Episode 92: The Brutally Honest Truth About Our New York Times Best Selling Book

Maybe I just didn't leave any notes about that. Cause it was such a blur. We had the like three weeks leading up to and around release. Oh my God. I can't believe I didn't even make any notes about this.

This was we blurted out of our memory.

Busiest, hardest period of my life. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with over 20.

Years of and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Hey, babe, did you do something different with your hair today?

I don't know. I don't think so.

Did you trim your beard maybe?

I did trim my beard, but yesterday.

Is that a new shirt?

No.

You just look different today.

I just feel different today.

Is it because you're a New York Times best selling author?

You got me. I am. You look different too.

Do I? Do I have a smell?

You smell different.

I smell different? What?

Trying to catch you off guard. You do have a glow.

I didn't catch you nearly off guard.

It smells like success.

Oh, boom.

Doing my own sound effects now.

So we are recording this on a different schedule than usual on a day we don't usually record. We had to fast track this episode because we became instant New York Times best selling authors yesterday.

Yeah, as of actually like literally it was as of 24 hours ago that the, the announcement became official. We found out probably 20, 26 hours ago.

Wow. Being very precise.

Being very precise. But you know, we gotta. The, the podcast is so important to us. We gotta get on here quick.

So what does it feel like to be a New York Times best selling author? I'm just gonna keep saying that the whole time. New York Times best selling author.

I'd say for me, I'd say the two biggest emotions that come up for me is first off, I feel really grateful. I feel a lot of gratitude. Gratitude has become such an important part of my life over these last couple of years and you know, I've come to realize it. My, my successes are better manifested through gratitude than through like egotism or something like that. So I just, I feel so grateful. Like I don't. This isn't about me. This is about everybody who helped us along the way. So I just feel so grateful, so grateful to all the people that were in our corner throughout this whole, whole process. And I also. Do. I. At the same time, I feel really proud. I feel proud of myself because this is something that would have been inconceivable for me in the past, this. This type of accomplishment. You know, I struggled for a long time, like, really putting my all into anything, and especially something that required such, you know, like, hard and sustained effort over many years.

Over two and a half years.

Yeah. Yeah, we've been working on this. I would have been. I would have been too scared, too fearful of failure to. To do something like this on my own in the past. And I mean, who knows if I would ever do something like this on my own in the future, but doing it with you and also just doing it, you know, as me in an area that I feel really passionate about and that I feel like ownership over. I'm just. I'm really proud that I was able to do this because there were many, many, many years of my life where I would not have been capable of something like this, where I was half assing things. And I am really proud to be whole assing it. To borrow a. A Parks and Recs. Park and Rex line. Parks. Wait. Oh, my God.

No, he still got it wrong.

Parks and Recreation.

It's Parks and Rec.

Parks and Rec. Yeah. Wait, what's it? Ron Burgundy.

Oh, God, babe, no.

Oh, God. No. It's from Weatherman.

No, it is Ron, but not Ron.

Ron Swanson.

There you go.

Borrow a Ron Swansonism. Was it.

You whole asked it?

Yeah, I whole asked it.

You did? Sure did. I. Yeah. Very similar to you. I'm feeling an overwhelming swell of gratitude. There were so many people who helped us create this book, shape it, get it out into the world, and making the bestseller list. We could not have. We literally could not have done that on our own. We could not have bought, you know, thousands of copies of the book on our own and made on the list.

Even if we did, they. They don't let you on because they can identify. We were told very early. Don't try. If you try to buy a shit ton of copies of your book, ain't.

Gonna help, you know, each and every person who pre ordered the book. Who ordered the book, it's because of you guys that we made the list. So I'm just eternally grateful. It feels so freaking cool. It feels like a huge validation for doing this work in such a taboo area. I mean, you know, we've been really blessed in so many ways. And we've also had a lot of challenges in having a business in such a taboo space. And so to be able to make this very prominent list feels like a huge validation. And I'm so grateful for it. And it just. So for you, a book was never something that you ever thought you would do. But for me, I have dreamed my entire life of writing a book. I am a huge bookworm. I grew up at the Santa Barbara Public Library and Chaucer's books dreaming of seeing my book on those shelves one day. And so this is like a literally a lifelong dream come true.

And I just have to say it feels so good to be supporting those dreams of yours. It makes, it makes me so happy. I feel like I'm. I feel like I'm providing for you in a way by being along with you for the ride and whole assing the shit out of it.

We whole assed it together, babe. We did two whole asses. So we wanted to do this episode because I have secretly been keeping a journal of this process along the way. So we did have episode 87 of the podcast. We talked about the process of writing the book, but I've been keeping notes about everything that has happened since we really transitioned into like marketing and selling the book and it actually coming out. There are a lot of behind the scenes stories that we have never shared. Not to our email list, not to Instagram. Like nobody knows these things. I was hoping that we were going to be able to make an episode called how we created a New York Times bestseller selling book, the Secrets behind a New York Times best selling book. I of course was not sure we were going to make this episode, but I'm really grateful that we do get to.

You manifested that shit, babe.

I did. So let's share all the behind the scenes secrets.

The good, bad, the ugly.

Oh, there's some ugly and there's some bad, believe me. And a lot of good. I think this will be a really fascinating sneak peek, like behind the curtains of what really went on. Some interesting tidbits about the book and the book world, but also some very vulnerable shares and very personal shares from you and I about what we've been going through these last couple of months.

All right, let's do it. But before we do that, we do also have to get into per usual. Our review of the week. This week's is five stars for all the talking. Oh, I've been listening to pillow talk since even before I made my sexual debut. And I give V&M. Oh, I think they must mean VNX. Marin, Vanessa and Marin. Nice VNM. So much credit for giving me the confidence and know how to have a safe, fulfilling sex life from the beginning. Party Fire. I was so excited for their book Fire. I mean it is the.

Okay.

I was so excited for their book Sex Talks that I pre ordered it way back in September. Hell yeah. And tore through it when it arrived last week. Party Face. It is a fantastic companion to their huge collection of free two exclamation marks in parentheses Materials. Let me go back to their huge collection of free materials and pairs so well with this podcast. 5 out of 5 to each individually and 20 out of 10 to the combo.

Wow. Love those ratings. Thank you so much for the review. As you guys may know, reviews go such a long way in helping the podcast be successful, so we really appreciate you taking the time to leave them. If this is your review, you can shoot us an email@info m therapy.com because we got a special little prize for you.

We do.

But we also have a slight twist on the review of the week this week.

Oh, give it to me.

We love the podcast reviews. Obviously you're here listening to the podcast, so we love those reviews. But if you have picked up a copy of Sex Talks, we would be so extra grateful if you would leave a review of it on wherever you bought it.

Amazon or Barnes and Noble or whatever. If you bought it in your local bookstore, I guessing you probably can't leave a review there.

You can leave a review on Amazon even if you bought it on your local bookstore. Amazon distinguishes between people who are leaving the review who bought it on Amazon, but you can leave it even if you didn't buy it.

Oh, well then absolutely. Please do that.

We would really appreciate it. And we'll share with you a little behind the scenes of why. Yeah, why it's so important in just a minute. Okay, so let's get into it. First thing I want to talk about is these fears that we have been battling for, for many months now about whether or not the book would cannibalize our business. And spoiler alert, it kind of did. So we knew going into this whole book process, books are not big money makers. You do not write a book to make a ton of money. You write a book to get more people into your community, to serve more people, to make a bigger name for yourself. But you don't do it to make money. Like we make a couple of dollars on every book sold, right? So we knew going into it, we're Going to focus a lot of our energy, a lot of our team's energy, our time on this book. And it felt like a valuable thing to do. We're like, we believe in this book. It's in our hearts to write this book. It feels like a part of our mission. And so we knew we were going to take time and energy away from our business, but it was still very scary, like, how much time and energy we took away from our business knowing that we were just not going to make very much money.

Yeah, I mean, especially because for us, you know, we run an online business, we sell courses and guides where, you know, I'd say we're pretty adept at how to market that type of stuff because that's what we've been doing for years. And so for us, the whole, like, Mark, you know, of doing a book launch, marketing a book, that wasn't so foreign to us. It wasn't like, oh my God, we have to do this whole new thing. But what it was instead was, was, you know, we have a limited number of people who work for us. We ourselves are limited. And how much energy we have, how much time we can devote to this. And if we are spending our time marketing a book, that is time that we can't spend marketing or selling or talking about the other stuff that we already sell. And I think that, you know, for people that maybe write a book who don't do what we do, it's. It's perhaps a bit of a different thing. Like, you know, they're not, they're not like selling something on a day to day basis. So they're not looking at it like, oh, well, if I'm marketing the book, I'm taking away from what I already sell. But in our case, it was like we couldn't really, we say we couldn't really do both. We legit could not.

Yeah, we couldn't do both. Yeah. I mean, from a purely financial perspective, this was a terrible decision.

You know, in the short term.

Yeah, in the short term we're, you know, we're hoping that the book pays off in the long run. But it, yeah, it took a lot away from our business. One particular wrinkle within this was our freebie bundle. So we learned from our publisher that it was super important to prioritize pre orders. That was the only way to make the New York Times bestseller list if we had a lot of pre orders. Because the pre orders all hit the day of, of release and they count for those first. Yeah, it's not even a full week. Which is wild. That was another thing we learned. We had like five days of sales that went towards this list. So we got our team together and we said, okay, what can we offer people to encourage them to pre order a book? Because we've shared before, we had never pre ordered a book. It didn't make any sense to us. Why would you order something that you can't get? Why would you order something that's gonna take months to be released?

Yeah, I mean, you know, of course, like, you know, we're asking you really nicely. Some people are gonna help out, but the reality is you gotta make it worth your while. Right. Like, I mean, if someone's trying to convince me to pre order a book, like, yeah, I'm a lot more likely to do it if there's, you know, something in it for me too.

So we gave away a pre order bundle that was worth hundreds of dollars.

Yeah, yeah. Like you could have bought all those things individually from us for I think over $200. At the end of the day, when it was all said and done with.

What we offered and we really went back and forth with our team about what should we include, how much value should there be? And we were excited about the book and we wanted you guys to be excited too. We wanted it to feel like an absolute no brainer. And we wanted it to feel like a thank you to you, like us thanking you for your support. We didn't have to do any of this, but it just felt like what we wanted to do. But you know, in the end, it was a lot of value to give away for a lot of orders.

Yeah. So therefore, you know, if we're giving that stuff away for free, when you, it put pre order the book for, you know, 22 to $25, that means, you know. Yeah. Not every single person who pre ordered the book would have bought any one of those guides individually. But you know, it represented a lot of potential sales of all those things over, you know, the many months that we were offering that, that freebie bundle.

And here's a big secret that honestly, I debated going back and forth over whether or not to share this with you guys, but we had a lot of people who gamed the system. So we set up this page where you could put in your order information and we would send you the freebie bundle. We asked you to put your order number. And because of the sheer number of pre orders that we had, our team couldn't check every single one. We couldn't double check, like, okay, did that person really make that order, let me go through it all. And so we decided to operate this page on the honor system and just say, look, it's people's karma. We hope that people are going to be honest. We feel like the vast majority of our community are really good, honest people who genuinely want to support us. And if somebody is going to game the system and get free stuff for us without actually buying the book, then that's their karma that they're going to have to deal with at some point in their life. But we could see on the back end how many people were filling out this form, and we were comparing that to the numbers that we were getting from Simon and Schuster of how many actual orders they had. And those numbers were really off, guys. And it was, it was hard and scary and sad. And we knew, like, some of them, maybe there was a little mix up or, you know, of course the numbers aren't going to perfectly align, but at the end of the day, there were a lot of people who essentially stole things from us without supporting the book. And that was sad. I mean, I think it's just, it's always sad when you try to trust people and you try to do something good and generous and people take advantage of that. And then the closer that we got to the actual release of the book, we had to focus more of our time on sharing about it, like on our Instagram, on our stories, in our emails. So, of course, we're very conscious, you guys, of how often we are sharing free content with you and how often we are sharing the paid resources that we offer. It's literally written into our company values that we want to give away 95% of our content for free. So we're very, very focused on making sure we are just. I mean, that's what this podcast is about. That's what our Instagrammer stories are about. Instagrammer, Instagrammer. I'm an Instagrammer. That's what our YouTube channel is about, you know, all this stuff. And so. And obviously we are also a business. We have a team of people who rely on us. We feel like we deserve to make a good living from the work that we do. So it's a balance of, you know, sharing these things. So we were putting a lot of thought into, okay, if we're, if we're sharing about the book so much, we don't also want to be sharing about our other stuff that we offer. We don't want to make it feel like it. It's too much for people.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's too much. If you're trying to thinking about, like, what's in your Instagram story for a day. And it's like a ton of slides on. Like, please pre order the book. Here's all this amazing stuff that we're offering. Oh, and by the way, also buy, you know, next level Intercourse. Also buy our foreplay guides. Like, that's too much. Yeah, it's too much. That's not how we want to operate a business that does not feel good to us. We are not excited by that.

So here's another brutally honest truth. January of this year was a very low revenue month for us.

Yeah, I think as low as we've had in probably like 12 to 14 months or something like that.

Yeah, like, it was. It was low. And we're fine. We're fine. We are grateful for having this business at all. But it was scary going into February. Like, whoa, that number is not what we are used to. And not knowing, is the book going to be a success? Is it going to be worth it? Is it going to bring more people into our community? It was very scary. Another big fear that came up for us that was really related to this was burning you guys out by talking about the book too much. Like, on the one hand, we really view ourselves as kind of like the guardians of this book. Like, we wanted to do everything in our power to make it successful. It felt bigger than us. And there was also so much that we had to explain about the book. Like, pre orders are a great example. We didn't understand what the fuck a pre order was before we wrote a book. We didn't understand, why would you do this? So we knew. It's like we don't understand it. So we obviously have to educate our community and help them understand why we're making this ask of them.

And we have to do that over and over and over because, you know.

Not everyone watches stories every single day.

Oh, we would love it if you watch our Instagram stories every day. Instagram. Instagram really likes to hide us from your feed, from your, you know, list of stories. It reorders them all and all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, it. But also, like, we had new people coming into the community constantly, you know, like every, you know, sometimes we'll do a collaboration with another account. We'll get a big influx of people into the community or a big influx of people onto our email list for whatever reason. And so, yeah, it's like you kind of have to keep spreading the word, keep repeating that. And it's like, okay. God, I know that, like, for, you know, 90% of people, they're hearing this message over again. But, like, we do need that other 10% to be able to have a chance of hearing the message. So I'm sure if you pre ordered back in November. Thank you. And I'm sorry that you had to hear that so many times.

Yeah. I guarantee you guys, anytime we talk about anything in our stories, there's always DMs. They're like, what are you talking about? What is this about? So we do have to repeat ourselves a lot.

Yeah. I mean, it's so much harder on social, like, on our email. For email, you can be more strategic of, like, okay, if we know this person bought the book, we don't need to send them another email about the book. But, like, you can't do that on social media because, you know, we don't. We are not in charge of how Instagram works, and you can't, like, target people specifically. But, yeah, fortunately, with email, we can be a little more strategic.

We also had to explain why the hardcover was so important, why we didn't want people to order the Kindle or the audiobook, even though we know that, yeah, there are accessibility issues and preference issues because only the hardcovers counted towards the list. And we even had to explain, explain a lot of times, like, that we weren't selling the book ourselves. A lot of times people reached out, they wanted discounts on the book, they wanted to bundle it with other guides. And so we had to keep explaining, like, we're not selling it. We actually don't own the book. Like, we can't sell it ourselves. So it was just so much to have to juggle. And, you know, I hope it's useful to hear us describing this, especially if you've been following us on Instagram and maybe you did have that thought of, like, these motherfuckers talking about their book again, like, we had to. But we were trying to be really thoughtful about how we did it. But, you know, we worried about, like, are we burning people out?

For sure.

People unfollowed us. They unsubscribed from our email list. They got tired of it. And. And I can understand it. And I hope it makes more sense to you now, knowing the backstory.

I mean, God, like, hearing you say that, I just. I feel so grateful that we already have experience, you know, sort of launching products in this. In this realm, because, God, if we were brand new to this, like, I don't know, let's say that we Just had a really large, like, coaching practice or something, or we sold, like, physical products. This whole world would be so foreign to us, and we would be. We would be freaking out about that even more. Like, wait, like, what? I have to keep saying this over and over. Like, people don't want to hear about it anymore. I mean, fortunately, at least we understand already the idea of, like, you know, the balance of how many times can you say something over and over before you burn people out? Because, you know, the reality is we do. We have to deal with that all the time when we're launching a new product, describing the suite of products that we already have. But, God, that would have been so much harder if we were. If we were brand new to this.

And actually, there was one other piece of the burning people out thing. So when we found out that our book was going to be released on February 7th, which we didn't have control over, our publisher decided that, but we.

Were very happy with because it's, you know, releasing in advance of Valentine's Day. This book, it just, you know, the topic. It was a perfect book. It's a perfect fit. It's an ideal time.

But we also have a perfect fit with our intimate or nasty Valentine's Day event. We did this in 2022. It was the most popular thing we had all year.

People have been begging us all year, like, when are we gonna do this? Are we doing it again for Valentine's Day?

Exactly. So we had meetings with our team at the end of 2022 and even going into 2023, like, discussing what do we do, how do we navigate? Like, our audience wants us to do this thing. Intimate or nasty.

We want to do it.

We want to do it. We love doing it at this time, too. But we also have the freaking book coming out at the same time. And, like, that's a lot of stuff that we're selling, you know, a lot of messages that we would have to share about, like, here's how the challenge works. Here's how you sign up. Here's all the FAQs. Here's how the book. Here's how you buy it. Here's all the FAQs. And so ultimately, we did decide to do it because we had so many people who really wanted to. But that was another thing that felt very tough for us, weighing the. Like, you know, we're going very heavily into our sales mode versus, you know, our free content mode. And that was. It was hard for us. And also another moment of brutal honesty here. It didn't do as well as it did last year, intimate or nasty, Even though our community has grown really a lot, it didn't perform as well as it did. So it was another sign to us of, you know, yes, we want to promote the book. The book is so important. It doesn't matter to us that we're not making a ton of money off of it, but it is having very real financial impacts on our business. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges is that, well, at least we think, you know, it's. No one knows exactly how the Instagram algorithm works. There's people that make a living trying to. Trying to decipher how it works, but nobody actually knows. But what we suspect and what we've seen, you know, what we think we see in our own experience, is that the more links you post in your Instagram stories, the over time, the fewer people Instagram will show those stories, too. I mean, it kind of makes sense because when you post a link on Instagram, you are, you know, and someone clicks on it, they're effectively leaving Instagram and Facebook, meta, Instagram, whoever, whatever you want to call it, they want to keep you on their site. And so, you know, when you are selling a product, when you're, you know, trying to focus people on something that you're offering and link them to that thing, it. It. To us, at least, we think that it kind of hurts how many people end up seeing your stories over time. And so, yeah, that was a big challenge with. That was, okay, well, we're linking people to the book. We're linking people to the book. And so then when it comes time to, you know, to do our intimate or nasty event, it's harder to get people to see those links. And so, you know, it's a. It's a juggling act. It's a balancing game.

Okay, let's talk next about press boxes. Oh, my God. This was a big surprise for me. So we decided with our team that we were going to send out early copies of the book to our friends on Instagram contacts that we've had, people who we've collaborated with before, people who.

Like podcasts that we've been on and.

Stuff like that, and also people that we've never collaborated with before. We made a list of, like, who are some of our. We know it's a long shot, maybe they'll never even see our dm, but we want to reach out to them. So we made this massive list of people to reach out to. We had these boxes, custom boxes made super cute Little sex talks boxes. We got custom candles. We had beautiful cards in them. Wrapping, it was like a whole thing, right? So it's a beautiful thing. Like you're getting a free book in this beautiful gift box. Some little goodies in there. But, man, oh, man, did I struggle with reaching out to people. I'm reaching out to people saying, do you want a free book? But I felt so vulnerable in a way that I have not felt in a very long time.

Well, yeah, because you're. I mean, you're offering a free book and you're also asking, you know, like, you know, you're also making a request, which is if you're up for it, we would love for you to. To share about the book because we think, you know, we think it's an amazing book and we think that, you know, more people finding out about it, it can really help those people. People.

So I started with friends, like legitimate friends that have big Instagram accounts or podcasts. And even with friends that I knew, like, they're gonna say yes, they've already asked me, like, hey, how can I support. Tell me what I can do? I still felt just sick to my stomach sending out these messages, being like, can you please, you know, help us support it. It just. Yeah, it felt incredibly vulnerable to ask.

I mean, I think is this just like this. This kind of like unhealthy American self reliance where it's like we just have it drilled in deep, like, don't ask for help unless you absolutely need it and then maybe still don't even ask for help?

I mean, I'm not even a person. I wouldn't say that. I struggle to ask for help. If you had asked me a few months ago, hey, what do you think it's going to be like for you sending out these boxes? I would have been like, easy. What are you talking about? I'm excited, but I, Yeah, I've really, really struggled with it. I delayed it. I did like two a day for a long time just to people that I knew. And I struggled. But what I'm really proud of is that I let myself be vulnerable. I let myself feel really shitty about this. And I just kept going. I just kept sending out messages. I honestly sometimes would just, like, close my eyes and press the send button because sometimes it felt so painful.

Yeah, you don't need to see it. You already know what's in the. What the text is.

And. And I just kept doing it. And then eventually I hit a point where I was like, fuck it. I'm messaging, like the Most random. I'm messaging Jessica Alba. I'm messaging Reese Witherspoon, like, And of course, none of those messages went through. They're immediately bounced back. But I got to the point finally where I was like, I'm just asking everybody. So it was. Yeah, it was very challenging doing that. And it was interesting seeing, like, who actually did support.

And it was shocking. So many people.

Yeah.

That you would have assumed, like, that, you know, you would have assumed, oh, they won't even get the message. They don't care. And that would have been a justification for not even sending it. End up responding immediately. And they're like, oh, my God, I would love to do that. You know, we ended up, like, talking on the phone with someone giving us advice on book launches. Ramit Sethi. That was just like, yeah, he. He. We. We. Per. The first online course we ever purchased was his course. Yeah, man. But it's like, yeah, who? You know, we would have never. You know, we would have never expected certain people to respond, and we would have probably just not even messaged them. But then people start responding, so it's like, shoot your shot.

Why not, huh? And you guys, some celebrities received these press boxes. There were some big celebrities, not Jessica Elba or Reese Witherspoon, sadly, but that they actually did respond and wanted the book. And I sent it to them. And I'm not going to say their names because I will keep that confidential.

Maybe they'll share about the book and then. And then you'll know.

It really surprised me how many people. Yeah. Stepped up for us, were excited about it. We're so happy to share. So I think it's a good life lesson that people will often surprise you when you just put yourself out there. When you ask for help, when you are vulnerable, they will surprise you. So it was a good surprise, and I'm glad that I made myself do it. And I reminded myself that I can do hard things, be vulnerable, and I can keep going. Let's talk about our media appearance that got canceled.

Yeah, that was okay.

This is another one where we can't say the name. I can't tell you guys. I'm really sorry. I wish I could, but we got booked. We got booked a long time ago. A long time ago with the biggest media appearance of our entire career. Like, absolutely huge. There is not a single person who would not recognize this place, this outlet, this entity. And we were so excited. It just felt like, this is it. This is our big break. It's happening. And then the closer and closer that we got to the release, we were not hearing back from them.

Yeah, trying to. Trying to confirm, you know, what. Okay, what's the specific day they've given us a range of time. It's like, hey, you know, we gotta get. You know, we gotta get a flight to this place. We gotta get a hotel. We gotta, you know, get dog sitting for our dogs. You gotta do all the logistical stuff to make this happen.

It was a big deal. And I knew in my heart, in my gut, I knew something was wrong for a couple of weeks. And that made it feel even worse, because I knew, but we weren't getting the confirmation that it was officially off. And then finally we got the confirmation that it's not going to happen. And it's not going to happen.

For now. For now. But I am. I'm confident that we will be back there. We will be back there, or we will be on bigger and better things, and they are going to wish that they had just gone ahead with it from the start, because they would have been the first.

I appreciate the reframe, and we both were able to reframe it in that way, but I just want to be real. It was devastating, completely devastating. When we got the news, and for me, personally, I felt so much shame and embarrassment. It surprised me because I had told our closest friends and I told all of my family, and I had to go back to all of those people and say, it's not happening. And I don't know why, but, like, I felt like I had done something wrong. And I know I hadn't. I didn't do anything wrong. But going back to those people, like, I felt like I was coming back with my tail between my legs. Like, here. I have to confess something. Something. It felt awful. I was able, like, Xander, I think even later that day, I was just like, you know what? I'm just trusting in the universe something else is going to happen from this. We're gonna go on at a different time. There's gonna be a reason why we should go on at this other time. Maybe we're gonna meet somebody. Maybe the experience is gonna be different. There's gonna be a reason.

There's always a reason.

It all makes sense in the end.

There's always. There's always a reason.

So I'm glad we were both able to reframe it, to say, find the positive, to have that faith in the universe. And it was really brutal, too. And I'm still. I'm still sad about it. I'm very sad about it.

Yeah. Yeah. It Was. It was, it was really tough, you know, for me. For me, I guess it, it kind of gets back to, for me, I was being able to move on from that pretty quickly, I think comes back to that, that pride that I talked about of knowing that I, I really full ass this and knowing that we, that we did everything in our power. Like our side of the street is clean. We did everything and more. We delivered on our, you know, our end of the bargain. And you know, the stuff that happens, you know, with other people, that's just, that's out of our control. I can't, I can't force anyone else to do anything. I can't, you know, I can't snap my fingers and change people's attitudes on sex overnight. And, you know, it is what it is. But, you know, I trust this, this book. You know, the job of the book is to try to break down some of that shame stigma taboo. And I trust that, that we are, you know, we, we've taken a step in the right direction and that, you know, over time it's going to get easier.

Yeah. You know, hearing you say that out loud, I think that's part of the shame that came up for me. Like, I'm such, obviously such a sex positive person. I'm so proud of this business that we've created. But I had this moment of shame of like, what are we doing? Like, trying to do this enormous media appearance about a sex book. Like, oh, how shameful. And even shame of like, maybe we shared too much in the book. You know, we were really committed to being vulnerable and sharing personal stories. We wanted to like, go first, take the lead and being vulnerable. But yeah, the shame came up for me of like, maybe we shared too much. Yeah, we shouldn't have.

Yeah, I mean, it's maybe it's kind of like, God, like, are we, are we in a bit of like an echo chamber of our own making? On Instagram, we built this amazing community. It feels like this really safe place to be able to share all this stuff. And then all of a sudden it's like we get the book out into the world and it's like, wham. You're like bumping into the wall that you thought that you had already broken down.

And oh, there's a really good example of that. So we had a profile of us go up in the New York Times, which is so cool. Like, we found out about that before the bestseller list. We're like, oh my God, we're in the frickin New York Times. And so we had sent a link of that to Xander's parents, and Xander's dad had commented like, oh, the comment section on this article is crazy.

I forgot that those even was comment sections on the like, oh, yeah.

I had not looked at it.

Oh, man.

And so I went to look and I remember a big mistake. I usually don't read the comments section is. But I don't like.

Yeah.

Especially if it's anything.

It's kind of like, who's commenting on New York Times article. Like, these, like, NYT superfans.

So one person wrote, yeah, I'm not going to take any communication advice from somebody who faked their orgasm for years.

And I was judge, jury, and executioner.

Oh, that I was like. Because I've shared with you guys and on Instagram so many times about my orgasm struggles, and you guys have been so supportive. You've told me, like, wow, thank you for talking about this. It makes me feel like I'm not alone. I'm not the only one. And yeah, like, Xander's saying, maybe we have a little bit of an echo chamber. You guys are just so freaking nice and wonderful. And then to see, here's this other person using something that I, you know, a story, a personal story that I shared in hopes of normalizing something in hopes of making people feel not alone.

Story from, like 20 years ago.

Yeah. And now they're using. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm not saying I'm currently faking my orgasm.

Surprise, Xander.

This was many, many years ago. But, yeah, to see my personal. This vulnerable thing that I did, then wield it as a weapon against me.

Was like, also to that person. If you are only able to take advice from people that have never made any mistakes, that have never done anything wrong, then I hate to say it, but I don't think there's anyone left in this world that you could take advice from.

But going back to the whole cancellation, our teammate Maddie reframed this for us in a way that I really appreciated. She said, you guys, you know what? This appearance being canceled is just a sign of how badly this book is needed.

Oh, yeah. I mean, even like the nasty comment, like, that's a. Like, yeah, you know, and I'm sure there were probably many more of those. Yeah, you didn't read the entire thread, but yeah, it's like, yeah, seeing stuff like that, it's like, yeah, that's the fucking. That's the sign right there that of just how badly it's needed.

Okay, let's talk about the terrible, terrible DM that I received. So I opened up my DMs one day. It was after release day. The book was already out in the wild. And it's this woman and she says, hey, I just wanted to reach out to you guys. I've bought a bunch of stuff from you in the past, and I've always been impressed by the high quality of your work. And I just want to share with you that I'm really disappointed in the book. It's low quality. The printing looks terrible. There are smudges all over the pages. Some of the pages are ripped. It just looks awful. And it doesn't look like the quality of what you guys normally do.

No, I remember this was actually before the book was released, which was like the first red flag here.

Yes.

So, yeah, it wasn't like, oh, she received like a bad copy of the book. It was like, wait, how did you. How did you get a book? The book's not out for two more weeks.

So she included a picture. I open up the picture. I do not recognize what this thing is. It looks like our book, but I.

Think it's not our book.

It's not our book. It has somebody else's name on it. It has a little kissy face icon. Huge kiss icon.

Yeah. It's like they took the COVID and just slapped an emoji over it, like in a corner.

And I think it was even spiral bound, like black and white spiral. It looked awful. And I was like, what is this? And that's when I learned about the wild world of Amazon counterfeits. Another thing I had no idea existed. There are counterfeits of books and we have a big time counterfeit of our book. I was devastated, completely devastated. I sent it to our publisher immediately. I wrote back to her first and was like, oh, my God, this is not our book. Where did you get this? Like, I'm so sorry, but this is not the book. I sent it to our publisher and they responded right away.

And they're like, very matter of factly.

Yeah, they're like, yeah, we're so sorry, but this happens with every book that we put out. It's just Amazon counterfeits. I was like. It was like a dagger to my heart. Like, what? What do you mean? They're like, we have to get rid of this immediately.

And they're. They're like. They're like, oh, Amazon doesn't give a shit about. We'll report it. We'll report it, but it won't do anything.

So I was so devastated. I felt so Powerless. And it turned into this horrible predicament for us because we were debating whether or not to alert you guys, like, do we want to share with our audience that there are these counterfeits out there that they shouldn't buy it? Fortunately, they were very obvious and they.

Were difficult to find.

Yeah, you have to, like, dig through. Like, they don't come up right away. When you search for sex talks.

Yeah, you have to, like, search. It would be like if you search for sex talks on Google and, you know, at the bottom of Google, it's like, people even forget that there's like 10 pages of search results. You know, it's at the very bottom. You can be like, oh, go to page 10. It would be like, if you did that, like, you have to go deep. Like. Yeah, I'm not sure how it comes up if you're like, oh, let me find the absolute cheapest one available by scrolling for 10 minutes. But they are there if you look hard for them.

Yeah. So we were discussing this with our publisher and with our team. Like, do we tell people about this? But then at the same time, like, that's going to bring more attention to the counterfeits. Maybe more people will buy them. And we also worried that, like, is it going to freak people out and then they're not going to want to buy it? Even though, like, Xander was saying, it actually was very hard to find them.

Yeah. And we also, like, we also can't handle, like, 10,000 DMs of people being like, is this the right link? Which is. Which is the right one? Like, we just. We can't. We don't. We're not staffed to be able to handle that.

It was so awful. And we did end up getting. Fortunately just a couple, but we did end up getting a few other dms from people. Similar story. Like, what is up with this book? Or, like, why does your book say this random person's name on it? Yeah, there were even, like, one person bought a counterfeit in their local bookstore.

Yeah, there were a couple of those. I think that was. That's the hardest. Like, how did this happen?

It was so. I feel like I've just said the word devastating like, 20 times in a row, but it was really devastating.

Yeah. I think actually the saddest for me personally was that someone found a counterfeit paperback copy of our book. We have not released a paperback version of it, so this should be impossible. Someone bought a counterfeit paperback of our book two days before it got released at my local bookstore. From where I grew Up.

Yeah.

Bummer.

It was really sad.

Fortunately, my mom went down there two days later to go check it out. They were not able to find any counterfeits there. It was just the heart cover. It was legit. So I don't know what happened. I don't know how that happened, but it did.

Also, the other thing about the counterfeit is they changed the title of the book.

It was like, it's so bad.

It's like, instead of five conversations that will transform your love life, it was like, the five conversations to have with your lover. I was like, I hate the word lover. I would never write a book about your lover or get out of here. Stupid counterfeiters. And there are also counterfeit workbooks on Amazon, too.

People are selling, like, summaries of our book on Amazon. It's like, who's going to pay 10 bucks to get a summary book for 20? I'll give you a summary of our book. Shit.

Yeah.

For free.

For free.

It's on the book. Like, the sales page for the book will tell you everything that it's about.

So that was our awful, awful discovery of counterfeits. So that brings us to release day.

We made it.

February 7, 2023. Sex talks finally gets released into the world. To be fair, though, a bunch of people got it before then. We were shocked. We kept getting DMs from people saying, like, oh, yeah, I just popped into my local bookstore. And they had it, like, days earlier. But the official release date was the seventh. It was very exciting. But a couple of things happened on that day. First thing, we got into an argument.

We did.

We got into an argument on release day. So I had really wanted to go to Chaucer's, our local bookstore. The bookstore that I grew up at. I spent so much time there, was such a huge bookworm was always there. I really wanted to go there and see the book. And Xander really wanted to go surfing.

And so the ways were good, I think.

So this was a great example of a time that I didn't realize one of my own needs until it was too late. So Xander and I discussed him going surfing. He was like, you know, I'm gonna go surfing in the morning. You may have even asked me. I can't remember.

I think I did. We talked. I mean, we talked about it. It wasn't the normal, like, hey, I'm going surfing tomorrow. I'll be back by whatever. It was, like, how does this sound? Here's when I think, you know, here's when I think I'd be Getting back. And we talked about kind of what we thought the schedule would look like.

Yeah. And so he got back a little bit later than I think you anticipated getting back. And we had some other stuff that we had to do. And basically it was looking like a real squeeze for us to be able to get out to Chaucer's in the morning and then come back for some important meetings that we had. So I got really upset, you know, thinking, wow, now we're not going to be able to go until the end of the afternoon. And, yeah, again, this example of, like, I didn't realize that my need was. And what I wish I had said to Xander was just like, no, I don't want you to go surfing in the morning. I want us to be able to go over to the bookstore first thing. So that happens sometimes.

Yeah. What I will say is that you. You said a minute ago, you're like, we had an argument. I think. I wouldn't necessarily consider it an argument. It was a. It was a bit of a. You know, you just expressed what was going on for you, and you expressed. You expressed your need. And you, You. You own the fact that it was a retroactive need, that it wasn't that, you know, you weren't saying, hey, you should have read my mind. Even though he talked about it, you should have known. You were just saying, hey, I'm realizing that I'm feeling upset about this, and I heard you, and I validated that, and we moved. I mean, yeah, we moved on.

It wasn't like a fight, but I was also. It hurt my feelings that you wanted to go surfing ra going to see the book. Like, it wasn't just a. This is my need. And now I'm realizing it too late. It was also a, like, huh, wait a minute. This. Like, this hurts that going to see the book isn't the priority this morning. So we worked together to move some things around, reprioritize. And we did end up being able to go to Chaucer's after Xander got.

Back from surfing late morning, mid to late morning.

So then we had an experience there. So we're walking up to the store. We wanted to record it because, you know, we want to. We want to preserve it, but we are still embarrassed recording things sometimes. Like, we're trying to get comfortable being little vloggers, but it's very embarrassing sometimes. So we took a video of me, like, out in the parking lot, like, whispering, it's in there. Like, we're going to go in. So we walk into the Store. And they have the big display right in the front where they have, like, new releases and local authors and popular bugs. I'm expecting. Maybe this is totally naive, but, like, I'm expecting to see the book, like, right in the front. And so you're hoping. I was hoping. Yeah. I was really hoping. And I walk in, it's not there. I'm like, okay, no worries. Like, it just came out today. We haven't, like, you know, we're not a bestseller or anything like that. Of course it's not here. Duh. Why was I, like, hoping that it would be here? So we start walking around the aisles, and I'm looking in all the sections that it could be, and. And we cannot find the book anywhere. So then I start to get embarrassed. I'm like, oh, my God, do they even have it here? And I start to feel kind of ashamed. Like, am I here? I am so excited about this book, but I am this, like, no name author, you know, nobody. I don't know. I'm like, maybe it's not even here at all. But I had called before and asked if they would have it in the store. They did. So I start walking up to the counter. I'm like, I'm just gonna ask. And Xander's like, wait, Vanessa, over here.

So I didn't actually even see the book. What I saw was another book, another sex book by an author who ended up giving. Giving a blurb for our book. It's written on our book. So I was like, our book must be near here. I'm like, oh, I found the sex section is this teeny tiny section in the middle of the self help aisle or something like that. So I was like, we're going through. And yeah, this other author has a last name that also starts with an M. So I'm like, wait, our book's gotta be, like, right next to here. It's not here, but this is the right place.

And then I spot it on the floor.

Vanessa looks down.

There's our book on the floor. And it was just this hilarious moment of, like, I thought it was very funny. Like, our book is on the freaking floor here. I am, like, hoping that it would be out in the front. It's. It's barely even there. It's on the floor.

We were laughing. We were having fun with it.

We were. I felt. I'll be totally honest, Like, I did feel a little twinge of embarrassment. Like, wow, you know, I'm on the freaking floor. There's only two copies here, but for the most Part like, we were both just, like, laughing. It felt very on brand that our book's just, like, on the floor. So we took this little video of ourselves doing it. We were laughing at ourselves, like, making fun of ourselves here, our book on the floor. And then we took the books up to the front and we asked the cashier if we could sign them. We said, you know, we're the authors, we're locals. And he was not enthused. Like, he was, you know, he was amenable children. He was like, yeah, go ahead and sign them. But it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't this exciting. Like, oh, that's so cool. That's amazing. Like, yeah, we would love to have signed copies. Like, we love when authors sign it. So it just, the whole experience felt like this. Like, so we went out into the car and we posted an Instagram story. Like, that was not what we expected. Our book was on the floor. They like, you know, and we were.

But we were laughing. It was like, it was like, oh, this is just a kind of funny situation.

Yeah, we were very light hearted about it and, like, it felt like us making fun of ourselves. So then later that day, I get a DM from this woman who said, I saw that, you know, left that story and you guys signed the book. So I went over to Chaucer's to get one of the signed copies, and as I was buying it, the cashiers were talking and saying, oh, yeah, that woman posted about us on Instagram. And she wasn't very happy about the book being on the floor. And so I wrote back to this woman right away, and I was like, oh, my God, I feel awful. Like, I had no freaking clue that the Chaucer's employees would be watching my story and, like, find out about this. So I asked her, like, what was the. The vibe of the conversation? And she wrote back and was like, no, it was like, it was very light hearted. Like, they weren't upset or angry or anything. Like, they were laughing about it. But still, I felt so terrible. Like, you guys don't understand. I'm so attached to this bookstore. It means so much to me. It brings back so many memories. Like, this is one of the reasons why I became such a lover of books and reading. The number of hours that I spent just lost in that store. And so the idea that anybody there could think that, like, we were upset, it just broke my heart. So I posted another story on Instagram. I tagged them in it and I explained, you know, like, we were just making fun of ourselves. We were not trying to, like, say anything bad. And then whoever owns the Chaucer's Instagram account reached out and DM'd me and said, like, we're so sorry that you had a bad experience at Chaucer's. We just want you to know, like, we just got the book in that day. That's how we. How we distribute our books is, like, first we put them on the floor where the sections are. Because we're a very small bookstore, we have a very small team. So we put them on the floor in the areas first, and then we go back later in the day and. And we actually shelved them. And you guys had just. Just come in before we had the chance to do that. We're so sorry. Ironically gutted.

Yeah, ironically. We should have.

So bad.

Should have gone at the end of the day.

I just, like. So I wrote them back and was like, please do not apologize. I'm so sorry. Like, we were making fun of ourselves, just being playful and silly. I did not in any way, you know, like, mean to make you guys feel bad about it. Like, I love your store so much. And so it just, like, it sucked. Like, I felt. And now I feel sort of awkward about the whole thing. Like, we were really just trying to be silly and playful, and I didn't. You know, I hope the intention really comes through that I was not trying to. Neither of us were trying to say anything negative, But I just feel so bad that we got that message. So if you're listening, if you're from Chaucer's, or have any relation to it, we really love you and we're so sorry. Okay, so that happened. And then the other funny thing that happened on Release day, which I think.

Neither of us were even aware of until the day after.

Yeah. We didn't realize it until the day after. The next day, I was like, xander, we didn't have sex on Sex Talks Release day. I mean, come on, we gotta set this book up for success. Success. It feels like such a, you know, to have sex on Sex Talks Release day.

But we were overwhelmed.

We were overwhelmed. I was feeling guilty about Chaucer's. We did not wind up having sex.

We did not. We made up for it, though.

Oh, we did. Don't worry. We did. But then we got ushered into the next era of the book, which was that people were having some issues with the book. Very small number of people. Most people were sending us pictures, like, their reviews. They were reading it so quickly and loving it. It was. But there were a decent number of people who were having issues with the book. And what we realized at this point is people don't understand that we don't sell the book ourselves.

Yeah, we cannot fix your book problems as much as we want to.

Yeah. So I think the first sign that we had of this was somebody reached out and she said, you know, I got my book on Amazon and, like, I need you guys to send me a new copy. Because it's. It's the. It's like the COVID was ripped and she sent a picture. It was, like, very egregiously ripped. I don't know why somebody at Amazon would pack that book up. Like, that should have been put into whatever discard pile they have. So, like, I would have been upset, too, if I had received that book. And I'm like, what the hell? It's, like, ripped. But we don't own the book. We don't sell the book. We don't ship the book. Like, we can't help. And so I realized very quickly, like, oh, people think that. A lot of people think that we are selling it, so they're reaching out to us. So we had so many DMS from people about, like, where's my order? It said it was going to be delivered today. Or I'm getting notifications. And they would even send like, here's my notification from Barnes and Noble. You know, why is hasn't it arrived yet? And I'd be like, well, I'm so sorry. Like, thank you for supporting the book, but you have to get in contact with Barnes and Noble customer service. Like, we don't have any relationship with them. We can't help out.

People just want to talk to us because our customer service is so much better.

I mean, it is for sure. It is so much better. But, yeah, it was things like, you know, where's my order? My book? Some people had, like, fingerprints on their book or, like, little dirty splotches. Some people were, you know, oh, my order keeps getting delayed or my pre order got canceled. Even people like, why can't I download the audiobook? Or, like, how do audiobooks work? Can you, like, walk me through how to do it? And so it was, you know, I just. I handle the DMs. That's like how we've split up our business. So I just responded to everybody. I tried my best to be as polite as I could and, you know, try to send people where they could actually get help, but it was very challenging getting so many of them and just not being able to help, like, that was very hard for me. Like, I. But I'm. Like, I'm not. I don't. I'm not. I don't have any relationship with Amazon. Like, it's not. I can't do anything. It was very hard.

Yeah. We can't even get the counterfeit versions of the book taken down from Amazon. We definitely can't help you with the shipping of your order.

And this is a new experience for us because we have been, you know, we have owned and been in control of everything that we have sold until this point. So if you, you know, don't receive your foreplay guides, you email our customer service and Jackie's gonna get back to you probably within an hour and, like, get it to you. Like, we have great customer service, but knowing that we can't help was a very new and very difficult experience.

Yeah, it's like, on the. On the positive side, we were able to deliver a superior book product. Like, you know, working with a. A big five publisher, they, you know, they produce a beautiful hardcover book.

Oh, yeah.

I don't think we could have gotten our book published like this ourselves. But it also means that we are. Yeah, we are not in control at all of the supply chain.

That being said, though, I do appreciate that people at least reached out to us and gave us the opportunity to share with them. Like, hey, it's actually better if you get in touch with Barnes and Noble customer service because there have been some people who have gone to the book itself and left bad reviews about the book because the COVID was damaged or it came late or stuff like that.

Yeah. And that sucks because I think a lot of those problems could probably be very easily and quickly addressed with Amazon. For example, like, the ripped cover. Like, Amazon is so good and so fast with. They'll send you stuff. I mean, if you just had a fingerprint and you. And you said to Amazon, hey, like, my copy's damaged. They'll just send you another copy.

They'll send you a new copy. So we have a friend who is an author as well, and she prepared us for this. Fortunately, she was like, you're going to get so many reviews that have nothing to do with the book itself. And it sucks because you get penalized as the author. Like, your rating goes down and people look at that rating and they're like, that book only has four stars or whatever. Like, I don't want to buy it. But the reality is it's like, it's not at all about the content of the book. So we knew this was going to happen. It still sucks so hard.

Yeah, I think we got one like three star review. It's like, great book, but, but like not. But like, you know, there's a printing issue or something.

Yeah, I mean there's, there's one on Amazon right now that's like there are some stains in, on the COVID of it, so. And we can't get in touch with those people either, which also sucks. Like, I wish Amazon had a copy.

You can send it back and update your review.

I could just like message this person and say, no, please. Like you can get a fresh copy. Like, we would love to hear your review of the actual content of the book. And I get it in some ways. Cause like, obviously the, the appearance of your book matters. Like, I wouldn't want to get a book that had a big rip on the COVID either. But I think now that I'm an author, I understand. Oh, leaving a review of the book actually hurts the author. It doesn't do anything. Like, you know, that's Amazon's fault if they're sending out a book that the COVID is ripped. Like, they should provide you. And they will, if you reach out to them, they will provide you with a fresh copy.

Yeah, but they won't reach out to you if you leave a review saying that like they're.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Amazon does not care about that because Amazon is just, just a marketplace. They're selling goods of other people. And so they think, well, if this gets a bad review, it's just a sign, it's assigned to other people that you shouldn't buy this product, you should buy a different product. And it's like, well, no, we think, we hope this is a really great book, but yeah, it's like out of our hands when, you know, in the Amazon warehouse, it gets scratched with the box cutter or something and they send you a bad copy.

So if you have any issues with the appearance of your book, please, please, please reach out to the place that you bought it from. I am sure you can get a fresh copy. And we would be so grateful if you left reviews about the content of the book itself.

Yeah, it helps us so much and yeah, try to really. And you know, and it helps drown out the noise of, you know, those few and far between reviews that, that are like, yeah, I love the book, but you know, I'm not, I can't leave it very many stars because it was the, you know, the shipping was delayed or something. The other, the other crappy thing that I think, you know, we got to be prepared for as well, and, you know, our other author friend prepared us for this too, is that people will probably leave reviews of the counterfeit version. Like, people, you know, you can leave a review on Amazon for our book, and people will be like, oh, I got a ver. You know, I got a really crappy, crappily printed version. Or it's like, it's a fake book. And it's like, wait, no, like, you actually bought something different. Not our book. But yeah, on Amazon, you can leave a review. You can leave a review for the thing that you purchased, but you can also just go to Amazon and click, like, leave a review for the book. I purchased it elsewhere and still leave a review. And yeah, it's scary.

I know. It's really tough and it's hard to see. So if you read the book, if you loved it, if it made a positive impact on your life, we'd be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a review on Amazon. We have had Hundreds of people DMing us stories about ways the book has already impacted their lives. And we love hearing that. It's been amazing. And for each person, I'm like, we would be so grateful if you could copy and paste that right into a review as well. So keep sending us them in a dm. But we would also be so grateful to see reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever you buy the book.

Yeah. Thank you in advance.

Okay, now let us tell you the story of the international offer that we got. So we are working to sell Sex Talks to different countries so it can be available all over the world. And it's a. It's a complex process that we won't get into of, like, how you sell it to different countries.

Yeah, but to be really clear, like, you can buy the American version wherever, as long as it will get shipped to your country. What we're talking about is, like, what will happen is other countries buy the rights to the book. They translate it into their language. They might change the COVID art, they might change the title so that it translates better. Or, you know, they'll. They'll tweak it a bit so that it fits. You know, what they think the customers in their market will respond to better, and then they print it and sell it in that country.

So we, you know, obviously, like, we want this book sold across the world. It's been really cool to see the different versions already, like the Albanian cover and the Hungarian cover. It's so very cool. So we want to sell it to as many countries as we can, but we Got one offer from a country that said that they, in order to print the book in their country, they needed us to remove all traces of homosexuality. Non binary people, like anything other than men and women in a relationship. We couldn't even mention the word cis.

Yeah, we also. Yeah, they also wanted us to remove any mentions of the word inclusivity.

Yeah, like our. We have a note about inclusivity at the beginning of the intro, at the end of the introduction, and they wanted us to cut the whole thing. So the offer had specific, you know, pages of, like, need to remove this and this. We have a lot of stories about couples in the book. And they would say, you know, okay, this story about Jack and Tyler, I'm just making up the names. Like, you have to change it. Like. Like you have to make them into a straight couple or remove them entirely. And it was. I mean, for us, it was an immediate fuck no. Like, hell no. Inclusivity is important to us. It's our personal belief, our personal value and our business and, you know, company value that everybody is deserving of great sex and great love. And we refuse. We absolutely refuse to erase our LGBTQ friends, our non binary friends from the pages of this book. So that was just a. A very heartbreaking reminder of how far we have to go all over the world. Honestly, even here in the US we have a long way to go towards creating equality. So there was definitely sadness about not being able to bring our book to this country. We know there are a lot of people that this book could really help in that country. But for us, we, like, no amount of money or prestige is worth compromising on our values. So that was a big fat fuck no for us. So now we are up to the final few days, coming down the home stretch before we find out about whether or not we made the bestseller list. So we had been really open with our community with you guys the whole time, saying, like, we want to make the bestseller lists. Like, we're being vulnerable. We're sharing. Like, it's important to us. You know, we want that validation of being able to know, like, this book is successful and people are recognizing it. And so I was very surprised by how much anxiety came up for me in those final few days. I remember thinking, like, we had this really busy two weeks of all of our media appearances and press. Oh, we didn't even talk about that aspect of it.

Oh, it was busy.

That was a bl. Maybe I just didn't leave any notes about that. Cause it was such a blur. We had the, like, Three weeks leading up to and around release. Oh, my God. I can't believe I didn't even make any notes about this.

This was. We blurted out of our memory.

Busiest, hardest period of my life. Like, we had. We went on a trip to Africa at the beginning of January because my Birthday is the 13th. We usually travel for my birthday. We knew we couldn't because of the book. So we did this trip in January. We thought, oh, we're coming back the 18th. Maybe it'll be a little tight, like, three weeks before the book comes out. But, like, these are just the dates that work best. It's fine.

It was not fine.

It was not fine. We were both so overwhelmed, so tired, working so much. And, I mean, we were very excited, too. A lot of the things that we did were energizing. They were fun, they were exciting. We knew they were in the service of something big and important, and it was fucking exhausting. I think the busiest day that we had. We did five media appearances on one day between, like, podcast interviews, being interviewed by newspapers and magazines, going on Instagram, Instagram lives with friends of ours. I remember getting to the end. I think the last thing that we did was a podcast. And I was like, I'm not here. Like, my. My body is here. I am speaking the words. I can, like, hear myself speak, but I'm not actually here. And I couldn't remember. I was like, have I said this already? Because you're repeating the same thing over and over again.

Yeah. When you've done a number.

Here's the book. Here's what it's about. Here are the five conversations.

Yeah. And when you've done a number of interviews already in a. A day without a lot of time in between them, it gets. They start to blur into each other. And you're like, wait, I said this already today. I said this already three times today. But did I say it in this one or did I say it in the last one?

It was wild. And we're trying to run a business still. At the same time, like, our business didn't stop. And we had a lot of personal stuff going on, too, which we won't even get into because this podcast is getting so long. But. But it was so much. And I will say, though, like, you and I did a really good job of being teammates.

We did.

We have had other stressful, busy periods in our life where we. It feels like it disconnects us, you know, like we're both just trying to get through it on our own. We're disconnected from Each other. We fight with each other because we're tired and overwhelmed. But not this time. Like, we were. We were in it together. We were side by side. We were going through it like we did it together. And I'm really, really grateful for that because I could not have survived again.

No, no, not at all. And, I mean, that gets back to the pride that I was talking about at the very beginning. Like, I. I feel really proud about the way I showed up. I feel, you know, it was. This was something that we both owned. We both owned. You know, we both took responsibility for doing all that publicity. You know, I think, like, earlier on, you know, we've been doing this for two and a half years, and I, you know, I've kind of been through my own struggle of, like, just how to come to some form of acceptance of, like, my role in the book project. Because at the beginning, at the very beginning, I wasn't involved in the book at all. It wasn't until midway through the proposal that it was like, oh, we're bringing Xander in. And then it's like, okay, Xander's going to write, you know, a small part in each chapter. And so then in the writing of the book, it was like, in the writing and the editing process, I had my parts, and the writing and the editing of those parts was so much easier than Vanessa's. Same with the audiobook recording, because they're small bits. It's easier to write and edit a small bit than it is to incorporate full chapters. And so I was less involved in that part of it. But then when it came to the whole marketing and the publicity part, it's like, wait, no, we wrote this book together. Like, you know, yeah, we're doing it together. But, you know, it could have been easy in another alternate universe for, you know, for alternate Xander to be like, well, I'm just, you know, I'm just like the with author. You know, I'm not. I'm not a full co author. And so, you know, Vanessa's gonna do the majority of this, and I'm just kind of going to be there.

Also, I learned something new about you in this process, which is that you're afraid of public speaking.

I am.

I mean, I knew that you were uncomfortable with it, but you have gotten so comfortable on Instagram that I sort of took that for granted and thought, like, yeah, I mean, he was awkward at the beginning, just like I was awkward at the beginning, but now we do it every day, and, like, he's comfortable.

But Instagram isn't public Speaking. Cause he can't see all the people there.

The people, the people. So when we were prepping for all of these like interviews and appearances and stuff like that, like that came out and I was like, holy shit. I didn't realize that. So we, we did a lot of work. We invested in ourselves. We did a really big training to get more comfortable and confident, but.

And it worked great. I feel so much better. I'm really, I'm really proud of myself. I'm really happy with how I've been showing up. I mean, obviously, you know, like, if we are gonna do like a TV appearance or something, you know, we haven't done that yet. That's something that still could be a little bit scary. But I am so much more comfortable. I feel so much better about, you know, just what, you know, what to say, how to say it succinctly.

And we both need to work on succinct. We can still work on evidence by the length of this episode. But yeah, so we had these very long tangent there, but we had these incredibly busy couple of weeks. Then the book comes out. Intimate or nasty, closes. We're waiting for the New York Times bestseller list to come out. And it gets quiet. And we were still busy, but it was relative to what we had been doing before. It felt quiet. And I had all these fears sneaking into my brain of like, this is it. We had like a fun couple weeks. We had a fun couple of appearances. But like, like, it's done. Everybody who was gonna buy the book bought the book. Nobody else is gonna buy it. It's not gonna go anywhere.

No one's ever gonna talk to us about it again.

It really was. And I was surprised by how much fear and anxiety came up for me. And you know, I've been visualizing being a New York Times bestselling author for two and a half years. Like I've, I've really been working to manifest this. But at that final stretch, the fears and the anxieties, they just, they really came to the surface for me. And I was afraid, like, it's just a flop. That's it. We're done. Everything. You know, our business is so much lower because we put everything in the book. The book's a flop, the business is a flop. Everything's over. It's done.

Yeah. And I honestly, I can't just say that, like, I was a rock the whole time and that I was like, I always knew it was gonna happen. You know, I haven't been being a best selling author, hasn't Been a lifetime dream of mine. And so, you know, I think for me, my, my vibe or my perspective has kind of just been like, I'm along for the ride and hell yeah, like, let's go for it. But yeah, in those final days, you know, I guess, well, rewinding a bit, like, as we were, you know, writing the book, as we were going through the original, the original pre sale push and whatnot, like, in my mind, and the release was far enough off that it was like, you know what? I don't need to get in my head about like, oh, what if we, what if we don't make the list? What if we, what if we do? What if we don't? Whatever, you know, it's easy enough to be like, you know what? I'll worry about that when the time comes. And then it was like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in advance of it coming out. And I was like, oh, this is the fucking time. Like, I can't, you know, I can't. I can't not deal with this anymore. And so then, yeah, there's those thoughts of just, yeah, okay, huh? Well, like, what would it be like if we don't? And I really tried to not focus on that, just allow myself. Okay, yeah, you're having that thought. Of course you're having that thought. It's, you know, it's crunch time. It's out of your hands at this point. You know, I was able to keep myself pretty calm with just like, you know, the knowledge of, we did everything we could, we shot our shot, we showed up. You know, our side of the street is clean. It is sparkling.

Sparkling.

And I can't control how clean the other side the street is, what happens, all that stuff.

So let's talk about the New York Times list. So we were told from the very beginning of writing this book from everybody that we worked with, do not get your hopes up about hitting the list. Yep, hitting the list is incredibly hard to do, and in particular our section of the list, because there are multiple bestseller lists.

Yeah, we're in the. We're in the advice, how to and miscellaneous section.

Our section is notorious for being one of the hardest to break into because there are some perennial books that have been on the list for years. Just like classic bestsellers, they do not budge.

Yeah, if you look at the list, it says how many weeks a book has been on the list. You'll see there's some that have been on there for many years, like four years or something ridiculous like that. And there's also only 10 spots on that list versus, like, I think the fiction and the Nonfiction lists have 15 spots.

So everybody told us, you know, do not get your hopes up. You have to sell so many copies in that, you know, with the pre orders, and it's really only Tuesday through Saturday, so just a couple of days that you have to sell all those books. You have to sell so many. There are not very many spots on this list, just a couple. And it's not. The list is not just about how many books you sell. There's also a lot of other factors, kind of like the Instagram algorithm, very unknown factors that go in there.

So he knows what they are.

So our publisher said to us, you know, even if you get the number, that is no guarantee. And so even when we were, you know, our numbers were looking really good heading into it, and they kept saying, like, guys, don't get your hopes up. Like, yes, you have the numbers, but, like, it's a sex book. You know, it's sensitive. We just don't know. And so it was this interesting balance of, on the one hand, like. Like, you know, we are working with people who have so much experience and wisdom, and I want to honor their wisdom. And on the other hand, like, I really wanted this to happen.

Yeah. I mean, also, we've made. We've made a life. We've made a career of questioning assumptions, of not doing what people say, of, you know, trying to do the opposite. Yeah. Of, you know, we make our own rules. Is people say we can't do something. We, you know, we're not like, oh, fuck it, we want to do it. But no, it's like, oh, well, if people generally don't do this, that doesn't mean that we can't do it either. Like, you know, let's give it a shot. Who says we can't?

So Wednesday the 15th is the day that we find out whether or not we're gonna make the list. So our publisher, Simon and Schuster, they email us, they're like, hey, can we do a quick meeting with you guys today to talk about reprints? Like, we want to order more reprints of the book.

Of meeting with us and our agent.

Yes.

That was.

So we had a little suspicion, like, we're probably going to find out about the list on this meeting, but sure, we can talk about reprints.

Yeah. Because in the past when we've done various marketing things, like, our agent isn't always on those meetings.

So we decided. I'm like, okay, let's set up a little camera, babe. Like, for better or worse, like, let's capture this moment. Maybe I'll be embarrassed and we'll need to delete this footage and never show anybody. But, like, I want. I want to see this moment preserved. So we set up a little camera, we join the meeting. We do start talking about reprints. And I'm like, what the hell is going on?

Yeah. And marketing is like, okay, so what are your plans for marketing now that it's, you know, now that it's post release? And I'm like, like, they also told.

Us that we ran the best pre order campaign they have ever seen.

They did.

Which I was very proud of us and our team and everybody who helped out. Very, very proud of that. And so our editor says, she's like, oh, hold on, guys, I'm so sorry. Like, I had another email come in. I need to check this. I'll be right back. She turns her video off. Xander starts talking about, like, our marketing ideas. Yeah, well.

Cause our market. Our marketing person. Our marketing person, person at Simon and Schuster asked me a question. So I'm trying to answer the question.

So Michelle comes back on. She has no poker face, she's grinning, and I'm like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. Xander's still talking. So I nudge him, like, trying to tell him to stop. And he's like. He looks at me and he's like, what? The classic thing that you're not supposed to do when your partner's trying to subtly, like, get your attention. Sandra never gets those subtle messages. So he keeps talking and talking and talking. And I'm sitting there like, oh, my God, I'm gonna lose my mind. Stop talking. So I kind of.

Maybe I was in on it too.

I kind of nudged him again. And he, like, eventually stopped talking. And then Michelle at that point says, well, guys, you know, we half lied to you about why we want to have this meeting. I have some very exciting news to share with you. And so that was the moment that I just knew. And she said, you guys are New York Times best selling authors.

And our editor, Michelle, it's her first book that she edited that made the list as well. So, hell yeah, we all did it. Congrats, Michelle. You did it too.

So she pulls up the early copy of the list. We came in at number eight. Beautiful, beautiful number eight. And just seeing our names, like, I visualized this for so long. This is on the. This is embarrassing, but this is on the lock screen of my phone. I went into Canva. I made a little mock up of the list.

A Vision board.

A vision board. I made a little vision board. It's been on the lock screen of my phone for over a year. But to actually see it for real was just an absolute dream come true. And, you know, we shared a story to Instagram about this. We were like, you know, ultimately, being on the list doesn't matter. Like, the reason that we wrote this book is to help people to change lives. And we have already. With the book only being out, like, a week, we have already gotten so many stories from people saying, like, I cried reading the first page. I feel so seen. I've never heard anybody talk about things like this. Like, I, you know, this. This book is changing my life. It's changing my relationship. It's changing my marriage. Like, that's the reason we wrote the book. So regardless of if we make any bestseller list, we have already succeeded.

But making that list allows your book to be exposed to so many more people that, yes, over time, over years, they may have been exposed to it as, you know, word of mouth slowly gets out there. You know, you slowly. You know, it picks up more steam or whatever. But, you know, being able to make that list, so many more people are going to see it because people read the New York Times, people see the list. When people are looking for a new book to read, they like to look at those lists in bookstores. You know, they put the bestsellers on, you know, a table right at the front. And so, yeah, when it comes to, you know, getting this book that people need in front of people, this is the best way that you can do that, other than waiting years and years for more and more people to find out about it.

Yeah. And it feels like a validation that it's. It's been a struggle to have. It's, you know, it's been a joy. We've had a lot of success and a lot of luck. It's been a joy to have a business about sex. And it's also been a struggle because it is such a taboo topic still. And so to get this major, major validation of our words feels very, very powerful. So the last story we'll tell you is how we told my family about this. So we had originally sent to our family text thread. We're like, oh, we're gonna find out at 2 today if we made the list or not. As soon as we found out we made the list, I was like, I can't just text them that I made the list. No, I want to be in person. We already had plans for all of them to come over to our house that evening because we were doing a post birthday celebration for, for me. So I told them, I was like, oh, there was some mix up. We're not gonna know until around 7. So you guys are coming over at 6:30, we'll all find out together. We can either celebrate or commiserate together.

God, that sounds so stressful now. If that was, if that was, I don't know if I, we would be cool with that. If that's really how it was going down.

So they came over at 6:30. I set up a secret little tripod to record it. And what I did is I printed out the badge that says New York Times bestseller. It's like a little circular yellow badge. I printed it out and I taped it to the COVID of one of our, one of the copies of our book. So they come in the door and I hand them the book. I'm like, you guys, look how weird this is. We found this misprint on the book. And my dad's like, oh my God, on all the books. And I was like, yeah, look at it. Like, see if you can find it. And we actually preserve this moment. We have a highlight on Instagram at Vanessa and Xander called New York Times bestseller. You can watch the video. I'm so glad I took this video. But it took them a minute and then my dad finally starts to read it. He's like, New York Times. Ah. And he and my mom like in the same moment realized it and both just like screamed and they were so excited. Big hugs, just. It was such a perfect, special little moment. And what I realized later, we were sitting around the table like finishing up dinner. I was just filled with so much love and gratitude with my siblings, my brother in law, my parents, Xander, the dogs, just feeling so lucky and so grateful. And Xander and I have talked. We've done two podcast episodes about how we are not having children of our own. And one of the things that I have mourned the most about that is a pregnancy announcement. Like being able to share with my family like I'm pregnant. It's, you know, we're having a baby. There's just something about that moment, just that simple conversation that has always felt like really just sad to me to know that I'm not gonna have that. And I realized as I was sitting around that table, I was like, that's, that was my pregnancy announcement. Like getting to surprise them in that way and share this news with them in that way. Like that was, that was my way of getting to have this experience that I'M so sad I'm not going to be able to experience.

Oh, you got a little misty eyed.

I am, yeah. So that just made it feel really special that, like, this is the legacy that we can leave in the world. This is a way that we can continue to have impact and change lives. You know, it's this book. It's this book. And the following day, I got a DM from a woman saying, you know, here I got my book, I'm reading it. And she sent. She said, I'm reading it with my baby on my lap. And she sent me this picture that all that you see is the book open and a little tiny baby arm, like, on the pages of the book and her hands, like, holding the book open. And I just, just that image. I want to get it printed out and frame it. Honestly, if you're the woman who sent it to me, I hope that's not weird to you. You can't see who you are. It's.

Yeah, you can't see anybody.

But it was like, yeah, that's. That's a legacy of. This book is breaking generational shame cycles around sex. We are helping parents have their own healthier relationships with sex so that they can do better for their kids. You know, the. The whole book, I, like, I am a sex therapist because my parents really struggled to give me the talk. And, you know, we. We didn't really have the talk. And I know so many people have had the same sort of experience, and so many parents want better for their kids. And knowing, like, that's some of the work that we're doing, we're breaking that cycle. This little baby is gonna grow up with a mom who has a healthier and happier relationship with sexual sex. And the baby is going to learn a healthier and happier relationship too. And that feels so cool.

It does. It really does.

That was a marathon. So many stories to tell. So many stories to tell.

What do you guys think of this storytelling format? This is. This is a brand new. This is a brand new thing for us. I mean, honestly, I don't know if there are, like, other topics that we could do an episode like this on. I feel like this is sort of like the. The podcast equivalent of a vlog, like, just following us around for the day. But no, I mean, I'm. I'm curious. I'm curious what, what y' all think. So hit us up on Instagram, let us know what you think of, you know, the new storytelling format.

We know you like the new storytelling format. It sounds like you're committing to.

No, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm. No, not at all. But you know, I know, I know you guys love the ask us anything format. I'm just curious. I want to know, what do you think?

All right. Any final words about being New York Times best selling author? Also, we were like, please forever only refer to us as New York Times bestselling author.

That's right.

When I called and make a restaurant reservation, a hotel reservation, I'm going to be like, yes. Can you please put it under New York Times bestselling author? Vanessa and Xander Marin, thank you very much.

Well, I mean, that's the thing. They actually, you know, our agent said, what our editor said was, this is forever. It doesn't matter what spot you are on the list. It doesn't matter how many weeks you're on the list. Like you are a best selling author forever. It's part of your name. New York Times best selling author. There's no like best selling author for three weeks. Bestselling author at number three spot for two weeks or anything like that. It's just, just we're there forever. And yeah, it's a legacy. It's a. It's a permanent validation of what we're doing.

Permanent validation. Oh my God. That's exciting.

Yeah. You like that, girl?

I think I've discovered a new kink. Permanent validation. Wow. I love that. I will say though, we would love to stay on the list. So we greatly appreciate your support.

Make it an even more permanent validation. Make a. A more permanent, permanent validation.

Yeah. If you haven't bought the book yet, we would so appreciate you buying it.

If you have recommend it to your friends, buy a copy for your friends and family.

Yeah, we would love to keep the party going. Stay on this list. All right, well, we just want to say thank you again. Whether you have been following along from the very beginning or you're just joining our community, maybe you were on one of those ig lives that we did. We just really, really appreciate you being here. We appreciate your support. We appreciate all the pre orders, the orders, the sharing it on your story, telling your friends. It really means so much to us. We appreciate you being a generational shame cycle breaker. We appreciate you being brave enough for picking up this book in the first place. All the support really, really means the world to us. So thank you for being a part of this journey with us.

Yeah. So please leave us a review. If you've read the book, if you haven't, if you haven't, if you haven't gotten the book yet and you want a copy. If you want to buy a copy for a friend because you're already loving the book, go to sextalksbook.com we have the links to all the retailers. You can pick up a copy for yourself. You can pick up another copy or two to send to your friends and family. And yeah, you got a free workbook that goes along with the book. It goes in depth and more questions to ask, more journal prompts, more things to discuss. There's a little assessment to do at the beginning and the end. We're giving you that for free with your purchase. All you have to do is go back to that site, sextalksbook.com, fill out step two, enter your order information, and we will send you that workbook. Well, that's all for today's episode of Pillow Talks.

Woo.

We did it.

It.

Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we talk about things that go bump or bang in the night. I'm just gonna leave that one there. That's. That's quite a tease.

I was trying so hard not to.

Do the m. I mean, it's quite appropriate for that bumper bang. Okay, love you all.

Love you all.

Love, Xander. Okay, bye.