Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - August 06, 2026


Book Tour Brain & Majoring in Influencing

Topics
book festival launch book festival Calamity Club audiobook The Bone Crew books and Antarctic mystery social media influence and branding shame content strategy curriculum
The Art of an Adventurous Life Grudges, Revenge, MLMs and Book Recs with Emily Paulson

Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

175.01

Word count

5,931

Sentence count

548

Harmful content

Misogyny

10

sentences flagged

Toxicity

18

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum. 0.55
00:00:03.540 Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans?
00:00:09.500 In 2026?
00:00:12.880 Dentine. Chew bold.
00:00:21.560 Hi, Nick Astor.
00:00:22.880 Oh, hey.
00:00:23.520 Thanks for being here.
00:00:24.340 Oh, it's always a pleasure.
00:00:25.420 Thanks for being here on Under the Influence, the constant, never-ending book tour edition.
00:00:32.880 It really is never-ending.
00:00:34.260 Although we hit a point, we hit a landmark.
00:00:37.180 It's almost over.
00:00:38.800 The principal, you know, couple rush weeks are over.
00:00:42.740 Part of it is almost over.
00:00:43.980 Well, I have four more events this week.
00:00:46.940 Yes.
00:00:47.780 Yeah.
00:00:48.080 Oh, I forgot all about that.
00:00:49.240 Good Lord.
00:00:49.640 I leave tomorrow for the four remaining events of the first part of the tour.
00:00:55.940 Yeah, really, it's five because you've got two tomorrow.
00:00:59.480 I have two tomorrow.
00:01:01.760 I have one tonight, two tomorrow, one on Thursday, and one on Friday.
00:01:07.520 And then one on Monday.
00:01:08.600 So that's actually six.
00:01:10.140 Okay, we have six more events.
00:01:12.180 If you count the Catskills, which is sort of, you know, an asterisk, but nonetheless.
00:01:16.940 Yeah, well, we should tell people about that because we haven't really talked about it yet because I've been so busy launching Parisian Heist into the world, which hopefully everyone listening right now has already read, reviewed, bought a copy for a friend.
00:01:32.140 If anyone listening has not purchased a copy, I have no faith.
00:01:36.980 Do you even love me?
00:01:38.160 No faith.
00:01:38.800 Do you even love me?
00:01:40.000 uh well i don't know because i honestly to be totally transparent sales are way down from the
00:01:45.340 first two weeks of sicilian inheritance and everyone is lying to you so i don't i don't
00:01:49.520 know what's what's going on people that read it love it and we're gonna keep it going because
00:01:54.500 this is a marathon not a sprint but i i am curious because uh there have been there have been way
00:02:00.780 less sales than we saw the first couple of weeks of everyone is lying to in sicilian inheritance
00:02:03.860 but maybe it's because the world is on fire again yeah i mean let's not read too far into it and
00:02:08.800 remember this is a long game and my god if we wanted to rabbit hole statistics on book sales
00:02:14.960 and all of that i mean that's a that's about four episodes worth of detail no it truly is
00:02:21.280 glennis was actually recently doing an interesting very unscientific study but looking at 90s and
00:02:29.540 2000s bestsellers to see if they hit the bestseller lists on their first week and they didn't like
00:02:34.880 books like Eat, Pray, Love. And again, this is very unscientific and I haven't fact checked
00:02:38.980 anything, but books generally took a long time to live in the world before becoming
00:02:45.520 word of mouth successes. And I don't think that we give books that amount of time anymore. We're
00:02:52.240 like, you must be an instant success or you're a failure. That's probably true. I mean, the way
00:02:57.340 these things are set up is really all about instant success or nothing. Instant success or
00:03:03.860 nothing, which nothing in life works like that. And I think it does force authors. I know a lot
00:03:10.060 of authors get very depressed after the first couple of weeks because you stop getting as
00:03:13.900 much sales and PR and marketing support. I don't allow that to happen because I just keep keep
00:03:19.260 pushing, pushing new storylines for my publicist to pitch for me. Like the fact that we are
00:03:25.040 launching the Catskills Book Festival. Yes. Yeah, we created a book festival. This is this is a
00:03:30.640 classic example of uh you know us coming up with a with a random ass idea and then executing on it
00:03:38.480 very quickly we we execute it quickly it's going to happen it's august 8th uh in the afternoon
00:03:44.480 yep you know all afternoon show up noon and then some yep uh westkill brewing which we've talked
00:03:51.880 about it on the podcast before it's a super cool brewery i think it's the best ipa in the northeast
00:03:59.740 I think it's the best IPA in the world.
00:04:01.880 I was going to say the country, but they don't make good IPAs outside of America.
00:04:05.740 True.
00:04:06.900 Westkill Brewing, the best IPA in the world.
00:04:09.440 In beautiful Westkill, New York.
00:04:11.740 It's gorgeous.
00:04:12.440 It's gorgeous.
00:04:12.920 There's going to be kids programming.
00:04:14.980 It's very kids.
00:04:15.520 It's our kids.
00:04:15.920 Very family friendly.
00:04:17.040 It's our kids' favorite brewery.
00:04:18.340 And very informal.
00:04:19.720 We don't quite have the recognition locked in yet, but we will.
00:04:24.900 And it doesn't matter anyway because it's the kind of thing you can show up to, enjoy some outside time, talk to some cool people, have some beer.
00:04:32.640 There'll be good food there.
00:04:33.840 There'll be great food, great food, great beer.
00:04:36.160 We have some excellent authors.
00:04:38.480 I'll be there.
00:04:39.400 Do we talk about who's coming?
00:04:40.480 Yeah, let's talk about who's coming.
00:04:41.600 Who's coming?
00:04:42.100 So, friend of the show, Glynis McNichol.
00:04:45.020 Oh, my God.
00:04:45.620 I know.
00:04:46.220 I know.
00:04:46.760 Nobody tells you this.
00:04:48.000 Nobody tells you this.
00:04:49.060 Mostly here to enjoy myself.
00:04:51.200 Friend of the show, Isaac Fitzgerald.
00:04:53.180 Isaac Fitzgerald.
00:04:54.180 my favorite non-fiction book
00:04:56.400 your favorite non-fiction book of the year
00:04:57.920 it reads like fiction anyway
00:04:59.440 you told me it was fiction, I'd believe it
00:05:01.540 yeah, but Isaac is a wild and crazy dude
00:05:05.060 and so it does read like fiction
00:05:06.500 friends of the show, Casey Cheska and Steven Weinberg
00:05:11.440 not to mention John Cheska
00:05:13.140 not to mention John Cheska, the author of The Stinky Cheese Man
00:05:15.900 they're related, believe it or not
00:05:16.840 they are indeed, they are indeed
00:05:18.140 John is Casey's dad
00:05:19.260 thriller writer, also friend of the show
00:05:23.660 Andy Bartz?
00:05:25.000 Yes.
00:05:25.760 Yes, yes. 0.94
00:05:26.500 One of the co-creators of the Croatia. 0.63
00:05:31.440 She was an instructor. 0.62
00:05:34.740 Not a festival, a conference.
00:05:36.120 Yeah, she was an instructor at the Adriatic Writers Conference this year.
00:05:39.440 We will also have Olivia Mwenter of the Bad on Paper podcast, another friend of the show she's been on.
00:05:46.380 I think everyone that's going to be at the festival has been on the show.
00:05:50.440 And Brett McDonald.
00:05:51.960 Is it Brant or Brett?
00:05:52.740 Brant, Brant, Brant, Brant McDonald, Brant McDonald, yeah.
00:05:56.600 And Brant McDonald.
00:05:57.640 And Brant McDonald.
00:05:58.680 And so, yeah, we will, it's going to be a lot of fun.
00:06:01.360 I think there's going to be very cool, in addition to the bookcase books, vintage camping trailer, which will be on site selling everyone's books and selling some of my favorite books of the summer.
00:06:13.540 We're also going to have flash literary tattoos.
00:06:16.200 Are you getting another tattoo?
00:06:17.380 I don't know.
00:06:17.680 We'll see.
00:06:18.220 I'm doing it.
00:06:18.840 Yeah.
00:06:19.260 I mean, if there's a, if there's a tattoo pop up.
00:06:22.420 I'm on.
00:06:22.720 That'd be cool.
00:06:23.300 There's stitching.
00:06:24.460 There's chain stitching.
00:06:25.940 Wood-fired pizza.
00:06:27.720 Yeah, all the kinds of things you want in a book festival.
00:06:30.380 And, you know, it's an experiment.
00:06:31.860 One of my goals in this life, generally, which Nick Astor helps me with, is to get more books into more people's hands.
00:06:39.260 For people to see books in the wild, to hear about books in different places.
00:06:44.280 I just finished a great book on the road.
00:06:46.560 I listened to the audiobook of Catherine Stockett's Calamity Club, which is great.
00:06:51.760 You know, she did the book, The Help.
00:06:54.480 A long time ago.
00:06:55.520 She took many years.
00:06:58.420 But this is a huge bestseller.
00:07:00.260 I mean, this is one of those.
00:07:01.360 Bestseller, yeah.
00:07:02.160 Insta hits.
00:07:02.740 Well, it's one of those books that I think also deserves it.
00:07:05.420 I mean, there's a lot of books that are out there selling lots of copies right now that I'm like, it's not that great.
00:07:10.340 But Calamity Club is truly wonderful.
00:07:12.820 The audiobook is read by one of the narrators, is January Lavoie.
00:07:16.740 She's just such a pro at this, and I love her.
00:07:19.300 But it was about 30 hours long.
00:07:20.820 and I was listening to it while driving to book events
00:07:23.580 and then also at night
00:07:25.020 because I left my Kindle in Virginia
00:07:27.580 and it had to be mailed home to me.
00:07:29.780 That was one of the only casualties of this.
00:07:32.380 I also lost my reading glasses.
00:07:34.240 I think they fell out of my pocket on one of the flights.
00:07:36.640 My new Zenny reading glasses that I really liked.
00:07:38.640 You didn't like them.
00:07:39.280 You thought that I looked like Dwight from The Office.
00:07:41.360 Oh, they weren't my favorite.
00:07:42.600 They weren't your favorite.
00:07:43.560 No, as the baby would say.
00:07:44.960 It's not my favorite.
00:07:47.300 Not Dwight.
00:07:48.080 It was the guy from Office Space.
00:07:50.780 Oh, I think it's all from Dwight.
00:07:52.600 They were in 1980.
00:07:53.800 Erotic glasses. 0.95
00:07:55.460 They're obscene glasses.
00:07:57.060 I think Dwight so has his glasses.
00:07:58.700 Yeah, yeah.
00:07:59.400 Anyway.
00:08:00.580 Anywho.
00:08:01.420 So I listened to Klammy Club. 0.96
00:08:04.780 It was as good as everyone else says.
00:08:06.280 I think you should listen to it in audio.
00:08:07.920 It's so great.
00:08:08.840 I also just wrote about it on the Substack.
00:08:10.340 I read a paleontology romance called Fossil Feud.
00:08:15.120 I just saw that.
00:08:16.320 Yeah, yeah.
00:08:17.260 It was great.
00:08:18.020 It was Digging Up, Tiger, Bruce.
00:08:18.900 Are you placed loosely on the Bone Wars?
00:08:22.620 No, no, it's a modern day, totally, total fiction.
00:08:25.460 Just some paleontologists kissing, smooching, smooching paleontologists.
00:08:30.380 It was good.
00:08:31.180 I liked it.
00:08:31.880 I can't, yeah, no complaints.
00:08:34.300 And then I did also write today about how much I hated the movie The Breadwinner with Nate Bragasi.
00:08:39.620 I did see that.
00:08:40.920 It was pretty boring.
00:08:42.400 It was boring.
00:08:43.020 Which is dorky and not that funny.
00:08:45.260 But I love Nate Bragasi so much.
00:08:46.880 And, you know, his SNL skits are among our kids' favorites.
00:08:52.440 Our kids watch a lot of SNL skits these days.
00:08:55.360 Yes.
00:08:55.880 Probably some that are a little bit inappropriate for a nine-year-old.
00:08:58.560 But you know what?
00:08:59.120 He knows.
00:09:00.000 He knows what is inappropriate for him.
00:09:01.620 Should we tell the story about European Vacation?
00:09:03.440 Yeah.
00:09:03.900 Or no, regular.
00:09:04.700 The remake of Vacation.
00:09:06.060 It's not entirely clear whether.
00:09:08.240 It was the remake.
00:09:09.040 It was the remake of Vacation.
00:09:10.880 And so they were being watched by our friend's parents while we had a book event dinner.
00:09:16.120 and they put on the new vacation they've seen the old vacation they've seen christmas vacation
00:09:21.380 which are borderline but not that they're fine they're you just have to have to have some talks
00:09:25.600 about how boob jokes aren't funny um and they haven't seen european or vegas vacation because
00:09:31.540 those are too raunchy and so but i guess this remake was way raunchier than the raunchy enough
00:09:38.500 that our friends parents didn't have the foresight to turn it no the charlie said it should be i
00:09:43.520 I think it was a mutualist.
00:09:44.680 Charlie agreed.
00:09:45.620 Charlie said, I don't think this is appropriate for us.
00:09:48.840 Yeah.
00:09:49.200 Yeah.
00:09:49.660 And they all turned it off together.
00:09:52.060 Bravo.
00:09:52.600 Bravo to everyone.
00:09:53.900 Everyone will give up hope and then something restores it.
00:09:57.520 Yeah.
00:09:57.560 I think that Charlie knows when something's inappropriate.
00:09:59.720 He's like, this is not appropriate for me.
00:10:01.500 Yeah.
00:10:02.040 Let's turn this off.
00:10:03.300 But our kids love the Nate Bregazzi SNL skits.
00:10:07.060 And I am always here for a new version of Mr. Mom.
00:10:11.940 Mr. Mom is a wonderful comedy starring Michael Keaton and Terry Garr.
00:10:17.180 But this was not good.
00:10:19.140 This was so overblown about the fact that this man did not know how to get to any of his three daughters' schools.
00:10:28.120 Yeah.
00:10:28.740 I mean, that's the running joke in all of the dad comedies.
00:10:31.920 Kind of.
00:10:32.900 This was so extreme and insulting.
00:10:38.180 Frankly, insulting to men, insulting to women.
00:10:40.340 Well, there was no challenge to any of it either, was there? 0.89
00:10:42.800 It was just like, well, this is life.
00:10:44.560 Guess I've got to figure it out.
00:10:46.260 Well, the other part was like he couldn't figure out how to do the laundry,
00:10:49.940 so he just started buying clothes and burning them instead of cleaning them.
00:10:53.020 I think I had turned it off by that point.
00:10:54.540 I missed that part.
00:10:55.440 Yeah, yeah, it's pretty bad.
00:10:57.080 Anyway, the breadwinner hated it, but you know what we loved?
00:11:00.960 Big year.
00:11:02.460 Yeah, that's funny.
00:11:03.680 That was a funny movie.
00:11:04.640 The birdwatching Phenomenon is actually pretty cool.
00:11:07.540 We've gotten into it.
00:11:08.500 We've got the app that keeps track.
00:11:10.340 Oh, yeah.
00:11:10.620 We're big Merlin.
00:11:11.820 It's called Merlin.
00:11:12.780 Merlin Bird Watchers.
00:11:13.660 Yeah, that's been fun.
00:11:14.120 We saw a wood duck.
00:11:15.680 Wood ducks are my favorite of all ducks.
00:11:17.720 Well, besides the Mandarin duck, but you don't get those in the U.S.
00:11:20.460 We saw a Mandarin duck in London.
00:11:22.240 Well, yeah, in the, well, I guess it wasn't technically.
00:11:25.640 It's in Hyde Park.
00:11:26.480 It's not a zoo.
00:11:27.220 But it's semi.
00:11:29.700 It's not a zoo.
00:11:30.160 It's kept there.
00:11:31.100 It's a park.
00:11:32.560 They're kept there.
00:11:33.700 They could leave.
00:11:34.580 They could.
00:11:35.440 I guess it's technically wild.
00:11:36.940 But anyway, I digress.
00:11:38.700 We saw a wood duck. 0.78
00:11:39.420 Only the female, though.
00:11:40.340 Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, we're definitely amateur birdwatchers these days. In fact, I'm working on an idea for a new book, which is a serial killer book set in the world of extreme amateur birdwatching.
00:11:53.200 It's a hilarious idea.
00:11:54.080 I know.
00:11:54.420 I feel like I'm so excited about The Last Ride that to get my head into the next two books, it just feels too soon, too soon.
00:12:02.860 I know, I know.
00:12:03.340 But I guess that's how it goes.
00:12:04.820 That's how it goes.
00:12:05.780 Because we've also got The Baron.
00:12:08.560 Baroness.
00:12:08.980 The Baroness, which we barely even talked about on here.
00:12:10.840 Well, let's take a quick break, and then we can talk about The Last Ride and The Baroness.
00:12:22.280 Okay, we are back.
00:12:23.500 We did.
00:12:24.180 We're back.
00:12:24.920 We're back.
00:12:25.480 I mean, Parisian heist, we're on book tour for it now.
00:12:27.760 I say we because, you know, the whole family gets involved.
00:12:31.340 Some of us were.
00:12:33.460 You've been home.
00:12:34.480 You've been taking care of the old homestead.
00:12:37.600 And you know.
00:12:38.980 Someone's got to handle the rent the car and the hotel.
00:12:43.480 But you know where our kids' camps are.
00:12:44.540 And when the rent the car gets canceled.
00:12:47.840 You know where our kids' camps are.
00:12:49.660 Okay. 0.89
00:12:50.380 You know how to do the laundry. 1.00
00:12:52.960 You do most of the laundry in our house anyway. 0.81
00:12:56.460 And, yeah, I just think the myth of being married to a bozo who doesn't know how to function as a human being in the world just needs to be eradicated.
00:13:06.380 Okay, I just want to get rid of it. 0.96
00:13:07.600 I hate it.
00:13:08.860 It's been a trope forever, and I don't know why it never...
00:13:12.540 I thought...
00:13:13.720 I can't believe Hollywood is still making this movie, though.
00:13:16.420 I'm just like, it's over.
00:13:17.860 Every single sitcom.
00:13:19.320 Not anymore.
00:13:19.920 I don't think it's much anymore.
00:13:21.040 I mean, we don't watch sitcoms that much anymore.
00:13:22.760 True.
00:13:23.220 There were, like, the king of queens. 0.99
00:13:26.120 It was all just, like, fat, schlubby guy. 0.99
00:13:28.240 Yeah. 1.00
00:13:28.540 Like, good-looking woman, and he's just, like, real dumb and doesn't know how to do anything.
00:13:32.340 uh but anywho i finished another book while well while we were in wyoming we went to wyoming right
00:13:40.860 before parisian heist launch and i finished the last ride which i'm also really excited about i
00:13:46.500 mean i feel like maybe we shouldn't tell anyone but then i'm like screw it yeah right why not why
00:13:49.860 not people's attention spans people attention spans are literally parisian that was yesterday
00:13:55.020 let's go don't forget don't forget about it do not forget about it review it on the now it's
00:14:01.260 time to review it on the amazon how many reviews do we have yeah we don't have enough reviews uh
00:14:06.060 amazon the amazon ranking really likes reviews apparently who knows what it likes okay um i'd
00:14:11.580 prefer not to be an expert in how amazon works but alas i am anyway the last ride it is white
00:14:17.920 lotus meets yellowstone with a little bit of dirty dancing a little upstairs downstairs yeah uh with
00:14:24.620 at a very fancy dude ranch in Wyoming.
00:14:29.680 And we went to a dude ranch like this.
00:14:33.180 And the best part is when you tell someone
00:14:34.880 that you're writing a murder set at a dude ranch,
00:14:37.620 every one of the wranglers comes up to you and goes, 0.98
00:14:39.940 here's how I'd kill someone here. 0.99
00:14:42.740 Yeah. 0.91
00:14:43.120 So we got a lot of good research.
00:14:46.160 Great primary research.
00:14:47.400 Yeah, primary research. 0.91
00:14:48.800 I mean, I could 100% kill someone on a ranch now.
00:14:51.840 I won't. 1.00
00:14:53.100 Killing them's easy. 1.00
00:14:54.060 killing them is the easy part it is the getting away with it i know i know what what i loved was 1.00
00:14:59.880 the sweetest of all the wranglers or my favorite wrangler he was the one who told us how to hide 0.96
00:15:06.680 the body kareem yeah kareem was just like the nicest human on the planet and he was like
00:15:12.220 here's exactly how you'd hide this body yeah yeah dispose and dispose of it and it's in in two
00:15:19.180 wildly different gory ways gory ways but i love i love a dude ranch vacation this one happened to
00:15:26.800 be at paradise guest ranch which i've been to three times now the family's been there twice
00:15:31.480 we're going back next year we are yeah we combined us well if you've read glennis's book uh no one
00:15:37.420 tells you this a lot of it takes place at paradise because glennis and i first went to it together
00:15:42.820 when she was driving across the country with me in my little yellow fiat with my big yellow dog
00:15:48.140 to move in with Nick Astor in San Francisco.
00:15:52.080 It was extraordinary.
00:15:53.440 It was. It was.
00:15:54.740 And we happened upon this ranch.
00:15:57.560 I was writing about it for Yahoo Travel.
00:15:59.020 We loved it so much we stayed.
00:16:00.440 And then Gliddas just kept going back over and over again
00:16:02.680 and writing about them.
00:16:04.780 So, yeah, Paradise Guest Ranch.
00:16:06.620 It's so good for the kids.
00:16:07.760 They take your kids all day long,
00:16:09.640 which we've never done anything at an all-inclusive
00:16:12.840 with a kids' club on an island.
00:16:14.700 But I guess this is the Western version of that.
00:16:17.160 Yeah, it has significant advantages.
00:16:20.740 Well, it does.
00:16:21.320 I think there needs to be a German word.
00:16:23.560 I was thinking about this while I was on the road.
00:16:25.380 A German word for the joy of missing your children.
00:16:28.260 Because I did.
00:16:29.620 I missed them a lot while I was on the road.
00:16:31.480 And, like, I had the typical mom guilt.
00:16:33.040 You don't get them guilt the same way I do. 1.00
00:16:35.800 Where I then proceeded to buy them ridiculous things and take the six-year-old to get her ears pierced.
00:16:40.020 But I like them a lot more after not being with them.
00:16:42.920 Like, there is a joy of being able to miss them.
00:16:45.860 that I think is absent when you are a stay-at-home full-time parent.
00:16:52.080 You don't get that joy of missing them.
00:16:54.320 I can hear that, yeah.
00:16:55.420 Right? Yeah, so it was nice.
00:16:57.580 It was nice to be back with them.
00:17:00.000 I'm a little sad that I'm leaving them again tomorrow, but...
00:17:02.540 For a few days.
00:17:03.820 It's only for a few days.
00:17:05.020 And then I did sign them up for surfing lessons on Sunday,
00:17:07.800 which is a little ridiculous.
00:17:10.220 Charlie's going to hate it.
00:17:12.160 I don't know.
00:17:12.840 He's going to hate...
00:17:13.940 He said he wanted to do it.
00:17:15.080 No, he begged to do it, and just like he begged to ride a horse and anything, the slightest inconvenience, he's going to hate doing.
00:17:23.740 Well, I'll let you take him out.
00:17:25.540 I'm taking him out.
00:17:26.220 I'm taking a lesson, too.
00:17:27.260 Oh, really?
00:17:28.100 I am.
00:17:28.500 It's me, Charlie, and Bea.
00:17:31.060 You're going to watch the baby.
00:17:32.480 It wasn't discussed.
00:17:34.420 We're discussing it now in front of a studio.
00:17:37.760 That's great.
00:17:38.100 Thanks a lot.
00:17:39.320 I didn't think you'd want to surf in New Jersey.
00:17:42.580 You can be the one to take the lesson.
00:17:44.020 I'll hang out with the baby.
00:17:44.660 we'll see
00:17:47.480 we'll see
00:17:48.140 and then after the last ride
00:17:50.740 the next book is The Baroness
00:17:52.460 which is a retelling of
00:17:54.260 The Baroness from the Sound of Music story
00:17:56.700 where she is not the villain 0.82
00:17:58.540 she's a lot more complicated
00:18:00.100 than she seems 0.99
00:18:02.400 very entertaining
00:18:04.720 particularly if you're a fan of the film
00:18:07.080 slash play
00:18:08.140 which is worth re-watching
00:18:10.260 I mean we'll watch it a lot of times
00:18:11.620 we're going to go to Vienna
00:18:12.960 So we just locked that in, which, by the way, I've been rabbit-holing extensively.
00:18:19.760 Yeah, that's going to be great.
00:18:20.920 It's going to be good.
00:18:22.140 I mean, at this point, I mostly write books to places I'd like to travel.
00:18:26.840 Yeah, yeah.
00:18:27.640 Well, actually, and someone on the road gave me a really great Antarctica idea for an Antarctica thriller.
00:18:35.020 And maybe I'll sell this when I sell my bird-watching serial killer book.
00:18:39.560 But apparently what they said, and I haven't done any research for this, just fly and blind, is that jurisdiction is very difficult to decide when crimes are committed in Antarctica.
00:18:51.800 And so you can literally get away with murder.
00:18:54.880 And so.
00:18:55.680 Has anyone ever.
00:18:56.280 I don't know.
00:18:56.880 Hasn't there ever been a murder in Antarctica?
00:18:58.620 We don't know.
00:18:59.180 I don't.
00:18:59.600 But I've done.
00:19:00.720 I'm sure we could look it up.
00:19:01.720 I've done no research on this.
00:19:03.020 But, you know, I'm dying to go to McMurdo.
00:19:06.280 And one of my plans was for one of the Bone Crew in the Bone Crew series, my middle grade books, which we also haven't even talked about.
00:19:16.020 I've barely talked about anything on the show lately.
00:19:18.140 I'm writing some middle grade books, guys.
00:19:20.760 I just sold them to Viking.
00:19:22.620 It's called The Bone Crew.
00:19:24.440 They're for 8 to 12-year-olds, but they can skew a little younger, a little older.
00:19:28.160 And they're about the kids of paleontologists solving bone mysteries.
00:19:32.480 So there's some good stem in there, but also some great humor.
00:19:34.860 and the kids fall through a crack in the geological record
00:19:40.120 and end up in a multiverse where the asteroid never hit
00:19:43.780 and dinosaurs never died and they have to get home.
00:19:46.780 Yeah, very cool.
00:19:48.260 As you can tell, people need to take notes because now we've discussed.
00:19:51.440 We've discussed three, four upcoming books.
00:19:54.820 But I wanted to set one of the bone crews in Antarctica,
00:19:58.880 so I would have to go to McMurdo for research.
00:20:00.960 But maybe now my murder story is in Antarctica.
00:20:04.400 And it's like the ultimate closed box mystery because you can't leave.
00:20:07.940 I know.
00:20:08.300 I guarantee you it's been done.
00:20:09.780 I have a feeling there's like multiple Antarctic murder mysteries that have been written.
00:20:14.840 I just don't know.
00:20:15.540 Yeah.
00:20:15.860 We just don't know.
00:20:16.700 We don't know.
00:20:17.340 But I do love it.
00:20:18.580 I love it when readers come up to me at events and they're like, I have an idea for you.
00:20:22.640 And I'm like, don't say that because I'll do it.
00:20:24.920 Oh, yeah.
00:20:25.300 I'll do it.
00:20:26.080 Yeah.
00:20:26.440 Yeah.
00:20:26.600 Yeah.
00:20:27.040 I'll start writing it tonight, which is what I did with Parisian Heist.
00:20:32.900 Steven told me the idea, and then I just started working on it.
00:20:36.680 Started writing it.
00:20:37.920 I know, I know.
00:20:38.860 I cannot be contained.
00:20:40.020 Do you have to drive down to go get the kids from camp?
00:20:43.800 I will have to get them shortly, so I should take a break.
00:20:46.460 Okay.
00:20:47.020 Well, we'll take a break, and when we get back, it can just be me.
00:20:51.140 Just me talking.
00:20:52.560 I'll miss you.
00:20:53.320 I'll miss you, too.
00:20:59.220 Hey, my name is Samantha.
00:21:00.780 I work as an assembly technician for Ford of Canada.
00:21:04.540 What I love about working at Ford is knowing I'm part of something I'm proud to stand behind.
00:21:09.720 And when Ford does something like employee pricing, it makes me even prouder to work here.
00:21:14.880 And that means you pay what I pay.
00:21:17.900 Ford employee pricing is on now.
00:21:20.200 On select 2026 Maverick models, get over $2,800 in employee price adjustments.
00:21:25.420 For details, visit your Ontario Ford store or Ford.ca.
00:21:28.240 Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum. Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial
00:21:34.860 on their skinny jeans in 2026? Dentine, chew bold.
00:21:47.240 Okay, and I am back. And now I'm back to talk about a little bit of
00:21:50.940 influencers that I found very interesting. A lot of people sent this to me over the past week and
00:21:59.780 I'm actually shocked that it has taken this long, but apparently Arizona State is launching a degree
00:22:06.140 on becoming an influencer. Yes, an entire undergraduate degree for entrepreneurs who
00:22:14.560 want to become personal brands on the internet. And I think this makes a ton, a ton of sense,
00:22:23.760 okay? It is going to be a Bachelor of Arts in content creation through the Walter Cronkite
00:22:29.500 School of Journalism and Mass Communication, giving students the opportunity to earn a four-year
00:22:34.580 degree focused on becoming professional content creators. And honestly, if they want me to come in
00:22:40.840 to teach the history of influencing. I like Arizona. I'm a fan of being in Arizona in the
00:22:48.420 winter. Give me a call, ASU. I'm here. I'm here to help, okay? I am always here to help. But it
00:22:56.820 does make sense because the creator economy is a multi-billion dollar business, as we know,
00:23:02.440 as we've been documenting on this podcast for the past six years, with more than 200 million
00:23:08.560 Americans now earning income through platforms like Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. And the
00:23:17.460 global creator economy is something around $250 billion. According to a piece that I'm reading
00:23:23.860 on Yahoo right now, the average influencer earns over $91,000 a year. And Yahoo Finance actually
00:23:32.220 puts this in perspective and says the average registered nurse earns $93,000 a year. So
00:23:38.460 look, this is a thing that makes sense. Whether you like it or not, the influencing train has
00:23:44.300 left the station. It left the station a long time ago. This is a viable and not just a viable
00:23:49.600 career, but a very good career for a lot of people. Also, even if you do not want to be a
00:23:56.800 full-time influencer, I think that this is a useful course of study for everyone to have
00:24:01.380 because personal branding over social media is something that almost everyone has to do
00:24:06.740 these days. When Nick and I were at the dude ranch, we were riding with a bunch of different
00:24:11.900 families. And one of the husbands was a contractor. And he's like, yeah, he's like,
00:24:16.480 I just I have to figure out Instagram and TikTok. It's the only way to grow my business.
00:24:20.200 I feel the same way about books. I'm selling the majority of books on my social media platforms
00:24:26.920 right now, you know, Substack and then also Instagram. I try TikTok every time I post on
00:24:32.200 TikTok. I just, I get hate. Actually, I tried to post, I tried to post a video of myself in an
00:24:38.340 airport bathroom. Like I did a quick change before an event in an airport bathroom and people just
00:24:42.700 hated on me. They hated on me so hard being like, why would you videotape people in a bathroom?
00:24:48.280 You're a terrible person. I mean, you can barely see anyone behind me, to be honest. And I just
00:24:52.620 decided that a lot of people on social media want to be mean to you. And I'm like, why can't we talk
00:24:58.600 about how how cute my dress is no you just you want to tell me I'm a bad person for making a
00:25:02.780 video in an airport bathroom and my answer to that is shut up sorry sorry I'll block out those
00:25:09.180 people's people's faces uh and also probably never do TikTok again because I just feel such intense
00:25:14.460 TikTok shame maybe I should maybe there should be a class for Joe Piazza to take at ASU but I mean
00:25:21.740 listen to these kinds of courses okay according to ASU students are going to learn content strategy
00:25:26.920 personal branding, audience analytics, multimedia production, podcasting, social media marketing,
00:25:32.480 and videography. These are all things that are, again, sadly enough, real and very important
00:25:41.380 skills in the world today. I would love to see more communication schools embrace this. Honestly,
00:25:48.360 I went to Annenberg at Penn when I got my degree in communication, and I think that they could
00:25:55.400 really benefit from this. I also think it's really interesting that the curriculum is
00:26:02.020 going to culminate in a capstone project where instead of just writing a thesis like I did in
00:26:09.280 college, I'm trying to remember. Oh, God, I think my thesis was like something about how Ronald
00:26:13.780 Reagan or how presidents generally used the word evil in presidential rhetoric. I mean, obviously
00:26:20.200 compelling stuff. But with this, they have to create a content strategy that would work
00:26:26.960 throughout the semester and then demonstrate that they can grow an audience, which is a really hard
00:26:31.160 thing. Okay. This is like, there are grownups out there who are desperate to learn this these days.
00:26:36.420 And so go ASU. All right. Big, big fan, big fan of, of you, of you starting this. Not everyone
00:26:45.340 is a big fan of it, though. I mean, some people are saying that this is a terrible idea,
00:26:52.000 that this is just proving that we're giving up on humanities. And I was about to say giving up
00:27:00.940 on humanity. I think we gave up. I think humanity is giving up on humanity. But giving up on
00:27:06.460 humanities and liberal arts careers and coursework, I don't think that's true. I honestly
00:27:14.740 think that you can have a vibrant background in the humanities in liberal arts and you should
00:27:21.200 everyone should but every student should also be taught a marketable skill that will help them to
00:27:28.600 get a job college is just too darn expensive at this point to be having young people graduate
00:27:35.020 from school without actual skills that will help them in the workforce so I don't think it has to
00:27:41.580 be one or the other. I don't see why we can't have both of these things, why we cannot teach
00:27:46.440 these very valuable skills for succeeding in the workplace alongside a vibrant humanities
00:27:53.500 education. And this is my soapbox and I will happily stand on it and shout about it from
00:27:58.940 the rooftops. I want all of these things. I want all of these things all at once. And frankly,
00:28:06.740 look, I talk to so many young people on the road, and I'd say about half tell me they want to be an
00:28:12.240 influencer of some sort. My nine-year-old wants to make movies. And, you know, he also realizes that
00:28:19.140 he may have to start making those movies as short clips that appear on YouTube, making him an
00:28:26.280 influencer of a sort. And we're not a family that watches a lot of YouTube. We watch very select
00:28:33.620 things on YouTube under supervision, mostly because it quickly devolves into massive crap,
00:28:39.160 not because there's not incredible things on YouTube. There are. It just it really does have
00:28:42.520 to be placed because no one else is going to place it. No one else is placing placing that
00:28:47.580 these days. But yeah, let's see how let's see how this goes. I think it's really interesting.
00:28:52.720 I'm going to reach out to the folks who started this program. We'll try to get them on the show.
00:28:57.700 this is definitely the kind of thing that we'll be reporting on more here at Under the Influence.
00:29:05.360 I've been getting asked a lot on the road, and I just wrote about this a little bit
00:29:08.760 today in my sub stack because people are still reading. Everyone is lying to you. We're still
00:29:13.760 selling a lot of copies of that book a week, and people keep asking me what my greatest fear is
00:29:19.440 in the world of influencing right now, and it is hands down the creation of AI influencers,
00:29:25.240 of AI influencers who are targeted directly to you using all of your data created by the
00:29:31.240 companies that want to sell you things that know your exact individual pain points.
00:29:36.820 We're seeing a lot of this in the middle-aged lady wellness influencing space.
00:29:43.060 And so you've probably come across these.
00:29:44.880 I get served them, you know, a dozen times a day.
00:29:47.540 A woman who's like, I'm 52.
00:29:49.640 And here's the things that I do now that I would tell my 40-year-old self. 0.98
00:29:54.300 And then she's selling you supplements. She's selling you supplements in some kind of program.
00:29:59.460 And the fact is, a lot of these women are not real people. They are completely AI generated 0.97
00:30:06.680 by the supplement company to prey on your worst fears, your fears of getting older, your fears
00:30:14.860 of getting more tired, your fears of aging out of the kind of world that you want to be a participant
00:30:22.120 been in. And it works. And we're going to see it for a lot more things. I think one of the markets
00:30:28.180 that they're 100% going to prey on is something we've been reporting on for six years, which is
00:30:33.860 the new mother market. Because when are women vulnerable? When are they scared? When do they 1.00
00:30:38.480 experience this kind of guilt and shame? It's when we go through major life transitions,
00:30:43.280 like becoming a mother, like going through perimenopause and menopause. And we're scared.
00:30:48.420 And when we're scared, companies are able to sell us products a lot easier.
00:30:54.400 They're able to prey on those vulnerabilities.
00:30:56.680 And so I think we have to be really vigilant in calling out these AI-generated influencers,
00:31:03.720 the brands that are using them.
00:31:05.720 Again, none of the platforms are going to call this out.
00:31:08.060 There's not going to be any high-level regulation.
00:31:10.480 And so once again, it is up to us.
00:31:12.660 And I think this will be a really interesting part of the influencer education ecosystem if this truly does grow even bigger.
00:31:22.640 If more and more colleges and universities adopt this, you know, can we bake literacy and regulation directly into these curriculums?
00:31:31.740 Because that could be a way that we can accomplish this in the absence of the government doing anything about it.
00:31:39.460 That was fun.
00:31:40.620 Guys, I love just riffing with you, and it was a treat, as always, to get to talk to my husband for more than 15 minutes at a clip. 0.95
00:31:48.880 I will tell you, I have dropped a lot of balls on this book tour.
00:31:51.840 I'm dropping balls all over the place, hustling to sell this book, to sell Parisian Heist. 0.95
00:31:57.400 And the ball that I've dropped the most is probably the wife ball.
00:32:01.420 Just, yeah, I've been a terrible wife on the road. 0.95
00:32:06.180 And I think that's because it's often the easier ball to drop. 0.90
00:32:11.080 You don't want to drop the mom ball. 0.90
00:32:13.240 Obviously, I can't drop the work ball right now.
00:32:14.980 I'm probably a crappy friend right now, too. 0.99
00:32:17.320 But yeah, crappy friend and crappy wife. 0.98
00:32:19.200 I've been asked a lot on book tour, you know, how I juggle all the things. 0.99
00:32:22.400 And I'm like, I don't.
00:32:23.260 I juggle a couple of things at a time.
00:32:25.060 And the other balls, I don't even know where they are.
00:32:27.100 OK, like we can't do all the things all at once. 0.74
00:32:28.860 It's not possible.
00:32:30.060 And anyone that says it is, is a liar or they're really, really rich.
00:32:34.140 okay that's it's what it comes down to i love being here with you if you love this show subscribe
00:32:41.620 like it do all the things uh and order nine copies of the parisian heist for you
00:32:45.780 and every woman in your neighborhood have a great day guys bye
00:33:04.140 Thank you.
00:33:34.140 chew on this bold question from dentine gum is it ever okay to compliment a millennial
00:33:44.720 on their skinny jeans in 2026 dentine chew bold