Brave New Bookshelf - Episode 1

Steph Pajonas: [00:00:00] This is the first, first, first episode of our new podcast, Brave New Bookshelf. And I'm Steph Pajonas and I have Danica Favorite with me. Say hi, Danica. 

Danica Favorite: Hello, good to see everyone. 

Steph Pajonas: We're here, we're going to do a little bit of an introduction into who we are and why we started this podcast and why we are using AI as part of our process as authors.

And I'm sure that some of you won't even know who the heck we are. So let's get started and we'll figure it out as we go along. We're going to have a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. Danica and I like to riff off each other plenty. So we should be having a good time on this podcast. 

Danica Favorite: I think so. I think that that's why when we were talking about doing a podcast, I was like, Oh my goodness, doing this with Steph is going to be so much fun because we do have a good banter between us. And we like to chat and sometimes we get sidetracked. So hopefully we don't do that too [00:01:00] much. And hopefully we also entertain you along the way.

Steph Pajonas: Yeah, absolutely. Why don't you tell us about you, Danica? 

Danica Favorite: All right, so I'm Danica Favorite. I am the Community Manager at PublishDrive. And PublishDrive is a book aggregator that helps authors and publishers distribute their books to the largest worldwide market of any aggregator.

And rather than taking a percentage of your money, we charge a flat monthly fee. So for a lot of authors who are making substantial money, that's a really good deal. And we got into this because as we were looking at publishing and innovations and publishing, the AI thing just kept coming up and kept coming up.

And my boss said to me, hey, we need to do more with AI. Actually, he said it to everyone in the company. And, so this was my contribution to say, Hey, let's start having these conversations and really take a look at what authors and publishers are doing and how we can be part of that conversation and hopefully help [00:02:00] shape what AI is going to look like in publishing in the future.

And the reason that's important to me is because I am also an author. I'm multi published. I am a hybrid author. And so I have 19 books with Harlequin. And then I have, I think, 10 indies. I could be wrong on that. 

Steph Pajonas: It's easy to lose count. 

Danica Favorite: It is! I think that I, I, I sat down and I counted and then I thought, oh, but wait, there's this thing and this thing and this thing that I took down and so it's a lot.

But I think as someone in the author community you hear Everybody talking about AI, this AI, that AI is that AI is good, blah, blah, blah. And once this conversation started coming up, this is important to me as a writer, as a creative. And for me to be part of that conversation and to do the research and to figure out what's really going on.

I think that we're at an incredible [00:03:00] point in the history of publishing where we get to guide that future. And so let's work on guiding that future in a positive direction. 

Steph Pajonas: Oh, yeah. I agree with all of that. Yeah. 

Danica Favorite: Yeah. That's why we're friends. That's why we're doing this together. 

Steph Pajonas: That's why we're doing this together, right?

Danica Favorite: And not, it's an echo chamber because I do feel like there are times where you'll be like, hey, what about this? I'm like, and then I'll say, oh, and so we have those conversations, which I like. I like that ability to run ideas off of each other and be able to come up with something really interesting to bo