How Do You Become a Ghost Writer? — Intentionally Blank Ep. 281

0:04 Donald, you're like more of a full-time co-host now than than Dan.

0:09 Only by a little bit. Look, he he needed a day off. He's feeling a little under the weather. He actually got COVID. He got COVID? Yep. Ooh, that sucks.

0:18 Yep. He tested positive for COVID on Monday. Today is Thursday. You're supposed to wait five days at least before you see people. Five days after symptoms, I think. So, yep. No Dan. Dan's sitting at home with COVID. That I thought he just had like the flu or something.

0:35 Well, you know, at least he's what, immune now for six months? Something like that. Yeah. I mean worst ways to get it. I'm sure he's happy. I saw him in a meeting today. He's got all the board games behind him. Did he call in? He called in, yeah. So he's making it happen. How are you doing, Brandon? It's been just fine.

0:51 It's been it's only been like we did this a couple weeks ago. Yeah, ten or so episodes at this point. Ten or so episodes? Yeah, close to it. No. So yeah. It's a thing. We were gonna talk about YouTube.

1:03 YouTube. Yeah. We're gonna talk about what we've been watching on YouTube. Yes. What are our most watched channels? That's what I want to know from you. Because you're young and you're hip and you're in touch with young hip people things. Right.

1:17 And so, you know, what have you been watching on YouTube lately? What have I been watching? This will not at all be a surprise. Is someone who watches magic quite a bit. Magic is my hobby. Who do you watch? Talarian Community College is the easy one to point out. He's great. Their editing team is fantastic.

1:32 They're lighting. I really like the professor. He does good content. He knows his stuff. He knows his stuff. In fact, his next one, he just did a whole video on altars for magic. Fantastic look at um. Go check out the professor. Talarian Commons is great. If you like magic, they're great. The other channel, I should really say Moist Critical.

1:48 Charlie guy in Florida. He's got a whole subsection of channels. He's got, you know, gaming, his style or lifestyle one, and then his two subsections of like Magic the Gathering, big magic fan. And then I'll call it a podcast channel called the other channel. His whole team, super fun to watch. They're great.

2:08 Skill check is their magic one. You should go watch them. Okay. Big fan of them.

2:12 Do you watch any of the commander people who do like the playthroughs where they record their games?

2:16 Yes. So that's they also do that.

2:18 They're doing their commandic stuff. But game nights is always fun to go watch. Because game nights is kind of like the gold standard for that. And I don't just say that because I've been on. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

2:26 Game nights is great. I They had post on recently with his one rate. Yeah. I was that was cool to watch. Yep. You have a lot of magic cards. What is your most famous magic card you have?

2:38 Most famous magic card I have? I have a black lotus that was hand painted by Christopher Rush, who is the artist. You know about that. You've played with it. I know about it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's probably my most famous. Okay. You know, like my coolest. Like, not just hand painted by the artist, but hand painted for me.

2:55 Right. Because he was a fan and came and met me and gave me a black lotus that he had painted onto a blank card. So, you know, he hand wrote the rules text and things like that. So that one's pretty cool. You can watch our shorts that I did with Mark Rosewater. I think you edited most of those. Did indeed.

3:13 So go watch those if you're really interested in all the little weird things I have, because I have lots of weird things. Yes. Lots of interesting things. I do love my altars. I can't show the altars like on that channel because they don't want to confuse people with like where do I get this art or things like that, which is, I mean, it's the official Wizards channel.

3:31 Yep. And so it makes perfect sense. We didn't do any uh altars or anything like that.

3:35 Yeah. But still quite a few relics from the magic history.

3:39 Yeah. I didn't show like the Christopher Rush one on that, but I showed off my I mean the ones I can think of are Swem Genesis. Yeah, we did show Osvegas. Yeah, we showed off my Here's the Realm card that's not mine. I bought it, so I can't use the superpower of it. It can't be his commander. Yeah, it can't be my commander.

3:58 But yeah, I for magic content, I watch The Professor, I watch game nights, but the one I watch the most of is Louis Scott Vargas's channel because he drafts Power Cube. And that's that's what I love to do. That's my favorite thing. So if I have a chance, like often I will be eating dinner at about 2 a.m.

4:16 after I finish my second work session. Right. I will usually turn on his draft for that day while I'm eating dinner.

4:22 I mean, makes sense. I need to go watch LSV. You've recommended him a couple times. Is he close? So for those who don't know, we draft almost every other weekend here at the company. Is his power cube close to yours? No. Okay.

4:36 His is close to what a normal power cube is. Like watching him, you get to see what most people's power cubes look like. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Outside of non-magic stuff. Yes. What are you watching? Outside of non-magic, I'd say I have a bunch of channels that when it comes up, it's auto watch for me.

4:53 Okay. Right. One of these is Patrick H. Willems, which I've mentioned many times before. Like whenever he puts out a new video, instant. Instant watch. Okay. Yeah, that replaces my whatever I was going to watch while eating dinner that night. Okay. He's just movie commentary, but in interesting ways.

5:12 Right. One of my favorites of his is why baseball makes the best movies.

5:18 Oh, yes. He recommended them. Yeah, yeah.

5:20 Why baseball is a better format for movies than basketball or football or other sports. Yeah. He also has a really fun one, people like what is the most eighties movie ever. We've talked about that on the channel where he came up with criteria and he's trying to figure out what is the most 80s movie ever.

5:36 Stuff like that. They're fun, they're insightful, good balance between the two. Okay. So he's an auto-watch for me. A lot of the other people that are auto watch for me, their videos come out a lot more rarely. Folding ideas is an instant watch for me. And he's very interesting. I'm going to disagree with Dan Olson more often, that's the Folding Ideas guy, than I do most of the other people I watch.

5:59 Okay. But he makes just incredible videos. And of course, Lindsay Ellis, but a lot of her stuff is on Nebula these days. So you have to subscribe to Nebula, which I do, in order to get Lindsay's content.

6:11 It's an interesting thing, speaking of Nebula, how much the diversification of content has come out. I mean, the easy ones to point out are Twitch, YouTube. But yeah. Nebula's holding its own at this point. It is. I feel like it.

6:24 It's a fantastic platform. Like I watch most of my videos that I used to watch on YouTube. I would say I watch on Nebula now. Just there's usually a couple minutes more or something. We are not sponsored by Nebula. We're not sponsored. But it's my kind of stuff. It's video essays, talking about narrative, talking about the way the world works.

6:43 Mostly, you know, that sort of thing. But but that's what I really enjoy. So I watch a bunch on there. The big YouTube one, I am actually slowly watching all of the best of the worst again. For my second time. That's Red Letter Media. Yep. They are an acquired taste, I would say. They are uh I'm leaving you get inside.

7:06 This is all you. So they started with some really insightful but also really disturbing video essays on the Star Wars prequel movies like 20 years ago.

7:18 Oh man, has it been that? You're right, because they're legacy at this point. Yeah. Oh, that's crazy.

7:23 Like almost 20 years ago, I would guess. Or something called it was back when YouTube would only let you upload things at like eight minutes or whatever. So they had to be broken into 10 parts because they're like hour and a half long things. And if you haven't watched one of these before, I have to give you this kind of content warning.

7:40 Because you're like, wait, it's just a video essay about the Star Wars prequels. Really insightful. Yes. The frame story is about a serial killer who is analyzing the Star Wars prequels and forcing women he has kidnapped and chained up to watch while he gives his analysis. And it is disturbing. But also if you have dark humor, it's it works out.

8:06 It works. But you know, it's really shocking to people that, you know, you mix weird, discomforting humor with this really insightful analysis. I agree. And they have a show called Best of the Worst where they watch three very bad movies and they have to determine which one is the best. Yep. And they're funny.

8:26 They're funny. They're really funny videos. It scratches that MST3K itch. If it makes sense. I love MST3K. Yeah. And it's that sort of thing. They play it up a lot for the camera and whatnot. And they've been having like movie stars on lately and things like that. Really? Yeah. Yeah. They've had some really fun people who also love bad movies that have come on.

8:48 Macaulay Colkin has been a good guest of theirs. Interesting. The guy, he's from The Boys. He plays the kid whose girlfriend gets run through in the first episode. I think it's him. But yes, I know who you're talking about. He's really good. Okay. And they have a guy who does a lot of voice acting. He's really good.

9:07 I think his name is one of them's name is Jack. I'm not, you know.

9:10 A lot of guests, right?

9:11 A lot of guests. They're all real fun.

9:13 Yeah. So I'll have to go back and look through it. This does raise an interesting question. Do you have a favorite podcast?

9:20 Not anymore. I don't listen to a lot of podcasts anymore. The main time I listened to podcasts was when I needed to sign. So for those who aren't benefiting from the video feed, this podcast exists for me to sign pages. Yep. In the past, we had me sign completed books. Thousands of books. And it took way longer because I had to open each one and move them.

9:43 And so I would do it at night for a couple of hours. Right. And I would listen to a podcast. I listen to Hardcore History, which I'd probably still call my favorite podcast. Okay. Like actual straight up podcast, not, you know, the new form of podcast like we do, where there's a video feed and things like that.

9:58 Hardcore history is excellent. I still keep up on it, but he releases a new episode every seven years. Exaggerating. But they are really infrequent uploads. Okay. They're more like audiobooks. And so the an episode will be like five hours, right? Okay. Like it's like he does a really in-depth look at a historical topic.

10:15 So I enjoy that one. I really enjoy 99% invisible. Oh, okay. I think it's a really great podcast. I've listened to a lot of The Fish Podcast by the British people. I don't know this one. What's it called? Something look it up. It's called Something the Fish Podcast. No, it's by the people who do the fact checkers for QI.

10:35 It's not to say nothing of the fish. I want to say it's that, but it's not. No such thing as a fish. I think it's called No Such Thing as a Fish. Look up. No such thing as a fish. Let's see. No such thing as a fish. There you go. Yeah, it's it's really fun. It's a group of people that share weird facts and try to get each other to crack up as they talk about how absurd these actual facts are.

10:56 Okay. Not making things up. They're sharing actual facts. True things. True things. Fun podcast. Used to love Hello Internet. I mean Hello Internet was great. But then it vanished into the Aether like mini projects that Gray works on, it seems like. Yep. A Mercurial individual who follows his passions and is not always the most reliable on any given one.

11:19 Ebbs and flows. Ebbs and flows. Gotta let Gray do his gray thing. I 100% agree. What about you? What have you been watching that's not magic content? You know, magic content, what are your favorite podcasts?

11:29 All et cetera, et cetera. Et cetera, et cetera. I mean, on the topic of podcasts, it's a tough one. The one I listen to most, it's called Creepcast. This is your like straight-up old school creepypasta, new age creepypasta.

11:42 Are they writing their own or are they finding them online and talking about them?

11:45 Both. It's run by a guy named Wendigoon and another guy named. I know Wendigoon.

11:49 Yeah. Some of his videos have come up on my feed. He does like this iceberg and that iceberg type thing. Encrypted kind of guy.

11:56 Yeah. Great content. And then another guy named Meat Canyon, who is a big animator slash horror film kind of guy. It's pretty good. It's fun seeing how some of that older internet, we'll go with mythology, has evolved into what has inspired writers today.

12:11 Right. I mean, the fact that we have multiple movies come out this year that are kind of either adjacent to or inspired by this sort of thing, like Backrooms. Backrooms is the straight up, but then we also have the Markiplier movie, which was this year, right? That was January, February. Which obviously is different.

12:32 It's an indie game. Yes. But it's going after that kind of indie horror vibes-based storytelling. And then my kids loved Image in Digital Circus, and so went to its its thing when it was in theaters, which again is different, but YouTube animation gone.

12:48 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's that's a whole other thing. The fact that YouTube animation has been so successful, like and let's be honest, right? There are the breakouts that have done it. Anything that Glitch has done has just shot through the stratosphere. Amazing Digital Circus was the one-off blow-up into anything.

13:05 But the fact that I see all over the place on YouTube, that's a hobby that I just enjoy. So many little animators going out there and being like, yeah, this is my small series that I'm making for myself while I go work at this company. And they're getting, you know, million views per thing.

13:20 And it's I heard that the animators complain that YouTube isn't pushing animation like it used to, and it's it's harder for them.

13:26 It's not where YouTube currently is, and this is coming from the editor side. And for those who don't know, I I run a lot of our socials and our YouTube here at Dragon Steel. You are the YouTube person. I am the YouTube person. YouTube is in a weird spot right now where the whole content idea is either you need to be eight minutes exact or you need to be 30 minutes plus.

13:48 Interesting. I like the term authenticity confirmed is kind of where it feels like they're at, where it's very easy to make content that isn't real anymore with all of the tools at our disposal. And fighting that, they're trying to go, okay, what is the the people we can easily point at? Ah, that's a human being who is doing a real thing that is easy for us to follow and to enjoy doing.

14:13 Animation is hard because with a lot of the AI stuff that's happening and with how short form it usually is, because let's be honest, making animation is not easy. It is a long, tedious thing to do, and pilot episodes, even if they're 10 minutes long, doesn't fall well into those categories. So they're in the weird spot where they're either gonna do really well or they're gonna do really poorly because of this middle ground that YouTube currently has them in.

14:43 Or so it feels like.

14:45 Yeah, YouTube feels like it's in an odd place because for a long time YouTube was trying to become Netflix. Yes. And that failed, right? Yep. Where I think we can say that. They may not say that, but we can say that. Like they no longer push their original series. I don't see any big marketing for them.

15:03 I don't know if they still exist behind the scenes.

15:08 Like I would say the last YouTube rewind was probably the mark of that ending trick.

15:13 Yeah, okay. Because they had like a V Sauce original. Yep. They were pushing that for a while. Scripted high or at least higher effort content.

15:23 Yeah. We'll pay you to make higher tier content that is paid for via this subscription.

15:28 Yeah. And it seems like that has failed. Yep, I'd agree. YouTube failed to become Netflix. And so then YouTube decided to become TikTok. Trying to, yes. And so the shorts get pushed a ton. So I don't know how successful it is, but I know it doesn't make very much money.

15:47 No, if you're in the shorts game, since it's out it's all public, the monetization system, they just changed the views for all of YouTube for all this stuff. And shorts was uh was softly impacted from it, but the monetization on shorts and how you now get monetized as a channel has become very different.

16:04 Basically, if you are a shorts creator, and if you are, good luck, genuinely, they are hoping that you're posting, I think it's like 20 hours or something ridiculous shorts-wise per month to hit a monetizable level. Right. They also monetize terribly. It is why I think YouTube's in a weird spot, because if you are a creator, we have the liberty of you write books.

16:26 Our YouTube channel does not need to make money.

16:28 Correct. In fact, our YouTube dot channel does not make money. No, we turned on ads only because YouTube seems to like things that have ads on them. And so if you want to show up in people's feeds and things, but we don't have sponsorships, which is where you actually make your money. And so we pay more for editing and things like that.

16:48 But the YouTube channel doesn't have to make money. That's not the point of our YouTube channel. The YouTube channel is so that people get to see me and be like, hey, Brandon's actually a person. Brandon has an update for me, and then hopefully people will buy the books, and that is how we make our money.

17:02 Exactly.

17:03 We're a weird channel that is somewhat brand related, but also personality related. Yeah, and I'm not a YouTuber.

17:08 I'm on YouTube. You are, but a YouTuber, I would count the distinction. They are working to make a significant portion of their income off of their video content, and we are not.

17:18 We are not. It's why if you ever wondered, we don't do mid-rolls. Like if you're like, oh, I've never got an ad in the middle of a video, it's because we just we don't do them. Yeah.

17:25 So why would we? Like we have the ads on only because we want the algorithm to actually serve us to people. And I mean, makes perfect sense. If I were YouTube, I'd be like, Yep, obviously, the majority of stuff that is going to be higher quality is going to be people trying to earn money off of their content.

17:44 And it just makes sense that that's the sort of thing that we go, but well, and you get to the advertiser things of yes, if you make money, we also make the money because I've attended it about all the things.

17:55 Where I was going with this was since we don't have to worry about that, we're kind of allowed to make whatever. Yeah. Shorts people, from what I have seen, it is just a fight of can you get attention? The view counts have changed to if you even watch a frame of a video, you have now quote unquote been a view on that.

18:12 Right.

18:12 That's gonna push clickbait even further. I mean, YouTube is one of the more clickbait places, but it's gonna push it because that makes sense for them. For us, it doesn't. We want you to watch for a long while and enjoy yourself. And so we're not as clickbaity. No, we're not. And I I don't know if I can do the Mr.

18:30 Beast face anyway.

18:32 Yeah, you don't think you can get the full? Is that the Mr. Beast face? You need a full, if you're doing it, you gotta be like, oh, no, no, he he does or the the giant smile.

18:41 The giant smile, that's what he does lately. Maybe I haven't seen, like he probably does the more React on React things, but it's a cycle.

18:48 He their team has kind of cracked the the formula on that. Although, since we brought up Mr. Beast, do you know about the book? I know about the book, yeah.

18:57 I'm really curious like who the ghost writer was. I would love them to do credit, but I can see why they're not. Yep. We've run into this thing too. Like, so there was at one point that I like had a book, and I'm like, oh, it would be really good to co-author this with two people. Okay. So with the new Skyward books, right?

19:14 Jancy had a writing partner that it was really fun for her to write with her writing partner. Okay. And so she said, Well, can we do all three names? And I'm like, three names on a spine looks real weird. Yeah. Right. And so for a while we're like, well, what will we do? Should you two come up with a pen name together?

19:32 It's me and the two of you as a pen name, then we can be very clear who the pen name is, just like Daniel Abraham and Ty do expanse and things like that. It turns out that Jancy didn't need the co-writer. Like uh just working with me was enough. She just Jancy works really well when she has a lot of people to bounce ideas off when she's working on a book, and that's really helpful for her.

19:53 It just it turned out that she didn't need one. So but I am very, very firm on if you see only my name on a book, only I wrote the book. You were the yeah, okay. If you see someone else's name on a book, chances are they wrote the book and I came up with the outline and then was the editor on it. That's how almost all of them are.

20:15 Alcatraz 6 is different. I wrote half and Jancy wrote half. Okay. But I think all of the other collaborations, like the two Stormlight stories that were for Story Deck, like I went into Isaac and, like, hey, I really would love to have this story about Lopen. I don't have time to write it. Here's what I was thinking, and then Isaac takes it and runs, right?

20:33 That's how most of the co-author things work with me.

20:36 Makes sense.

20:36 The Mr. Beast book is co-authored with James Patterson. Yes. James Patterson does what I just explained, is all of his books. Almost all of his books. Okay. I think he wrote the one with Bill Clinton himself because he used to write books, but James Patterson is more of an editor. Okay. Slash one step more than an editor than these days than he is a writer for most of his things.

20:58 I've known friends who've worked with him, they all have wonderful things to say. Okay. But normally it's James Patterson and somebody. Right. And what happens in those situations usually James Patterson has an idea, they brainstorm it together with person, they come up with an outline together, then person writes the book.

21:13 Okay. And James Patterson reads it and offers feedback. Right. Makes sense. Yep. The Mr. Beast book does not have a third co-author. No, it does not. I haven't read a ton and I haven't read this book. But it doesn't feel like a James Patterson book.

21:26 That's the biggest thing that I have heard. Is most people are like, I don't know if Patterson wrote this book. It's very different from the last two or three that he has had published.

21:34 Right, right. And I think he actually wrote the one with Bill Clinton. But who knows? Who knows? It's Patterson. But it's very strange for Patterson to use an uncredited ghostwriter. Right. You know, and this is a thing that exists in the business for various reasons. I don't think it's a bad thing, but it is a thing you have to be careful with, right?

21:53 Right. Like when Harriet came to me and hired me to write the Wheel of Time books, like there was no discussion. Of me ghostwriting them because in those cases, like if the books were 70% done, then an uncredited ghostwriter makes sense. You just kind of fill in. But people deserve to know that they were getting a Brandon Sanderson take on a Robert Jordan book, not a Robert Jordan without an author.

22:18 Right. And usually that's the way Patterson is. I don't think, all due respect to Jimmy, I don't think Mr. B sat down and wrote a book. He's talked before a lot about his struggles with reading. I just feel like he probably didn't at most I'm willing to give him the outline. At most. Maybe. Yeah, I bet he was in the brainstorming session.

22:38 And that's probably what it was. But Patterson doesn't seem to wrote the book. So it looks like they used an uncredited ghostwriter. I will completely not squash, but I will heavily resist any accusations of AI because Patterson is very, has been very outspoken against it. He already has a process that works really well for him.

22:58 There's no reason for Patterson to use AI. People are like, Patterson's lazy. Patterson's not lazy. Patterson seems to really enjoy being an editor. This is how George is, George R. Martin. George loves being an editor. He loves commissioning piece, and these won't have his name on him. He loves editing best of anthologies, wild cards was all.

23:18 He loves working with authors in an editorial sort of thing. Patterson, by reputation, I don't know him, but by the people I know, they say he really just enjoys that part of it. Right. He loves helping authors sculpt a book. He's got a fantastic process for that. Yeah. But why this book? Is it because three names would be weird?

23:35 And I think that's probably what it was. It's just three names are too odd, but you can't combine any two of them because Patterson and Mr. Beast are the names to sell it. Right. And so they must have gotten an uncredited ghostwriter unless Patterson comes out and says, No, no, no, I wrote this. He might have.

23:54 I have not seen it. I've also not seen anyone rise up and be like, I'm the ghost. Oh, you don't do that. If you're an uncredited ghostwriter, your reputation is based on the fact that you're the person they can call and say, we need a book by this time. We need it to be good. And we need you to never say that you wrote it.

24:09 Because almost every uncredited ghostwriter in the world, they are writing for politicians or celebrities. Usually celebrity autobiographies. Okay. Most of their job is that. They don't really do a lot of what we're talking about, right? Writing a book for an author. Like I've never heard of it in the industry.

24:30 That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Right. But I've never heard, like, I've never heard of a friend or even an acquaintance hiring an uncredited ghostwriter to write a book. I couldn't point to a single one in fiction. I'm sure they exist, but I couldn't point to a single one. If they do exist, they probably exist because the places we know they have happened are like the Hardy Boys and stuff like that.

24:52 Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah. But even, are you familiar with the Warrior Cats? Yes. So the Warrior Cats are all written under the name Aaron Hunter. And that's a group of three women who are all the Aaron's. But it's not even a secret. It's not supposed to be secret. Right. They together are Aaron Hunter and they write each different books and things like that.

25:11 And it's not like a rotating chair of Errens. There might be a new Aaron because Tui Sutherland had Wings of Fire takeoff. She went and did her own thing. Okay. But it's not like they're hiding this. Everyone knows who the Erns are and they collaborate on this series. Right. But there are things like the Hardy Boys that it was completely hidden who wrote the books.

25:33 So it does exist. Right. But I've never met anybody that's used one or anything. And so it's where do you find someone for fiction? I mean, I assume they exist out there to write fiction books for celebrities who want to have written a novel. Right. But I don't move in those spheres. I know the only places I've met people and known is they've worked for like writing the autobiography of a politician.

25:56 Right. Even that is it's not as behind the scenes mischievous as you might think. Like a lot of these people sit and they take dictations from the celebrity. Right. And then they actually take those dictations and turn them into the prose, but then rearrange things and write it so that it works. Yeah.

26:12 They build the narrative. They build the narrative and things like that. Okay. But it generally comes from a lot of dictations. Makes sense. So it's it's not super sketchy for the uh for the celebrity to put their name on that. It's not like they say, okay, go write a book about my life. I'm not so I wouldn't be surprised if that has happened.

26:28 Right. Anything is possible, but um, but regardless, the ghostwriters, part of their job is to never say, I ghostwrote this. Okay, because that's your reputation in the industry. The celebrity doesn't want people knowing that someone else ghostwrote their autobiography. Makes sense.

26:45 How do you find a ghost author then?

26:48 Ghostwriter, agents, you go to the agents and the editors and you say, Hey, um, usually so the biggest division, and I know much less about nonfiction than fiction, but the biggest division in publishing is nonfiction and fiction. Okay. And nonfiction is this weird world that works so differently from my world.

27:07 Nonfiction sells on proposal, fiction sells on completed book, unless you're a really established author. So let's say you are an astronaut. You can go and get an agent and say, I would like to have an autobiography about me. Right. Here is the proposal, and that's what'll sell the book. Because that's what sells to the audience.

27:26 Gotcha. Okay. And at that point, is the astronaut good enough to write their own book? Or do you need a ghostwriter? And I don't know how that even Right.

27:34 It's a whole other thing.

27:35 That world you would need to talk to them to get more than the general idea I've just given you.

27:40 Yeah. Interesting. But that's gotta be a unique process because I'm assuming, and this is again full assumption. I wonder how you become a ghostwriter. Like, does your age be like, hey, you're what we're looking for in a ghostwriter, you are now this.

27:56 I think now I'm more assumption. Okay. I assume that pathway is you've written a couple of solid nonfiction books. Okay. But you've reached the end of what you can write about from your own experience, right? Like I think a lot of them probably come from the reporting world because a lot of reporters to nonfiction, like Mary Roach and people like that, write really fantastic nonfiction.

28:17 Yep. And I assume you get somebody like that who writes about you know their experience as a field reporter in Afghanistan or something. You just say that. They wrote a really great book, and people are like, that's a really solid book. We need somebody to do this for this other person. Will you take the job?

28:33 That makes sense. That's what I assume. But you have to go talk to some nonfiction people. Once you get past that nonfiction divide, I know a ton about the fiction world. I can tell you almost about everything. But that divide, I only have that is the gap. Okay. Huge gap. A lot of the agents are different, a lot of the editors are different.

28:51 Like you just don't cross paths as often with any of those folks.

28:55 You know, I've known you a long time. Do you have a favorite nonfiction book?

28:58 I don't think I know this. Yeah, let me think. I like a lot. Now, people don't cringe too much on me, but I like a lot of the survey nonfiction. Like Keegan's History of Warfare. Now, why people might cringe is like serious historians are gonna read John Keegan and be like, this is the most surface level.

29:18 It's not digging into the real meat of the idea sort of stuff. Yes, I know, but that's what I need. Because I'm a dum-dum. I don't have a history degree, right? I need to start there and extrapolate from it. Right. And John Keegan writes that really well. Okay. And in the same sort of vein, like, there's that sort of thing.

29:36 I'll read a lot of that. Okay. I do like your freakonomics slash Malcolm Gladwell books. Okay. But those I take with a grain of salt. Okay. Right? Like, these are more opinion pieces than fact pieces, and they like to present themselves as fact pieces. They're fun reads, they make you think, but like any given thing that they say, yeah.

30:01 Grain of salt is appreciated. It's good to do it, right? Take it as an opinion piece. I like Gladwell. But let's take, for instance, just briefly talk about his David and Goliath. Ah, okay. I know, yeah. Have you heard this one where he has a really excellent sort of Ted style talk about David and Goliath, which is a good indication of how he does a lot of his writing, where he says, you know, actually, if you look at this, it's like the well actually of Ted talks.

30:27 If you look at this, David was always the favored person to win this fight. David had the advanced weaponry of the sling. And Goliath at that size probably had lots of health issues and probably was pretty slow. And this was a 10 to 1 against Goliath. And he has this whole speech about it to get you to think differently.

30:47 And I'm sitting there thinking, dude, the point of the story is the little guy with the faith of God can defeat the big giant monster. You're missing the point. Yes. Like this story was told from day one because of the metaphor. So, yes, you can do your well actually or things like this, but this is the point of the story.

31:16 We don't like saying, well, Goliath probably had lots of health issues. Like, no, Goliath is a monster. Yes. Right? And, you know, I happen to be religious. I'm faithful. I think this story likely happened, but in the telling, it has taken on some mythological aspects. Yeah. Goliath was probably not nine feet tall, but regardless, it's the idea is the important thing.

31:41 Right. This persists because of the metaphor and how important it is and how powerful it is. And that's a good metaphor. It's really meaningful for people. And so well actualing it. Malcolm, it's a wonderful TED talk. It's also completely pointless. Right. So that's the Malcolm Gladwell like sort of thing.

32:00 I love reading his books, but there's a whole lot of that of well-actualing that you're just like, oh come on, Malcolm. So fun reads, though.

32:09 Fun reads? Okay. That makes that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Would you say, I'm curious because you've brought it up. What is the story you have seen the most get well actually in your time? I can't think of one. Because I'm like the most well actually. Right. I don't know. I it's a tough one because I I can't think of one off the top of my head.

32:27 I mean, just relate a story and then go to the Reddit comments.

32:31 And yeah.

32:32 Number one through five, somewhere in there will be a really good well actually. And another will be a really good joke. Yep. And then uh one might be insightful. Depends on if it was from 2014. That's the Reddit, or if it's from 2024. Okay. Insightfulness on Reddit has gone down a little bit over time.

32:51 And the memes have gone up, and the well actually has gone way up.

32:55 Yeah. Do you have a favorite well actually fact? Can you point to any? Boy. Well actually. I guess it doesn't work. Because the famous one I always go to is like The Lord of the Rings, Vigo Mortensen kicked his own. That's not a well actually.

33:09 No, no, no. What's a good well actually? Yeah, that's a we had to research some of these podcasts where we just face palm about them. Because a good will actually is rare. Yeah. A one that makes you actually reconsider and recontextualize. Most well actually's are, well, this thing, and you think about it for a second, you're like, wow.

33:31 And then you think about it another second, you're like, oh no, that's dumb. Yeah. So I don't know.

33:35 Hey, comments. If you have any, you know where to leave them. Yeah. That could be a fun one. We'll have to cook on that one a little bit.

33:42 Yeah, there are a lot of good ones. Like, I guess my favorite well actually, and we can kind of maybe end here, is the story that we were told in high school. You weren't, I was that Columbus didn't believe the earth was round. No, the world didn't believe the earth was round and Columbus had to prove it or something.

34:00 I was told this as well in elementary.

34:03 Yeah, yeah.

34:03 Because like I'm older than you, and so people believed this until somebody smart, like this is a Goodwill, actually. The like the Greeks knew the Earth was round. So did they forget and then they went and looked, and no, turns out Columbus miscalculated the size of the planet, and he was wrong. And he thought he could sail around the planet in less time than he could.

34:26 And it's really lucky for him there was a continent in the way because he would have run out of. And I think what the the myth that we were told was that his his sailors thought they'd sail off the edge of the earth.

34:36 Okay.

34:37 That was the one that I was told. And it turns out, no, none of the Sarah's thought they'd sail over the edge of the earth. They had a calculation for the size of the earth, and like we were not going to get around it to India before we starved to death. Uh Columbus is as bad. Um and so yeah.

34:54 I think the biggest one, speaking of Columbus, that I was told was he found America first.

34:59 Oh, I don't know that I ever like we knew about Lai Frickson even back then, but I don't know. They never really talked about it. Maybe it is maybe it is a bit of a well actually, but the first Europeans to get to America. But I mean, I remember learning about the land bridge when I was in, so they might be the first ones to actually, but I guess they came up from Asia.

35:21 So history. History being history. And now it depends on if is Eurasia one continent or is it two continents? And I'll let the historians talk about that, the geographers.

35:32 But I was gonna say, we started with YouTube. I should shout out at least one alternate history hub. Speaking of history, they're fantastic. You should go watch them too. I've watched some of theirs as well. Yeah, big fan of them. They're great. But yeah. We got a little distracted on the whole book side.

35:46 Welcome to Intentionally Blank. It's your true first mega tangent. You're well and truly belong. They got the old person perspective and the young person perspective on this. So there you are.

35:58 There you are.

35:59 How's that, Dan? Come back. We miss you.

36:04 We miss you.

36:04 Don't bring us COVID though.