailer behind at the RV Resort and we would drive a couple hours go check out some other part of the country and then we'd have to turn around and drive a couple hours to get back. So that was never Quite the plan. So we decided, you know, wouldn't it be nice if we had the van had a van? And we could just stop here. You know, what would hapen frequently is like we would be, we were in kerrville, which is only about 30 minutes from Fredericksburg, Texas. But we went to like blonko. And, you know, in San Antonio went to a bunch of places, kind of close by, but not so close. You know, it's still like an hour minimum to get to most places around there. And we thought, you know, would it be nice if we didn't have to go back? We'd have a bathroom with us we'd have the AC and this thing is kicking on. Full on. I'm sorry about the background noise. We'd have our bathroom. We have our beds, we have our little galley kitchen, we'd have, you know, refrigerator, so we decided no, it would be better to have the van if we could get one. And we kicked it around for a while we experimented. But we weren't really finding And when we did find something, it wasn't quite maybe it wasn't in our budget or maybe it wasn't, you know, we'd have to bend over backwards to make it fit the budget or something along those lines. So, on our way back from kerrville, we went through what we like to refer to as RV alley in Houston area. It's in Katy Texas on I 10. Where there are a whole bunch of RV dealerships, just one after the other. And there was one we, we'd kind of visited a couple of times we've never bought anything from them, but we stoped at a place called Ron Hoover, RV and marine and they he just hapened to have a just gotten in a brand new 2021 coachman, Van travel man that has, you know, solar onboard generators, you know, all this stuff that makes it really quite cool for boondocking is what they call it in the RV world where you're off grid for a time. So, you know, we thought, Well, why not? Well, we'll look into it. And we we sort of put in a bid basically offered our truck and our camper for trade. And over the next week, we sort of went back and forth to see if we could get the financing dealt with. And boom, we, by the end of that week, we had a van. And we've actually now been living in it for for two weeks, we're at full time. We're still in the Houston area, we're still dealing with cars, because of the shift in how we're living. We have to shift how we lived in the van, we had to downsize again, take more stuff out. And so that's what we've been working on is kind of finding the balance. And what's hapened is we've we've it's turned out, we've we're living a more minimalist lifestyle in this fan, so that's interesting. We thought we were living minimalist before but man, we really cut things down. So and it's changed. It's changed a lot about how I do My work how Kara does her work. It's just overall it's a it's a very different experience and we're, we're kind of adjusting to it. But we really really like it. I mean, we just really like it. So that's where we are. So no longer camper life. Now it's hashtag van life. And Kara and I are we're gonna hear in the next couple of weeks what we're waiting on a couple of objects. Now we're we're getting this hitch mounted box that we're allowed to carry a few more things on the bumper of this thing that's going to make some some some of our transition a little easier. And then we're gonna be rolling out of Texas Finally, and heading for someplace North cooler. That is not cool here. Very hot, very high temperatures and very high humidity here in the Houston Texas area. So that's that's, that's made this transition. Interesting. I actually I think is a good thing. Because we're having to adjust to Houston heat humidity in the van. It means that we're already kind of prepared to deal with a bit of discomfort. But overall, it's actually been quite a comfortable experience, I have to say it's just that the AC just runs constantly, because it just can't keep up with the Texas heat. So won't be staying around hot places and humid places for sure. When we get out there. So anyway, that's the update on RV life, Van life, and we're looking forward to seeing what we what we come up with from there. If you've been following me on Facebook and YouTube. I am. I've been talking about this for the past couple weeks now on my Kevin show, so if you're if you haven't seen that, go to youtube.com slash Kevin Tumlinson. That's my personal channel. And that's where I'm just I'm starting to do a lot more content there. So make sure you're subscribed to me there I'm not some stuff is oriented towards There's some stuff is oriented towards the RV stuff. But it's a mishmash of everything I do. So go check that out and subscribe, subscribe and hit the little bell notification for notifications. I'll get the pattern down as I get more into the YouTube space. So anyway, I don't want to delay any longer. We're seven minutes in actually, we're probably a little longer than that. And I've got this interview with Steve berry that I did quite a while back. So I'm glad to finally produce this episode, I'm going to see about figuring out ways to start doing the production side of this it's been challenging, because we're just kind of still getting used to everything in the in the van. Even my writing has been a little off. I'm not doing as much I'm doing a little each day but I'm not doing as much as I prefer. So there's some adjustment there but we're getting there. We're gonna get into the rhythm of it. I can already see it hapening so soon. So anyway Sorry for the delays and bear with me as we kind of adjust to multiple new lifestyles. This is the fourth RV in four years that we've owned. Go figure, I'm gonna be writing a little something about that soon, probably over the blog or something. So, stick around. So anyway, until then, we're gonna jump right into this interview with Steve Berry. And I hope you enjoy it. We may do a little I haven't decided yet, whether I'm coming back after the interview or not. We'll see. I'm trying out a whole new thing here. So if I don't see you on the other side, God bless you. And I'll see you next time but I'm gonna try to swing back around so we're gonna see, I know, I know. This is this is production.

 

09:46

Enjoy this interview.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  09:51

Hey, everybody. Now I almost don't even need to introduce today's guest. First of all, he's been on the show once before, but he's also a New York Times and us Today bestseller, international bestseller. So you've probably seen his work. I'm talking to thriller author, Steve Berry. Hey, Steve, welcome back to the show. To be here. Thank you. We're talking about your new book today, which has not arrived in my mailbox yet, but I went ahead and bought it online so I could read it.

 

10:19

That's the one multi exchange man.

 

10:23

Why don't you

 

Kevin Tumlinson  10:24

give me a rundown on what's the i know i know what the book is about. Why don't you tell the listeners and the viewers what what multi exchange is all about?

 

Steve Berry  10:33

Well, a Pope has died. conclave has been called. And a cardinal has fled Rome headed to Malta in search of a document from the fourth century and cotton gets caught up in all this entry that hapens around this ticking clock down to when the Conclave begins and it deals with something from history something that's real, something I think that will surprise readers. This is not a book about a secret that destroys the Catholic Church though that's not what this book is about. In fact, every character in this book, the last thing in the world they want to do is destroy the Catholic Church. So it's it's a little bit different in that regard. It deals with an aspect of religion that I'm not seeing dealt with in fiction. And that's why I

 

Kevin Tumlinson  11:20

decided to deal with it. That's interesting. So you, you write about the Knights of Malta, which I had not, actually, surprisingly, had not actually heard about before. So is that where did you kind of pick up the trail on those guys?

 

11:35

When I was in Malta, I was there and toured the letter was all over valetta. And so all of the things that the Knights had built all those centuries ago and I got kind of interested in them, I began to do some more research. There the last of the warrior monks that still exist. The Templars are gone, the tonics are gone. But the hospitallers which is what they were called, originally are still here, and now they're called The Knights of Malta. They're headquartered in Rome now in two small villas in Rome, which together form the smallest country in the world. Those pillars 150 nations recognize the Knights of Malta as a sovereign entity, which is kind of interesting. Whether they're also have observer status at the UN, which is kind of interesting, too. And they are worldwide humanitarian organization, but I just resurrected some cool stuff inside them that used to be there a long time ago and brought it back.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  12:32

That's real. So did you go specifically to Malta to research this or did

 

12:37

not the first time second time? I did Yes.

 

12:40

Yeah, that's

 

Kevin Tumlinson  12:42

that's a probably a bit better than just hoping on Google and Wikipedia and finding out Well, you're gonna

 

12:48

learn a whole lot more on the ground and you true, go and you've got to learn some things. You got to see some things you got to deal with it and I was fortunate that I got to see him That and and I did get some ideas.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  13:03

What was it? What was sort of the spark though? When you were in Malta the first time? I assume you got the idea. So what what was it that triggered that?

 

13:14

I don't really know if there was one thing it was just sort of a conglomerate of that if you go to valetta and you walk through there, you're lit. You're literally walking in the 16th century, so salted from all sides with stuff. Yeah. And, and a novel began to form in my brain as I was doing that, and I wasn't all there, but I got enough of it. And then I went back the second time specifically to hunt down what I was looking for and begin to put it together and make the book so I think it was the whole place. I mean, Malta is one of those great places. If you if you're looking for a really cool place to take a vacation. That is a cool place to go.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  13:53

Yeah, I I've been kind of sniffing around online, walking the streets on Google Maps. Just to Check it out. It's really interesting is probably a place I'll visit soon.

 

14:05

Well, that's one of the purposes of the novel to get people interested in going to see these places.

 

14:10

Yeah, that's cool. So it's a thriller slash travel log.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  14:16

People tell me all the time that they read the books and get an urge to want to go and see those places. Well, that's true. Some of the places that are on my must visit list actually came out of your books. So I guess you're you're pulling that off, man. Fine. So I'm always curious when

 

14:32

I author

 

14:36

or when,

 

14:41

when they're worked.

 

14:47

I buy them at a used book shop not far from here about an hour away from here that has a humongous history department and thousands of volumes in it and I'm able to get a good range and they change constantly. It's a constant updated, so I buy most of them there the rest I get when I'm on site on the trips. Yeah, use a few ebooks. Not very many. But a few ebooks are bad for research because because I need an index. I need a whole index. I don't read 400 books, but I read large chunks of 400 books. Yeah. But I have to find the chunks I'm looking for in those books, right index is important. And the ebooks, they got to work on that they got to get those indexes to work a little better.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  15:31

Yeah, yeah, that's something it's two ebooks or you know, I'm in that business, of course. So ebooks are tough when it comes to that sort of thing. We're working to solve it.

 

15:39

They're fine to take along and thumb through them and read passages. But you're going to have to thumb through the whole book to find what you're looking for.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  15:48

Yeah. Now, are you a notes in the margin guy or do you like a separate

 

15:52

paper, I write my notes separately, and when I'm done, it's about that tall of a paper and I'm about Now, about 10% of it, right? You know, the rest of its gonna you know, but I write it all down so I'll have it so I don't have to go on it again. Yeah,

 

Kevin Tumlinson  16:09

yeah, I my problem is I'll do notes like that handwritten notes and then I can't remember where in that stack. The little tidbits were that I wanted to reference. So

 

16:22

I have that trouble sometimes to what I do is I organized this the notes by subject map a little easier, so I can narrow down like valetta will have a section, the CO Cathedral would have had a section okay. Although would have had a section I have broken up at least in subject matter. Yes.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  16:41

Yeah. Yeah. So Malta must be in the Zeitgeist right now. My good friend Ernest Dempsey is also a thriller writer is writing a multi book. So that must be area. And he said he swears to me that he didn't know your book was going to exist when he

 

16:58

started. To last October and I didn't know he was.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  17:03

That's the way that hapens. Right? Suddenly everybody's writing on the same topic. You get 50 multi books and

 

17:11

it's interesting for that to hapen because it's fun to see how we deal with it. Chris dealt with Multan a completely different way than I do. Yeah, we dealt with it. So the incident see what this guy does with it. Yes, yes. Different imaginations.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  17:24

Yeah, I'm gonna give it a year and then I'll do a multi valco visit Malta, and then I'll do my version later.

 

17:31

Once you go you'll want to do it. You'll see what I mean.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  17:33

I know. Yeah, well, I'm already intrigued because you know, I thought I knew about all the little secret clandestine organizations that are out there so it's always interesting to discover something new under the sun. So I you know the last time you're here I didn't really get a chance we kind of scratched the surface I didn't really get a chance to talk to you about cotton Malone himself like the character and what the origins that character where do you How did you how did you connect struck cotton

 

18:02

by he came to me one evening and Copenhagen in hybrid plots and I was having dinner there and he just sort of poped in my brain. I decided he was going to live right there and have a bookshop there. And then I got some of his, some of his characteristics that I wanted him to be, you know, retired agent, so I wanted him not to have any connections. I wanted him divorce from his wife, so he didn't have a wife and have to deal with all that. I mean, yeah, heroes had don't aren't attached and I want to do my unattached. I wanted him to be an ordinary kind of guy, but extraordinary when he needed to be. and and you know, he's not Gaiden go to the gym and workout every day doesn't run five miles and but he's still in good shape, though. He's not you know, he can handle himself and deal with what needs to be done and he's smart, and he's, he's intelligent, but he but he's also human, so he makes mistakes. I wanted him to be a human but he's able to recover from those mistakes. And I created demon Templar and I wasn't arrogant enough to think that I'd get to write you know, 14 books with him. I'm just hoping to one maybe two if we're lucky, right but he caught on Templar did really well. It's still to this day, my largest selling novel remains my largest selling novel and, and then Alexandria link did even better. And then they just kept growing. And he said, He's still around now. 14 books later. He's a little different. He's not the same guy that he was right. He he settled down a little bit. I never thought he would he, you know, he has one love interest. I never thought he would. I thought he would play the field but he but he didn't. And he's a little bit, a little more and a little more introspective, a little more emotional. Little more.

 

20:03

I don't know, not as cold as I think he might have developed right along the way. Guys,

 

Kevin Tumlinson  20:10

what's interesting to me about that, and I start to wonder if there is a sort of inevitability to these character arcs. Mike, my character my protagonist has kind of gone that same route he softened quite a bit. He was sort of a womanizer when I first introduced him and now he's kind of got his solid relationship. I wonder if it's just I wonder how much of that is us maturing as we as we write these characters? A little bit

 

20:34

of both in there for me it was my wife Elizabeth, she's the one who made it made him she changed, okay. She changed him a lot and and Cassiopeia changed him and Cassiopeia she she can't be in Cassiopeia and as Casio was champion, she worked on Malone and changed him to some degree, and it is a little bit of us growing, but you also want your characters to change, no matter Have I started him? He needed to change, right? And because you can't write 18, no 1418 books, but the same guy and he never learns his lesson

 

21:11

just resets with

 

21:14

doing the same dumb things over and over again. So yeah, they have to change.

 

21:18

You are that character

 

Kevin Tumlinson  21:22

who's influenced that character? Me khurmi. You mostly?

 

21:27

Me? Yeah, he created him. I just put my personality in there. Okay. He's me. So. Yeah. So it makes it easier. There's actual arguments in there that her and I've actually had. Whoa.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  21:43

That's very brave. Yeah.

 

21:47

There's a there's a little bit of both of us and those characters.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  21:51

Have your readers commented on that that characters changes over and over time. I

 

21:55

just didn't. I didn't I didn't hide the change. Not touchy feely and he doesn't cry every five seconds. Right? But he's not as cold and in Pash and in, in and in personal as I might have developed him to some degree,

 

Kevin Tumlinson  22:13

right. What, what, what's motivating him to do that? I mean, because he gets himself in a lot of trouble. Not always intentionally.

 

22:21

You know, a friend's friend needs his help. His family needs his help. Stephanie needs his help. But I ran out of those. I mean, yeah, he booked you right now. So now he works for money. He just works for money, he needs to make the money and he gets paid. But what I've done is each time it starts off with something simple, something much more, you know, and there's a little bit of a personal motivation in there. But in the old days, it was a lot of a personal motivation, right? I just ran out after about 1012 books. You just run out of those.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  22:52

Yeah, things you don't really think about. The stars.

 

22:55

good problem to have. Yeah, but I just I just Just transitioned him to, to hard guns is what he is. Okay. Okay.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  23:06

And a hired gun who's tied in with history. It's just really

 

23:11

caught up and all these things in the job starts off with something simple. And in this book, it started off something simple. He was going to retrieve some some letters, and he was going to either buy them or steal them. Yeah, one or the other. Just get them and it turns into something far bigger, far much more. And he stays in because he realizes Stephanie nail needs his help. Right? very loyal to Stephanie and he's not going to leave her in alert. That's when Malone's very loyal, very loyal guy. Yeah, could have easily got gone home said I'm done. I'm out of here. But no, he said, No, she's in trouble. She needs my help. I'm gonna stay there and finish it up for

 

Kevin Tumlinson  23:51

you. Have you ever in the process of your research and and in writing these books? Have you ever accidentally sort of stumbled on some intrigue of some level, from real world intrigue,

 

24:03

nothing real well, I stumbled on historical mysteries that I didn't know existed. There's one in this novel that deals with the holy sea itself and the financial corruption that's going on within the government of the Catholic Church. And that's not made up that's real. And so I didn't know about that. I kind of came across it in the research and then I decided to include it in the novel.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  24:24

Yeah, that's the interesting stuff. I readers are always asking about that. Like, I think readers secretly want us to be spies or you know, hired gun owners and we're not

 

24:35

we're just

 

24:38

as your as your or as we would say,

 

Kevin Tumlinson  24:40

word slingers, you're slingers. Exactly, yeah. Scott drinking at times. That's about the most dangerous thing I do in a day. So you uh, because of a conversation with you, I had already been considering this but you you tiped the balance for me. I went ahead and joined international thriller writers So how are things going with that organization? it? What's the biggest benefit? By the way? I could speak personally, but I mean, what's the biggest benefit for writers to join an organization like that

 

25:11

work? Yeah. at work. I mean, you're you've got 5000 working, you got 5000 members. 4000 plus are working thriller writers. Yeah. That's and the biggest names in the business too, are so we have we have mall and ITW is free. If you're published by an aproved publisher, and there's no dues or anything we have. So we have a lot of folks. But the networking you're going to have direct access to so many people thriller fest gives you direct access at our gathering every summer in New York City that summer camp for thriller writers and thriller enthusiasts. So it's networking. It's being able to contact someone to ask a question to help but it's all there. thriller writers are so emotional Interest people I've ever known. They're very, very, very easy to work with. Very giving. You don't see a lot of jealousy and, and, and that type of thing and everybody wants everybody to succeed.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  26:13

Yeah, it's been. It's been interesting. It's very everyone is very helpful. Everyone, not just the guy's kind of at my level or lower than they're also the guys all the way up the chain who are willing to talk to people willing to share advice is all kinds of help.

 

26:28

Absolutely. I spent the week of thriller fest I probably plot somewhere between 10 and 15 novels during that week. Wow, really? I'm a terrific plotter of other people's work

 

Kevin Tumlinson  26:41

do they get do they credit you and

 

26:44

I'm not so good at my own but I can really do it for somebody else

 

26:48

pretty Yeah, it's.

 

26:50

So I do I spend a lot of time plotting books and why and

 

Kevin Tumlinson  26:54

why what is it that drives you to

 

26:59

have a problem They explain the problem I've, I've done it longer than they have. So usually I can see the solution to that problem. Yeah. It's like I said, it's very easy to see other to solve other people's problems. My own plotting is very difficult. Right? I can see it very clearly with the other. So they're basically asking you for your experience and your and your help. And I don't mind doing that. And I'm not the only one. I know. Lots of folks that do that.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  27:26

Yeah. And you're meeting these through the organization in the conference,

 

27:30

you'll meet where you'll meet them as members and at the conference and all over the you know, anytime you're out in bookstores, I mean, I see I Tw members, I just came back from tour. I saw a lot of it.

 

27:41

Yeah, yeah, we need a challenge coin. Or

 

27:45

Yeah, we need like a sad point like that. It would be kind of cool with it.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  27:50

There you go. That'd be Yeah. All right. I'll, uh, I'll get on working that out for you guys. That way I can contribute. Alright, well So, the book I, I'm enjoying and haven't gotten finished yet I was I had waited for I was going to get a copy in the mail. And I think it's still on its way. Things were all kinds of haywire mail wise for me here in the Houston Texas area, but I did buy it on Kindle and I've been reading it I just didn't get to finish reading it before we chatted. So I'm really enjoying it.

 

28:22

I just came back from Houston. I was at murder by the book Friday night.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  28:25

I you know, you were there and I did not get to come by. I knew you were going to be there. And I got I got kind of sidetracked into a whole thing. So sorry. I missed you.

 

28:34

Rick was there with me. He does my audios. Yeah. Pretty cool to have the audio narrator there.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  28:39

Yeah. He's a fantastic narrator. By the way. He's

 

28:42

great. He's Yeah, but one's best and yeah, here's everything. And so everyone's everyone's very curious to ask him a lot of questions.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  28:50

Yeah. Do you work pretty closely with the narrators at all?

 

28:54

Only if they need a pronunciation of something like that? They say how do you like I I think I use a lot of real people's names in my book. So they want to make sure that they pronounce those names correctly. Right,

 

29:05

right.

 

29:06

Right, man, I do that. That's about

 

Kevin Tumlinson  29:08

all but I do. I very very seriously regret that I did not get to come see you. Because I like Scott too. I'd that I've haven't gotten to talk to him one on one yet we know each other. We have a lot of mutual acquaintances. I know all the fine way voices, guys. He works with those guys. So I have to circle around with him. So all right, well, look, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I apreciate you. You know, taking the time to chat with me. I'm really enjoying the book. So I know everybody listening will enjoy the book. I hope

 

29:36

they do. It's out in stores now and they can find out more about me in the books at Steve berry.org.

 

Kevin Tumlinson  29:42

All right, well, you heard it here, folks. Go to Steve berry.org. Check out the mall to exchange and all the others. There's 13 other books in that series. You are bound to enjoy. If you like these archaeological thrillers and historic fillers, so Oh, you and I, you're I'm like four gaps away from you on the historical driller list right now, man catching up to you? I don't think it can. I don't think I'm good. All right, well, everybody, thank you for tuning in right now you're hearing the movie Brittany's dancing place as well. If you stick around, I'm sure to say something really interesting. We'll see you there. Well, okay, so here I am. I couldn't resist had to come back for just a little final word. So I hope you enjoyed that interview with Steve Berry. I know I enjoy talking to him a second time we've had him on the show. He's an interesting guy writes books in the same genre that I like to write in. So that that's been fun, and I hope you there was something you could take away from that that might help in your own writing career. So we're going to go ahead and wrap things up. I just want to say a quick hello and goodbye here at the end. Make sure you are following me in the various So a new website you might want to check out is author on the road comm and that will allow you to follow my journey also for the authors. For author centric stuff, check out indie author, blueprint calm. And normally I have a little ad at the beginning, but I didn't import that out. I'm producing this on the iPad right now. So I still got some pieces missing. But go to indie author blueprint comm we, Roland Dinsdale and I are creating content and we're finding content online, we're building a presence that's meant to help indie authors as they sort of build and grow their author careers and trying to make this a little easier for you. So go check that out. And that's the important one for you as an author. And otherwise, make sure you check out author on the road that kind of see what Karen is doing as we move about in the world. And please go on YouTube, go on YouTube and go to Kevin youtube.com slash Kevin Tumlinson Subscribe to me there. It helps I need to get up to like 1000 subscribers soon so that I can start using some of the tools and then we're going to hopefully skyrocket that number from there. But go subscribe and share that with some folks that have some friends and family. Go check it out. I hope you enjoy the Kevin show, and all the other stuff that will inevitably show up on Kevin on the Kevin Thompson channel. So that's it. Thank you so much for being a part of this word slinger podcast episode and I hope you have a safe and hapy weekend out there and weeks ahead. God bless you. We'll see you.

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