S2 E14 - Andrea Jenelle Samples Spine of Steel

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Andrea Jenelle Samples Spine of Steel

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Katherine Grant: Welcome to the historical romance sampler podcast. I'm your host, Katherine Grant, and each week I introduce you to another amazing historical romance author. My guest reads a little sample of their work, and then we move into a free ranging interview. If you like these episodes, don't forget to subscribe to the historical romance sampler, wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Now let's get into this week's episode. All right I am back with a exciting episode because this is my first ever returning guest. We have Andrea Jenelle, and she's here for a very exciting reason, which we'll get to in a moment. For now, I'd like to introduce you in case you haven't listened to our previous episode. Andrea Jenelle has been reading Romance for 40 years.

When the pandemic required her to invest in yoga pants and cozy [00:01:00] socks for her work from home status, she took advantage of all the time she could reclaim. In place of commuting, she cracked open all the notebooks she'd been hoarding since the late eighties and released her first book,

no regrets, in 2022. She has since published 15 books in Three Romance Sub-genres, small Town Contemporary, urban, romantic, and Victorian Era Historical Romance centered on the working class. Although she writes across sub-genres, she believes the common denominators in her writing are her love of banter, unexpected meet cutes, and fully fleshed out characters.

She believes in fated mates, but not Insta Love. And she considers herself a romantic pragmatist. She's a staunch feminist and loves chatting with readers and supporting other authors. In fact, I think you still have the account I Hype Romance on bookstagram.

I do still

Andrea Jenelle: have that account.

Yeah, it's,

it's hard to like keep, you know, all of the social [00:02:00] media, like keep up with everything because you know, I'm preaching to the choir. But when you're an author. Wow. Yes, it's a lot. So I think, I think I do like cover lust Friday and step back Saturday and every swap then I'll do a review. But yeah, a lot quieter than I used to be, but still a huge supporter.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. And so the reason that we are together today is that you had this idea for a new series. Mm-hmm. Called Suffragette Uprising. And so you are the first book and also my first interview, but I'm hoping to have each author publishing in the Suffragette Uprising series as a guest on the podcast. So yours is the first book, A Spine of Steel. What can we expect from this story and what is your vision for the series overall?

Andrea Jenelle: So what you can expect from the story? Well, this story is actually set in Victorian era America in small town. And I actually took I actually took this setting that is in my [00:03:00] contemporaries and just took it back 150 years, so, oh, cool.

So it's actually in Willow Creek, but it's.

So I really, really wanted to focus my narrative and my plotting on the Comstock Act because I think it's gonna become more and more prevalent and more and more important to our discourse of, you know, reading romance the distribution of romance, you know, what it means to publishing what it means to, you know, women's empowerment.

So my heroine comes into conflict with the law. You'll figure out why in the excerpt that I read. But but yeah, she comes into conflict with that law and the whole premise of the book is you know, talks about the law and why it's ridiculous, basically.

It also involves the, the hero, like having an epiphany of his own kind of like, oh, I get it now. Because he is actually [00:04:00] he is actually the town's prosecuting prosecuting attorney. So, yeah, so he, once she is found in violation, he is the one that isn't, that's tasked with bringing her to justice.

Katherine Grant: Ooh. Gotta love an enemies to love her.

Andrea Jenelle: Yes. But he's also, but he's also her

brother's best friend and they've grown up together. So there's also like that dynamic. Yeah.

Amazing. All right, well do you wanna get into the reading and then we can talk about the series and everything later?  

Diogenes castellano was an arrogant, self-righteous ass. Perry knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was the single most infuriating man on the planet. But sometimes Pericles Trenton stared at his mouth and forgot her name and how to speak, and Pericles Trenton was never speechless because crafting words was her stock and trade.

Andrea Jenelle: For the last five years, she'd single handedly been running the Willow Creek Crier. She was the reporter, the writer, the editor in chief and primary hawker. She was also the [00:05:00] secret translator of a series of scandalous Italian memoirs about the lives of 16th century Venetian courtesans and their escapades. Her tongue tied behavior around the man who tormented her since childhoodas nonsensical. He captivated her in some devilish display of power. She couldn't make heads or tails up when her brothers tall, bespectacled best friend swiped a stray drop of apple jack from the rim of his glasses with his tongue, or closed

his eyes as he wrapped his mouth around a spoonful of chocolate mousse. Perry was rendered both speechless and witless. She wanted to leap across the table and grab his chin, soup be damned. She wanted to clamber over the half-empty platter of roast to lick away the spot of chocolate caught in his dimple because it was slowly driving her mad. She wanted to toss the half full pitcher of peppered gravy in his direction and then reach across the table, lift his glasses from his face on the pretense of cleaning them, which she would accomplish by sitting down beside him and lifting her skirt so she could use her petticoat. Doing that would bear her ankle, and she hoped the innocuousness of it would upend him the same way she was upended by the way his throat bobbed when [00:06:00] he laughed.

Every time he let loose a gusty whoop, she had to bite her tongue so she wouldn't lean forward and bite his Adam's apple. Their fathers been the best of friends at Harvard. Their shared love of classics and fine whiskey led to a lifelong attachment attachment. So pronounced Dio's father followed his friend from Boston Creek.

They'd served together in the war between the states and returned to raise their family side by side. Diogenes, or Dio as her brothers called him, had been a fixture in her house for as long as she could remember. That had been all well and good until the summer she turned 21. The annual baseball game after the Tom Picnic could become quite boisterous.

Her two brothers were dead ringer pitchers, and even, even though her mother said it wasn't gentile, Perry always ended up behind the home plate as a catcher. That summer at that game, Dio went down in a pile of dust when her brother Archimedes threw a wild pitch. Perry had crashed to her knees, and when he'd opened his eyes, she'd noticed how velvety soft they were behind his mangled spectacles, like the ears of the pet rabbit

she carried around everywhere she went when she was seven. [00:07:00] And then she noticed his lips, the firm upper one with the very pronounced bow just hidden by his mustache and the plush right bottom one, like a juicy strawberry that was framed by his dark beard. For the last five years, she hadn't been able to stop noticing his lips.

She was noticing them now the way they scraped against his fork and melded around his spoon. "What are you staring at, termagant?" He said around a mouth full of boiled potatoes. She wasn't about to confess why she was transfixed. "Do you have to scrape the fork against your teeth? Every single time you take a bite, it orders on uncouth."

He gave her an unrepentant grin and scraped it again.

"But these are excellent boiled potatoes." She didn't want to laugh or smile, but she couldn't help herself. "Thankfully, as annoying as you can be, you're no Mr. Collins." He gave her one of the rare smiles that just turned up the corner of his beginning lips.

"I see your opinion of me has improved since you were 15. You called me a lout then because I wouldn't swim into the middle of the pond until you're sinking canoe back to shore. You claimed even Mr. Collins would have expended the effort if only to ingratiate himself." Perry was never going to betray how [00:08:00] far he moved up in the ranks of her esteem.

She set a spoon beside her empty bowl and narrowed her eyes at him. "As I said, you're no Mr. Collins." She smirked. "But you're no Darcy either. You're more like Wickham." He set a spoon down and returned her glare. "I beg your pardon." His voice rose at the end of the question. Perry gleefully reveled in the fact her insult had gotten under his skin.

Archie thumped Dio between the shoulder blades. "Are you frowning at my sister again?" Her brother found it hilarious when they squabbled and always refrained from taking sides. Perry resented his shaky loyalties. "Why do you care, Archie? Aren't Dio and I always frowning at each other?" The expression on the face of her archnemesis lightened, and he shook his head as if to clear it.

Pericles Andromeda Trenton was trouble. Trouble in the form of a shrew with a tongue so sharp it blistered whoever she turned it on. But sometimes Dio wanted to haul her over the crowded table and into his lap so he could kiss away her scowl. When she was seated across from him, he forgot that the docket of petty and not so petty crimes

he was prosecuting should be his first priority. [00:09:00] This was one of those times because she had called him Dio. His nickname didn't sound the same from those rosebud lips. It sounded like praise or a plea. He wanted it to be both and his...

I won't say that word. Turned painfully hard at the thought of what circumstances would elicit either. He wanted her to say nickname and call him her God. He knew his desire was sacreligious, but every single night he about showing her he'd prefer she used her tongue for something other than filleting him alive with its barbed edges. He didn't purposefully frown at her. His frown just emerged of its own volition

whenever she was near, like it had been

hiding in his pocket, waiting for the perfect opportunity. There wasn't much else Dio could do. What reaction was he expected to have when everything about his best friend's little sister both confounded and enthralled him? Dio cleared his throat. "It wasn't a frown." Perry nodded in agreement. "He is right. It wasn't a frown. It was a scowl. Almost a snarl." "It was neither of those things."

He half heartedly protested. He was lying through his teeth. It had probably been both. "Why were you not frowning, mr. Squarehead?" [00:10:00] "Mr. Squarehead? I'm not amused, Pericles."She turned a laughing face to her brother. "I have rumpled him, Archie." "Perry, leave Dio alone and sharpen your claws somewhere else." She stuck her tongue out at her brother and gave Dio a nod. "I'll give you a reprieve for now."

He dipped his head and tried to give her a sarcastic smile. "How magnanimous of you." What a delicious scene. We get so much. We get so much tension. Love it. Thank you. We're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors, and then we're gonna come back and talk about this sample and also the series.

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Katherine Grant: All right, so we are back with Andrea Jenelle, who just read a sample of Spine of Steel, which is out this week as a new release and kicks off the Suffragette Uprising series. So before we get into this sample that you read, can you tell us, because you're the leader of our series, can you tell us about your vision and maybe the inspiration for it?

Andrea Jenelle: Yeah. So one of [00:12:00] the reasons I've been a lifelong feminist is because my grandmother worked at the polls every year from 1931 until like five years before she died in 2012, so like 75 years. She worked at the polls, like every year. She was like a firm believer in women's right to vote because she saw that happen.

She was born in 1911, so she saw her mother get to vote for the first time. So she was a strong believer in that. And you know, having said all that just seeing like what happened in the last election and, you know, seeing like a lot of the feedback that came outta that, that like a lot of people just didn't wanna vote for a woman, you know?

And it, to me it's the natural outcome, right of the journey that we've been on as women, as suffragists to, to have a woman in the highest like, position in this country. I, and I, I feel like sometimes we forget our history. I don't know that the, the new generation coming up is as, is as aware of this legacy of like, [00:13:00] all these women who have been fighting for these rights for, you know, 400, 500 years, right?

I wanted to make that the centerpiece of a series. I thought it would be fun to do it as an interconnected series so that we're all like talking about different time periods and like different issues that women have faced throughout history, but all tied to this core belief that, you know, an equal opportunity.

Katherine Grant: I love that. Yeah. I grew up hearing about my great-grandmother who served as a foreman on a jury, like the first year that women could vote, because once you vote, you become a jury member. Yeah. And you know, it's a wonderful story. But also I also grew up being like, well, we want it, you know, we have the right to vote.

It's accomplished. Mm-hmm. And so I think it's really important to remember how did that happen? It was not inevitable because nothing in history [00:14:00] is inevitable. Right. And you know, what are the resonances with today that we can learn from or draw inspiration from, et cetera. Exactly. All right. So you mentioned at the top that this story is very interested in the Comstock Act.

Yes. Would you like to give us a little infomercial about what that is?

Andrea Jenelle: So, so the Comstock Act was was basically federal legislation that was passed in the late 19th century that that allowed the banning of what it deemed to be pornographic material. And the Comstock act was focused on the distribution of that material through the US Mail service.

So it kind of fell out of favor, like of being enforced like mid, like around the third 1930s. I think that's when the last case was prosecuted, but it was never taken off the books or revoked. So that law is still on the books.

It's funny that we're having this [00:15:00] conversation now because one of the things that the Comstock Act talks about is that every community can determine on its own what it deems to be pornographic or licentious. So every community has that power to do that, which is, which is why like a lot of this, which is why a lot of book bans happen on the local level, right?

Because it's that community that's determining that. It's also why there are some states now that are proposing this, like a much broader ban on books than what has ever been contemplated before. I think Oklahoma is one of the states right now that is going through that. And romance falls into that category.

 The thing is, is that the way the original law was written it had limitations, right? So it talks about the US Mail service. Well, as we know, like that doesn't contemplate digital books. Are you gonna say that US Mail service includes email addresses, like downloading a book from a website?

So it's, I I don't know if, [00:16:00] depending on what happens, if that'll like affect that. There's also the fact that like I know just in my state there are three romance bookstores, that is all they sell is romance. And I feel like that is this, there's been this rise since the pandemic of, of these romance bookstores popping up everywhere.

And it's like, how is that gonna, and most of them are women owned. So how's that gonna affect that side of commerce too, because that's a small business and Yeah, it's, there's a whole, there's all kinds of ramifications and repercussions to this act and what, you know, what happens with you know, the states and as you know, like some, once someone challenges something is unconstitutional, which I think is which I think is the goal.

It can move all the way up to Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court determines the standard. Right. Which is applicable everywhere. So yeah, it's right.

Katherine Grant: And I know there's also a Supreme Court ruling called the Miller Test that Yes. [00:17:00] Instructs communities on how to consider. Mm-hmm. Is something licentious or pornographic?

Yes. And it needs to be considered as a whole. Mm-hmm. Does it have literary or artistic merit? Right. And most of the book bans are literally trying to remove that part of the consideration. So as romance readers, we know what the whole literary or artistic value is, and that's why we have bookstores about it.

That's why we have podcasts about it. That's why we have communities around it. And so we do need to stand up and say you know, Hey. This is not okay. This is how we consider what is appropriate for our community or not.

Andrea Jenelle: Right. And I, I think, you know, I know, I know we've talked about the history, right

of, of romance period. And like, you know, the, the, well, we, we'll, we'll just start with Kathleen Woodiwiss, right? Because when The Flame and Flower came out in 1971, that was the first time that there was like what was considered [00:18:00] explicit acts on the page and remember that was also when the Women's Rights movement was taking off too, right?

Like the equal Rights Amendment and like all these things were happening. So, so I, I, I'm sure that was an outcome of that, but we've also gotta consider, like, I even know my mother, like she did not wanna teach us about sex ed. Right? Right. So, so it was more like oh, I.

For women. Women. And it's also a way for women to explore their sexuality that they can in any other way, especially if your sexuality is part of a marginalized community, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So,  

Katherine Grant: Okay. So getting off of our, you know, doomsday talk for now. . I loved the authorial voice in this sample and also obviously the Jane Austen illusions. Yes. Was it different for you to write an [00:19:00] American historical versus a British historical?

Andrea Jenelle: Yes. I actually wanted to show you like some of the research because I know you love that.

I love it. So, so there's this one it's Erin's Daughters in America because they're from a Scotch Irish. And then I also have this one, the social history of, so, Ooh. Yeah. Background so well, but yeah. So yeah, it's very different. The attitudes, the social attitudes are very different. You would think they would be, 'cause it's like the same time period.

'cause I'm, 'cause this is set about 20 years later than my Wainwright series. Right. Okay. But but. Social values and like, especially as far as women are concerned, and women's right were actually more regressive than they were in Britain. So,

Katherine Grant: unfortunately, not surprising, it's that Puritan heritage.

Yeah. Yeah. And are the Greek names, is there significance to the characters having Greek names?

Andrea Jenelle: Yes. So [00:20:00] so their father, their fathers were were classics. Study classics at Harvard together. So, so they chose their kids' names from

Katherine Grant: Yeah.

Andrea Jenelle: Nerds.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. And Dio's last name is Castellano, so that made me think Oh, Italian.

Did you? Yeah, he is Italian American. Yeah. I love that. Did you do a lot of research on the Italian American experience?

Andrea Jenelle: I did. I did. Especially in Boston, so, so a lot of that comes out on the story. Yeah, because, because there was a, there was like a significant anti-American population in Boston, which I didn't know.

I thought, you know, because we learn it's all like Irish Americans. No. Yeah.

Katherine Grant: So and then so you mentioned that it is connected to Willow Creek, your contemporary mm-hmm. Series. Is there connection in terms of like, are these relatives or ancestors? They're ancestors, yes. That's cool. Yes. Yeah. So readers of the Contemporary series, come on over, join the historical world.

Andrea Jenelle: Yes. That is my goal. The Willow Creek Contemporary series I [00:21:00] have. So, you know, they have like a book club in the series and they read historical romance in the book club and like they talk about the historical romance in the book club. Like the whole, the first four books.

It was Julianne Long, right? Her Pennyroyal Green Series. Wow. And the, the one the two that I just wrote and then the one coming up, it's Sarah MacLean's heartbreaker series. Nice. Yeah. I'm like, come on guys. Pick up a historical romance. And that's such a fun concept. And then so I had this novella that I released as like part of an anthology.

And you know, there are two things I really love is libraries and historical romance. So it's so it's two Willow Creek li rival librarians. And they're like vying for the head spot and. The Willow Creek Watsons is a very popular book club in Willow Creek and the male librarians like, I don't know, like, he kind of like is whatever the romance genre.

He's like, he's like, but I guess I need to know something about it, so can you like teach me? So, so she [00:22:00] gives him a reading list and it's like it's eight canon books right from the historical government genre. So I've had several people reach out after they've read that and be like, I'm reading all the eight books on the list.

That made me so happy.

Katherine Grant: I love that. When you're writing the like book club, do you have to consider, oh, how is each character reacting to this story or

scene?

Andrea Jenelle: I do. What I try to do is tie it to their experience. So like the books that I choose, I do so on purpose. Mm-hmm. Right. To like, and, and when they talk about the historical romance, in that book club, it, whatever pivotal thing they pull out of what they're reading relates to their own life and like kind of gives them the epiphany.

Oh, that's amazing. Especially the guys. Especially the guys.

Katherine Grant: Has that given you a deeper relationship with the books?

Andrea Jenelle: It has. Yeah, because, because you're, you're, you know, when you read a book for pleasure, you are not so much [00:23:00] in the analytical mode and like, how does this to the whole human experience? When, when you're using it in this way, it's been so much fun to just like take out those nuggets and be like, oh, you know this is how this relates to the human experience, not just in romance, but like in relationships.

What happens when you fall in love? What happens when you fight with someone, you know?

Katherine Grant: Yeah. I love that. All right. Well, I think it's time for us to play. Love It or Leave It. Awesome.

[Musical Interlude]

Katherine Grant: All right. Do you love it or leave it? Protagonists meet in the first 10% of the story.

Andrea Jenelle: I love it. All right.

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Dual point of view narration.

Andrea Jenelle: I love it. I, I do that and I just think, I just think it makes the story richer, you know?

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Third person, past tense, narration.

Andrea Jenelle: Love it. In historical, not in contemporary. [00:24:00]

Katherine Grant: Interesting.

Andrea Jenelle: I will because and maybe I can, you know, because I write both, so like, and sometimes it's really hard to switch back and forth.

Because my contemporary or first person dual, POV and my, my historical are third person present dual, POV. Right? So it's just. It's very sometimes it's very hard to switch back and forth.

Katherine Grant: Yeah.

It can trip a writer up. I've had that experience where you're like, whoa, what tense am I writing in? Yes.

All right, love it or leave it? Third act breakup or dark moment. I

Andrea Jenelle: think. I'm, I don't know if I'm in the minority or the majority in this, but I think you have to have that moment of angst and that moment of epiphany and that moment of growth. And I don't think you can have that unless you have that dark moment or that third act breakup.

I've always written like they're breakups, but they're not really breakups and they're always internal struggles. Like I, I would rather have the breakup be due to like the growth that they needed to do as characters rather than like some, you [00:25:00] know, malevolent villain

Andrea Jenelle: or something like that.

Katherine Grant: Yes. Right. Yes. That makes sense to me. Love it or leave it always end with an epilogue.

Andrea Jenelle: I would say leave it. Just because I don't think it's always necessary. And I, I tend to not like the epilogues where it's like where it's, it's like a year later, whatever, and it's so they can show, oh, now they're a big happy family because I feel like you don't necessarily need children to be, have a happy marriage and a happy Yeah.

And I think it's kind of a false Yeah.

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Always share research in your author's note.

Andrea Jenelle: I love it.

And I try to do it. Sometimes the list gets so exhaustive though. I'm just like, oh my gosh. So I have a book coming out next wait, yeah, next week.

And my author's note there's like five sections and I like had to keep myself to like two to three paragraphs about each because I was like, I, I did recently have a [00:26:00] contemporary romance reader who... O she started out reading my contemporaries and then she loved my writing. So she, like, she reads my historicals now and she did tell me like, she sent me an email a couple of days ago.

I was like, she's like, she's like, so I just finished the arc. She's like, and are, is the final copy gonna have the authors notes in it? She's like, because I love that part. I was like, oh,

oh, that's so nice.

She, she's like, she's like, I, I love like reading about the research that you do and why you to put that.

So I think readers really appreciate it.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. All right. And are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you break or push the boundaries on?

Andrea Jenelle: No. I'll

say your, the interview you had with Beverly Jenkins revealed this for me, because she talked about how much she hates accidental pregnancy, myself as well, and I don't think I will ever put that in a book. I also cannot stand [00:27:00] instalust that leads to immediately to instalove. Like, like instalust is very different from Insta Love. And I, I feel like you, you can't build a love story just based on like sexual congress, you know, like you need to have that emotional aspect. That is one thing that I, I, I don't think I'll ever be able to write anything that is what is considered pure smut, because I, I can't like, like I have, build that story out right.

Yeah.

Katherine Grant: Yeah.

They need something more than just the physical connection.

Andrea Jenelle: I, I believe that. Yes.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. All right, well, I'm so glad to have had you on.

Again, like I said, I am hoping to have all of the suffragette uprising authors do the podcast with me. So your book is the first: Spine of Steel out April 8th, 2025. And then there's mine In the Wide Open Light coming out May 6th, 2025. And Andrea's gonna interview me [00:28:00] for the episode.

Stick around. And then Misty Urban has Miss Gregoire's Beginning coming out in June of 2025. And then we are taking a little break. And Andrea, can you remind me of the order of who's, who's putting out what next? Yes,

Andrea Jenelle: it's, it's Ramona Elmes's book is coming out

Katherine Grant: in September. Yes, September, 2025.

Mm-hmm. And then in 2026, we have Elizabeth Everett.

Andrea Jenelle: Mm-hmm. Stephanie Smith, Harry Bowen, Uhhuh. And Stephanie. And Stephanie

Katherine Grant: Smith. Yes. Yes. So, I know, I, I just wanna say to the listeners like, this is because we authors are all taking this on as a passion project. We are so, mm-hmm. Excited about this prompt and also fitting it into existing publishing deadlines and schedules.

So stick with us as we get these stories out. They're going to be awesome. And we're excited to, to tell them over the [00:29:00] next year. And Andrea, I believe you chose April 8th for a specific reason.

Andrea Jenelle: Yeah, I wanted it to be so many days after the, the new inauguration. So I thought we, I thought we'd have a sense of like what, what the climate and the country was gonna be towards women.

And I think we've gotten a sense of that. So,

Katherine Grant: oh, I would say we have, yeah.

Andrea Jenelle: Yeah.

Katherine Grant: I think it's the perfect time for it to come out. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Spin of Steel is Kindle Unlimited. The whole series is gonna start out Kindle Unlimited. You also have 15 plus more romances, contemporary, paranormal, and historical that listeners can read.

Where can they find you and your books?

Andrea Jenelle: So my book, so I do have a couple of books in ku, but that is, the books that are in KU are, they're novellas that were in anthologies that, you know, I released as a Novella or they are. Of like [00:30:00] the series books together, like books 1, 2, 1 through three, three through four through six, et cetera.

So the first three Wainwright Sisters books one through three are actually, that volume is coming out on KU on the 20 actually this Friday, the, so, the 21st of March. But I am very committed to having all of my books available at the library.

So you can read any of my books in Hoopla or Libby. So except for like those, the ones I'm like contractually done, I have to keep in ku, but all the rest are in Hoopla or Libby, which is most of them,

Katherine Grant: which means that your library can purchase them. So if you don't see them in there, ask your librarians to purchase them for you.

Andrea Jenelle: Yes. Awesome. And again, I, you know, I got, you know, not to like get on my soapbox, but like I, you know, this, you know, there's the. Because I made this point to someone, you know, there's the KU ban right now, or like a lot of people are not getting into ku and the thing is, well, KU [00:31:00] makes this accessible.

Well, no it doesn't because you still have to pay for a subscription, whereas you don't have to pay for anything to get these folks from your library. And I think people forget that there's this free resource out there. If you're looking for, please.

Katherine Grant: Yes, and KU actually makes books less accessible. Mm-hmm.

Unless you are paying into it because it will not allow authors whose titles are in Kindle Unlimited to be listed in the libraries. Libraries cannot purchase.

Andrea Jenelle: Yep.

Katherine Grant: Books that are in Kindle Unlimited. So that's a great point, point, the ex,

Andrea Jenelle: the exclusivity agreement, whereas Kobo Plus does not have that exclusivity agreement, which is also where you can find my books and I think yours as well.

Right. Catherine, yours are in. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Katherine Grant: Well, thank you so much for coming on. You're welcome. This has been so fun. Thanks for being my first repeat guest.

Andrea Jenelle: Yes. It's been so much fun and I'm so excited to do this series with you.

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