myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
Women of Burbank: Jackie Remery-Pearson and Colleen Harris, Dark & Dirty Hearts
myBurbank reporter, Ashley Erikson, sits down with the creators of Dark & Dirty Hearts, that shares all things love and books. Jackie Remery-Pearson and Colleen Harris are friends, girl moms, and avid readers, that have built a business around dark and dirty romance books. They share all the juicy details of the book tok world, book boyfriends, kinks, and how their honest reviews have helped to uplift and grow indie authors and support local bookstores. They also share how they launched their Fantasy Book Boyfriend League with 260 book characters that could be drafted onto teams. Listen as Ashley, Jackie and Colleen talk about their favorite books and genres, and how they are building a business one dark and dirty review at a time.
Learn more about the Fantasy Book Boyfriend League: https://bit.ly/ddh-fbbl
Follow Dark & Dirty Hearst on Instagram to see their reviews: www.instagram.com/darkdirtyhearts
Visit their Bookshop to shop by category: https://bookshop.org/shop/darkdirtyhearts
Burbank Mommies Holiday Gift Giving: bit.ly/BurbankGiveBack
This episode was sponsored by Compass Realtors Mike McDonald and Mary Anne Been. https://burbankarealiving.com/
From deep in the Burbank Media District. It's time for another edition of my Burbank Talks, presented by the staff of my Burbank. Now let's see what's on today's agenda as we join our program.
Speaker 3:Hi, welcome to another episode of Women of Burbank. My name is Ashley Erickson and today I have Jackie, Remery Pearson and Colleen Harris, who are friends, girl moms and business partners on their company Dark and Dirty Hearts that provide reviews on dark and dirty romance novels. So thank you guys for coming today and being a part of the show. I'm really excited to have you guys. Fun fact I've known Jackie for a very long time. We were besties back in ninth and tenth grade, so 22, 23 years ago ago. I can't do the math, um, and I met colleen from jackie. But how do you guys know each other? Where did you meet and become friends?
Speaker 1:so her brother actually introduced us like a decade and a half ago and we just clicked immediately and have been friends ever since and your daughter's the close to the same age, right, so you do a lot together I feel like we basically raise them together in a way like haven has always wanted a sister and she calls kennedy her sister, she calls her her little kk.
Speaker 4:So it's basically and I remember when kennedy was born, haven, like I'm not kidding every day I was like when is kennedy gonna talk to? Me when is kennedy gonna talk to me like so it's, it's really great that's awesome.
Speaker 3:You guys do so many things together. I see your trips and you guys did soccer together and all sorts of things together, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's this amazing woman right here. She's a very good organizer.
Speaker 3:She's. I don't know if anyone could see the notes that she has across the table here. She's prepared, she's organized. That's one of my favorite things about Jackie. So we're going to talk about Dark and Dirty Hearts, your company that you've got launched on Instagram. Tell me about when it got started, what it means. I mean, did you guys both start reading at the same time? Was one of you? Like you know, I found this new hidden thing that I've got to share with you. How did it start?
Speaker 4:Well, I think it's a different journey for each of us, but I've been an avid reader since I was really young and I used to talk about books all the time and, jackie being the amazing friend that she is, she listens to everything that you say and I don't. I know that she'd read before, but I was talking about, like Sarah J Maas and A Quarter Throne of Roses and these different books and whatnot, and I don't even know, one day, I think you just started reading.
Speaker 1:She picked up a book. I know that sounds terrible, so I when, like high school and all of that, um, I was very into Tara Jansen and her Steel Street series, which I should not have been reading at that age but, like I very much enjoyed it. Um, as soon as I got to law school, though, reading for pleasure became not a thing, yeah, and so I completely dropped it until, basically, covid when we're at home and I needed to like settle my mind. And then I knew pauline had been reading and there's like an instagrammer that I followed. She had put up about um, an app that wasn't kindle but it was like based on romance novels. So I got started kind of there, um, but I wasn't, like those weren't my favorite. So then I shifted over to kindle and, like that's where I have been living now um, but yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:Um, it was nice to get back into it um, now that I'm not reading quite so much for work do you pick the same books, like when there's a book that you want to review or you guys have like total different genres?
Speaker 4:it's interesting because I feel like this is a unique question and that we like the same type of books but in different flavors, like we both like mafia romance but like I like reverse harem you know, so mine are always like we both like hockey romance. But again, mine would be and reverse harem.
Speaker 3:So they're like what's a reverserem?
Speaker 4:That's usually when there's one girl and at least three guys.
Speaker 3:Potential potential matches. Potential matches, I don't know. I just feel like, like somebody vying for your attention.
Speaker 4:Not so much that I feel like women are extremely complex and I think it's really hard for a man, one man, to write all these different things for us and I think it's interesting to see how they all have these different parts to them that come together to fulfill everything that she needs, and I find that dynamic really fascinating. But once in a while we do pick the same book and we'll review it and I usually be like Jackie, because we text it like all hours of night to him. You read this hockey room man and like she'll send me dialogue yeah like okay.
Speaker 1:I was like okay, that's really good, and then we'll look at it that way, but most of the time it's separate yeah, when you do read the same book, are your reviews like completely different of it they're not completely different, but I am an easy sell, like it is hard to get lower than a four star from me because, oh wow, I generally like I'll know within the first chapter if I'm going to enjoy something, and if I'm not going to enjoy it unless it's an advanced reader copy I just will stop and then I'm not going to review it based on one chapter. Yeah so, but yeah, most of the time I'm an easy sell.
Speaker 3:That's funny and you guys have like your kinks, like you would call it right, Like you like your things.
Speaker 4:So first let's talk debate like who's pride, who's prejudice. I think that we started out like I was dark and jackie was dirty, but I think, as this is, we've evolved. I think you could make a an argument that we're both. Yeah, you know, like sure she might be the dirty a little bit more, but they cross so many times those two genres, so I think it's almost like this great umbrella for everything, so we're not pigeonholing ourselves into one area.
Speaker 3:It's an overarching theme. Do you think that the tiktok and book talk like really exploded this genre? I?
Speaker 1:think it made it more palatable to the masses Because, I mean, it's always, romance has always been a huge genre and it's always been a big seller. I mean, think about like romance movies and rom-coms and stuff they do well, because there's a formula to it, it's a comfort for most people. Having now on like Instagram and Mototalk, I think it's just made it more like people can feel, like they can talk about it rather than hiding in their cellars. That makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I never, really I've never read a romance book. And then it started on TikTok and I saw your posts and you kind of like shop through. I think I even texted you once. I was like, ok, this is what I want in a book. I want an Irish accent, I want a bad boy that turns good. And then she was like I got the book for you. Like she knew all of the books, which I think is so amazing and you review them. You read the books, you review them, you put them on Instagram, you put them on Goodreads right.
Speaker 4:I have to say I am definitely much harsher. When we first started, I was afraid to review anything negatively, so I've almost started to shift to good reads, and I do not hold back If I think about the last 10 reviews I posted. I'm not afraid to say this is a pass. Where before? I was like these authors are working so hard and you've done something amazing and I know personally it would crush me if I read this, but at the same time it felt like I was doing a disservice yeah people if I was saying something was good and it wasn't not going to trust your reviews?
Speaker 4:no, and I think authenticity is something that you have to do. You have to find that, and especially when you're starting off, it's almost like you're tiptoeing around trying to appease and then, eventually, you get more confident in being who you want to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think people fall in love with your voice and your thoughts and that's what really, you know, brings your readers into your social media, right? And so you guys read a lot of books. I've seen your good reads. It's like I think at one point it said you're reading 42 books right now and you're reading like 31. I don't know how that's humanly possible. Explain that to me.
Speaker 1:So it's not Okay. We're each only reading like one or two. The way Goodreads works is as soon as you, we have it synced to our Amazon. So as soon as we open a book in Kindle, it marks it as reading, and so even if we abandon a book, it's still going to be there, unless we go in there and take it down. Also for me, because I do a lot of audio books, I will have both the e-book and the audio book so I can switch between the two, and if I finish the book on Audible, it will not register through Goodreads, so it will think that I'm still reading that book.
Speaker 4:Ok, so that's why it looks like we have a ton this is a lot to manage in one sitting, and like she's so good at updating, where sometimes I'm not gonna lie, like I am not always the best, like at one point, I think I should go back and add, like a bunch of books that I've read, but I'm I don't know, it's uh. Yeah, it's a whole thing to remember to post what you read about she's so good about you're posting it on, you know, are you on tiktok too?
Speaker 3:you're on tiktok on instagram, on goodreads. You've got a lot of uh platforms that you're posting on, right? Do you what? What is like your preferred method of reading? Do you collect books? Do you like the hard copy?
Speaker 4:audible, you know uh I'm not gonna lie in a perfect world I would have hard copies of everything. It's just not realistic. I I mean, we're LA girls Like where's the?
Speaker 3:space. I think there was like 600 books that you read on your Goodreads.
Speaker 4:I think that would be impossible to store that in a little house around Burbank and it's like a lifetime, you know, because we've both been reading since we were young and I think about all the books I read you know growing up I'm like where would they go? I mean, I would I, I mean, I think we all want to, you know, a bell moment. We want to have our beast to give us a library, but it doesn't really happen that way.
Speaker 4:So I mean, if it's an author I absolutely love, I'll get the hard copy. In fact, I'll be there the first day. If Sarah J Maas is coming out with a new book, I'm there. I'm there the night. I'm like Jackie, you want to meet me at Barnes and Nobles? And actually, you know, a hardcover does help to make better content. It's nice, you can actually physically touch something. Yeah, but I'd say probably like 95 of what I read is through kindle. Okay, or I get sucked into one of those like read this one chapter and then you have to buy the next and like those are the worst. I was like I can't, why am I going down this rabbit hole?
Speaker 1:oh, that's hilarious what about you, jackie? Um, yeah, I read mostly on my e-reader or on audible. Um, I do like my shelf trophies, yeah, especially when they're signed, but again, it's like a space issue.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and I think those audiobooks are fun too because you get to there's. Some of the characters are done like male and female and some of them are spicy to hear them with those. Do you enjoy reading it that way too?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I love audiobooks yeah.
Speaker 4:That's her thing, and I love watching Jackie when she has an audiobook because her face goes so red.
Speaker 3:Oh, you watch her listening to it.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's amazing to watch her because me. I feel like I'm really good. I don't go red. So I can be reading a spicy scene and, like you don't know what I'm up to, you know, I can be just chilling waiting for a hit with my daughter and it's fine, Jackie, it's like a hit and it's like beat red. I'm like what are you reading over there?
Speaker 3:You know that's hilarious. I have to ask what your husbands think about all these sexy romance books that you guys are delving into. What are their thoughts?
Speaker 1:into what are their thoughts. So justin's all in. I mean he, even for my birthday a few years ago he bought me a voice memo from one of my favorite um narrators. The voice memo itself was a pg like. It was mostly about how great my husband was for buying this for me. Yeah, but he's, he's great, um, we went to readers tape denver this last um april and I met Shane East, who is one of my favorite narrators, and I'd been waiting to meet him forever and so I took a picture and I sent it to Justin and I was like my life is complete.
Speaker 1:Now I've met Shane East and he goes I'm so glad that, after marrying me and having two beautiful children, your life is now complete.
Speaker 1:So I sent that to Shane East and he responded back with like yeah, you know your husband knows what he's talking about or whatever. Like so it's like it's very, yeah, um, playful, yeah, and and he, he understands, like we, I'm very open about how, what I'm reading, how I'm reading you know whether it's um ebook, and like I talked to him about the bookstagram space, so he understands, like how important consent is in the book. Talk bookstagram space, particularly with these authors and narrators, because, even though they're writing these, you know spicy books. They're narrating these spicy books. That doesn't give anyone permission to come into their personal space and with you know inappropriate things, and so they hold hard boundaries and then they treat other people the same way. Just because we are consuming those books doesn't mean that you can come into our space and you know dm us with something inappropriate, and narrators and authors are very good about holding that line and reinforcing it, and so there's really no, I mean this one's not concerned, that's a good has you read any of them ever.
Speaker 1:So he started. The problem is it's just a time thing. Yeah, with kids it's like well, you know, it's like impossible. One of us is always doing something, and the other with one kid and one with the other, so he hasn't yet, but he's not opposed to it. And on long drives, when it's just the two of us, I'll put on a thing on Audible. I just read it at 1.75 speed, which is too fast for him okay, I think it's too fast for most people what's happening right now.
Speaker 1:I like it because it gets if everything feels more important, because they're like, oh, like you, like you hear that in it, because it's sped up, and to me that's like, oh, the drama it like becomes much more dramatic than if you're reading it at like a normal pace yeah, they do.
Speaker 3:They do like kind of elongate and pause a lot. That that's the one thing I don't like about audiobooks is I do tend to read a lot quicker than the audiobooks, but when it speeds up it's just, it's like a little squirrel on caffeine. I can't do it.
Speaker 4:That's what I was thinking. It sounds like a squirrel, I'm like oh.
Speaker 4:No, I can. He's like it's good. I'm like okay, that's so funny. What about your husband, colleen? I think mine's a little bit different because you know he's an artist, filmmaker, so he's. It's not that he's aware that I read, it's just that it's kind of like it's my thing. So it's kind of left alone, like he has. He's not opposed to it, but it's definitely not super involved, you know. But if I asked him something, he would. He would would definitely love to give his opinion, but you know, one day I'll get him more involved.
Speaker 3:Do you ever just like open up the spicy pages and read them to him?
Speaker 4:I wish.
Speaker 3:Look what is in here.
Speaker 4:I know, at some point I wanted to, but it was these last 15 months. My husband was living in Italy, so it was, you know, we were going back and forth, and so it was a little bit different. So it was, you know, we were going back and forth, and so it was a little bit different. But you know, my husband likes to. He does like to know everything that's going on. So one day, I think I think we'll get there, you know yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, I think we're both just trying to survive what we're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I totally get that. So you guys both like. You guys have your own genres that you like, you love, like athletes and things like that. Right, that's your big thing. And you are into the reverse harem. You said, right, yes, especially in fantasy. Are you a fantasy?
Speaker 4:reader, I do. I love world building. And I think that we all have these slippery slopes of like, you know, you see Harry Potter and you're like, wow, that's a really cool world. And then you know, you grow up and you're like I mean, I'm still a perry potter yeah, but you know you're like, okay, well, where's the?
Speaker 3:romance.
Speaker 4:The adult version, the adult version of right and it's I mean, I'm wearing the shirt today like and then when you find that like perfect combination, it's like magic yeah no, yeah, I love finding other people that love akatar.
Speaker 3:I think it's like. It's just like you kind of brings you back into that world. Are you a fan? I'm not, oh Lord, honestly, it was so hard.
Speaker 1:I was like how do you know that? Did you read them at all? So I did, and the problem is I love myself a villain to an extreme. Oh no.
Speaker 1:She's a, I am Like. I'm always like, even in real life stories and stuff, for the most part I mean, there are some people that are like unredeemable, but for the most part I'm like, oh well, I could see why that would happen, why they would do that terrible thing, why they would kill that terrible thing, like. So you know, and honestly I mean… I would go for Tamlin, like I don't think anything that he did was I agree.
Speaker 3:I mean, if Rhys didn't come into the world, it'd be all right, I think true, like he does, I think one day he'll get his redemption arc, you think so Because.
Speaker 4:I mean, if you go through the whole series, he does something good in the end. In the end he does the right thing, and I don't know.
Speaker 3:You don't know. Yes, you always are afraid to say what happens. But you know he said he kind of does redeem himself a little bit, but I think you'd really like a throne of glass. Did you read that? Oh, I've been seeing it on tiktok.
Speaker 4:I will say that's like the one to go to. I truly believe that's probably her best. It's just that she has like the characters are so good in it, but you have to really hold steady, but the last book in that series is probably the greatest ending to any series I've ever read in my life Wow and I've read some great books. I mean I don't only just read romance. I mean I've read all the classics. You know I've been. I'm an avid reader, I pretty much read anything. But yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker 3:So if, if someone came up to you was like what is your top like favorite books? Like what would you recommend to somebody I, what is your top like favorite books? Like what would you recommend?
Speaker 4:to somebody. I mean, I'd probably have to ask them like, what do you like? Because I think that we have so many categories of what we like. I mean, if you didn't, if you were looking for just like a great adventure story, I probably would go with the Hobbit, which is not a romance story. It's something completely different, I think. But if you were to say, say what is your favorite book and what do you like, I would. I would go with the sort of thrown in roses.
Speaker 3:I mean, I just got a good mix of everything.
Speaker 4:I do feel like and her, her world building and the characters, and I like that. When you write from multiple perspectives, I realize like having one voice isn't my favorite anymore. I want to know what all these different characters and even the secondary characters are thinking, because it makes everything so much richer. Yeah, what about you, jackie?
Speaker 1:So Megan Quinn and Sadie Kincaid can do no wrong. Megan Quinn is more fluffy, rom-com type. Her stuff has secondhand embarrassment to the extreme. But I love all of it.
Speaker 3:Is that the one I just saw you post about the bridesmaid one?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, I saw that and we just met her too.
Speaker 4:Did you? Yeah, she is fantastic.
Speaker 1:And then Sadie Kincaid is Dark Mafia and she's like both of them. I think what I love both is they do world building, kind of in a different way than fantasy, but like so they're in current time, you know contemporary times, but it's the characters, and then they have, you know they just they create a world for you in today's world and I think I resonate, it resonates with me a lot better than everything else and I love them, um.
Speaker 1:But if somebody was looking for a new up-and-comer, albany archer is fantastic. She is releasing her second book um ever in october and she does like the lumber snacks and she's so good.
Speaker 4:Lumber snacks. See, I learn new stuff all the time. Is that a term or is that a name?
Speaker 3:of a book.
Speaker 1:No, so it's a term for lumberjack-esque male characters who are like hot lumberjacks Hot lumberjacks, lumber snacks.
Speaker 2:You should tell Justin to do that for.
Speaker 4:Halloween, and he probably would. That would be really cute. Are there terms? Lumber snacks you should tell Justin to do that for Halloween.
Speaker 3:Be like Justin please, and you probably would. Yeah, you would. That would be really cute. Are there terms for all these kinds of book boyfriends? There's so many terms.
Speaker 4:Are there and she tells them all to me. I always text her up like okay, so I'll say something in like three words, and she'll be like oh, it's this.
Speaker 3:Like how do you know she could? It's a dictionary with a K. Yes, I think she has already thought about this. Don't get her started.
Speaker 4:It's already in the works. She will like. I mean, I don't know anyone that can fly with an idea better than Jackie can. She's amazing at it.
Speaker 3:That's why you guys created Dark and Dirty Hearts Somebody who came up with the idea?
Speaker 4:Honestly I will say it's Jackie. But I think Jackie is really good at she's very good at reading the room right and she knew that like I wanted to write, I wanted to do something. But I'm gonna be honest, I need a little bit of a push. Yeah, I get wrapped up in my kid. I get wrapped up in my husband, like it's so. Jackie was like she just did it one day. She's like let's just go, you guys are the perfect mesh together it's like total balance.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel like she's the, she's much better version. You know, like I I feel like you know they talk about safe friends. Jackie's definitely that safe friend. Yeah, we're like I can just show up and like be myself and and yeah, and or tell her an idea, and it's crazy because I mean I have. I mean ideas are a dime, a dozen. Execution is the hard part. So I can tell her something like this book, boyfriend, and she just did it and like it's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I'm so excited to get into that league and the book boyfriends and all that stuff. Yes, so let's take a quick commercial break and then when we come back, we're going to learn about the league.
Speaker 4:Sounds good.
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Speaker 3:All right, we're back and we just talked about book boyfriends, so I want to go back to what that term means, and is this something that book talk came up with? Is this something that who came up with? Book boyfriend? Or just like a universal, the?
Speaker 4:term's been around for a while. Yeah, and I think that you know everyone just has their own flavor to what a bug boyfriend is and it's. It's basically finding a main male character in a book that resonates with what you would want in a real life boyfriend. So if you want a guy that's like you know, 6'5", blue eyes, trust fund you're going to find him.
Speaker 4:You know you're going to find that guy in your book, you know. But at the same time, you know we often hear this comment of like what's unrealistic? Yeah, but really you're finding these men. They might look a certain way, but it's the way they treat the women. Yeah, that's really what it's about. Like you want someone that, like Jackie talked about consent earlier someone that checks in with you, someone that cares about you. It's not so much the way they look, though. I mean I think we all love a bad boy covered in tattoos.
Speaker 3:They're all beautiful in these books. They're so beautiful, even the stalkers and the killers they're always like beautiful blue eyes and tattoos. Who doesn't want to be stalked by a?
Speaker 4:beautiful blue eyed man. I don't think that's stalking then I don't think so. I think it's admiration he's admiring my amazingness and I think we all want to be admired for that. That's hilarious.
Speaker 1:That's not an invitation, by the way. I mean Amazingness, and I think we all want to be admired for that. That's hilarious, and so do you guys. That's not an invitation, by the way.
Speaker 3:I mean. Well, Colleen has different views over here.
Speaker 4:Yeah I don't know. But then you'd have to meet my husband and I don't think anyone. I mean my husband's a big dude, he's like six three.
Speaker 3:So do you have a book, boyfriend?
Speaker 4:Like an official book boyfriend, like going through all those books I mean there's. So I feel like it changes. I hate to say it, but I think I'm kind of fickle with it. You know, um, I think you have like resand from or rise. I never say his name right. I don't know what, I think I needed to have the spelling phonetics I always thought it was rise and but then someone said it was resand. I'm like you can't tell me it's resand like that, Like that can't be correct.
Speaker 3:They all are weird names, I think because it's short, rhys, yeah right.
Speaker 4:So it had to be Rhysand, that's what I'm thinking. So I really like him because there's something about like someone that can go through so much and be so damaged but love so beautifully. But also I'm a big fan of like the athlete, oh, you are too oh okay, I do like the athlete a lot Is there a specific sport.
Speaker 3:I think they both like hockey.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think I don't know what it is about the hockey guys Like just because they seem so tough, yeah, like I don't know if I could really get behind like a squash player or something you know A what player Like, you know, like squash, it's like a or cricket or something like I don't know? Yeah, do they make books? About that I mean I'm sure there's you can find anything. Well, I think they should do a pickleball series at this point this is so popular.
Speaker 3:That is very true yeah, but I don't know. Okay, what about you, jackie?
Speaker 1:so I don't have a specific one. Um, as much as I don't read reverse harem, I would have a reverse harem because I like, um, like a lot. Um, I'm like I said I'm an easy sell. So you give me a single dad that's over the top possessive and I'm like I'm all in on that. Um, there's something about like a the, the single dad, like loving the kid so much that you're like, okay, I know that, like if I'm in with the kid, I'm in with the dad and like the dad is going to treat me that well and like, so, like, so it's great.
Speaker 3:Your husbands have a lot to live up to. I bet they're constantly like what do I have to do next? What do I have to do next?
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't know. I think my husband's very confident in who he is. I don't think he ever worries about these things. He's definitely like he's got that.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:Justin's got that easygoing where Jackie could say anything to him and I feel like nothing phases him. He's unfazed by anything. It's so funny because he's totally like oh, are you into that? The only thing he won't. He's not, for I want him to get a full sleeve and he's like nope.
Speaker 4:You know it's interesting, ryan was always like no, no, no, but then when he came back from Italy it's interesting Ryan was always like no, no, no, but then like when he came back from. Italy, he's like I don't know, maybe I need to make a change and I was like, oh okay, like I don't know, we'll see if that happens. He wants to get tattoos too. I don't know, you never know with him, you know.
Speaker 3:He's a unique guy. He can take some of my husbands. He's completely covered from his neck down to his toes. Um, okay, so we're going to talk about this league. I know nothing of sports, so I know people like do a draft of sports players. I don't know what that means so I have absolutely no idea. But you've turned it into a fantasy book boyfriend league.
Speaker 1:So explain to me how that works in layman's terms um, we created nine different categories of book boyfriends, like from regency and royal books, uh, mafia athlete. So there's nine different categories and then we have everyone builds a team with at least one player from each category and then we have two. They can pick two extra players from any category. They, their team, then competes against other teams just like in head-to-heads each week. So we started this with 16 content creators in the book space and we just finished week one, and so we you know they're looking at the numbers, and the numbers are based off of social media impressions that we receive from Keyhole, which is a company that tracks hashtags and social media impressions.
Speaker 1:But Rena Kent got there were twelve hundred plus posts in the last week and that equaled to I think it's like six thousand impressions or something like that. So those are where the points come from. I then put them into a spreadsheet, which then gets put into our app which we are using Fantasizer. They do all kinds of fantasy leads for TV and sports and things like that. We just happen to be working with them on this and they've been great because this is unique, so I've had to call my rep quite a bit. So Daniel and I are like this.
Speaker 4:I've never had a book boyfriend league before my best is like. One of the categories is stalker, so just imagine saying Jackie got smart and called it taboo.
Speaker 3:I saw that.
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah, but when you're first starting, you're like I need a stalker category. Can you imagine hearing that from somebody? They're probably wondering what is wrong with these two girls.
Speaker 1:The best was when he responded and was like well, we can do this in the stalker category. And I was like this is the best professional email I've ever received.
Speaker 3:Oh my God. So how do these teams get made? You picked content creators to lead teams and then people join those teams. So not quite.
Speaker 1:So anyone can create their own team, and then they will just they'll use our numbers and they can track, and we actually encourage it and, if they want to, on our website they can pull off a little card that they fill it out, and then, if their team wins or would beat one of these content creators that week, they should post about it. All of our scores are public, so everyone can see what each content creator received, what each character received the content creators, though, like our lead is a closed lead, it's just the 16 of us, and then it is our job to then use our social media to say OK, look, last week we lost, so we need to boost Megan Quinn, we need to boost whoever and get their followings to hashtag those authors, hashtag those books.
Speaker 3:You're working to get your team to win, like the people you've chosen. Yeah, and what's great?
Speaker 4:too, is that you're also promoting these great authors too, I mean most of the authors we picked are indie authors. There's a few of them like I had to do a Sarah J Maas Like. There's a few people that, like we, like we, you know, had to do someone that we absolutely love, but for the most part it gives off authors an opportunity to it's like free publicity yeah, so did you pick all of?
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a. How many guys are on that? There is a long list. It's a giant by the way she was so large I couldn't even like look at it.
Speaker 4:One view we did an actual draft and I was like putting names on the board. I I think I got my cardio for the day. I was like going up. I was like it was this big like on jackie's like wall in her office. I was like, oh my gosh up and down I know it was, it was amazing.
Speaker 3:You knew all these characters.
Speaker 1:You've read all these books between the two of you, or you're just pulling in from everything you know, so there are 225 books, represented by 210 authors, and we put so we picked like our favorites and we threw our favorites in there. And then I looked at like some other popular authors that maybe we aren't our favorites, and then it was really important to me that this was inclusive in all ways. Inclusive in all ways. So then and I follow a lot of like Latinx, uh, content creators, um, the, the LGBT, um plus creators and stuff so I was looking at like, okay, what are you guys reading? And so I went through and, to be honest, I you know my TBR is now huge after going through these. Um, once I got like a list of those, though then I had to go through and see, okay, do they have enough of enough impressions that we could make it work in?
Speaker 1:here, because there was there. There are a lot of authors out there they're incredible that are just not. They have nothing, and while I would love to boost them and I will in other ways, like I would be happy to read their stuff and then post about it, it didn't translate well into a points-based right thing, so I had to pick authors that had enough to make it worth it. Okay, um and so that, but that's how I created it, um, so, yeah, I tried, I, I've made a a effort to try to hit every kind of category that I could within these categories.
Speaker 3:This is a really complex system. I mean, when I saw you guys post and you guys bring these videos, I was like this is like a really well thought out, organized project. That would be her. I mean, you designed these amazing book boxes. Is this one out to the content creators? Yes, the team leaders? Mm-hmm. Okay, I'm going to open it and see what's inside. You got these designed so beautifully.
Speaker 4:I have to say honestly, part of, like, dark and Dirty Hearts overarching. I mean we'd love to do some PR too. I mean, like this is amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was really fun.
Speaker 4:Okay, I'm going to turn okay my goodness, should we help you pull out some? Yeah, do you want to pull it out? Okay?
Speaker 3:we've got. Oh, here's the, the rookie list. Okay, I don't know how well you can see this, but we can put it on the screen we have. If you have digital copies, we'll throw it up on the screen.
Speaker 4:This is literally a huge copy of a draft guide, and here I'll have you that that up.
Speaker 3:This is like a novel already in itself. I mean, look at that.
Speaker 2:Those are the authors represented.
Speaker 3:I mean, are these all the guys? Yeah, that's a lot. They're so tiny I can't even read them, oh my God. And in the books they're not tiny, and you have all these fun things. And you were saying that you got a lot of stuff from a local Burbank store.
Speaker 1:Yes, a lot of stuff from a local Burbank store. Yes, so tea that we got from Geeky Teas. We got two different teas, we got the tea Garen and the bad wolf tea. And then we created these cards based off of the rookies and actually a lot of authors. So I reached out to the authors and was like hey, we're doing these cards, like what are some fun facts I can put on there that aren't on your Amazon page or that aren't obvious? And so many of the authors wrote back and they were like hey, let me give you some great things and like so it was really fun, these are so fun.
Speaker 3:Highlights on the back. These are so cool.
Speaker 4:They're like kind of like OG baseball cards and stuff, yeah, stats and whatnot, yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:And a little shot glass. I'll be using that when I go line dancing at the VFW on Friday. There's a little hat on there too, oh my gosh, it's so cute and I'm afraid of what that is. So that's a page holder and that's actually part of the merch that we are creating.
Speaker 1:So that was based off of Pain in the Axe by Daphne Elliott. It is a lumber snack pregnancy book, and so that's why there's the lumberjack axe on there and the little baby pin. This is a page holder.
Speaker 3:I don't understand. Oh, it holds it open like wide yeah.
Speaker 1:so you would put it there.
Speaker 3:Okay, that is so cool, and some stickers and some cute glasses and all sorts of fun things in here. These are really cool. So they all got this as their. And who, when? Who wins the league? What do they get? What happens when you win the league?
Speaker 1:So there's three uh, there's the championship. Uh, second place and third place. Uh, the first place is going to get um for our influencer content creator league. Uh, yeah, for our Influencer Content Creator League. We have two leads running. Now there is also people were so into it I had to open up a second lead. Wow, and we haven't come up with what they're going to win yet, but we'll get there eventually. But for our lead, the top winner is going to get $100 in Amazon or Barnes Noble credit. They're going to get $50 to a local bookstore local to them, because these influencers are all over the country and they're going to get $50 to the 501c3 of their choice. Oh, wow, and they'll get two PR boxes one for them to keep, one for them to do as a giveaway on their channel, and then the numbers kind of go down from there. For the second and third. But everyone is going to get a cash prize, a donation to a 501c3, and a local bookstore credit.
Speaker 3:That's really cool. Now that I understand how it works, I can maybe participate next time. I know that was confusing for me. I hope so.
Speaker 4:I hope that we get to do this every year and it picks up because I think that you know there's just so many ways that you can compete or help other people. And again, the way that you can help indie authors, who really do need help with their books again the way that you can help indie authors who really do need help yeah, their books. Sometimes I read a book and it's so good. I'm like no one's ever going to read this, no one's going to find this book. There you go, you check them. They have like 500 followers.
Speaker 3:It's so good yeah, hopefully something like that's the kind of work you're doing. You're really bringing these artists to light with your reviews and your, your posts and things like that. But you, you guys have also built author services right. So tell me about, I mean, because the reviews are one section of it, but this is kind of separate yeah, so the reviews are what we do, so we choose, we.
Speaker 1:We don't get paid for reviews or anything like that. That's not what we do, but the we will create content for authors. Um, in particular, my favorite thing to do is they'll give me a book and they'll say okay, we need four reels and a few uh static posts, and I'll go through it and then I'll pull out uh, just like my post today, where it was you uh few clips from the book. Um, or we'll tell a story and, um, I pride myself on being able to take uh a scene and make it like really, snappy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're like little book commercials.
Speaker 4:She's really good at it. I mean she looks into like the algorithms and what song is popular. I got this great song. She's like well, that's not popular right now. I'm like how do you know these things? You know like she's just very good at like knowing that.
Speaker 3:And that's really cool. What, what's, what's in the future for dark and dirty hearts?
Speaker 1:we'd like to keep doing, you know that and we we want to expand to pr, like pr boxes and stuff. And, in particular, one of our dreams, which is a kind of a pie in the sky, but we would love to be able to do local pr boxes based on the book setting. So, um, like, if it's set in seattle, we would want to get seattle-based businesses in on the book boxes, um, and then, uh, you know a lot of them have, uh, they create uh fake cities in different states. So we just wrote you whatever is the closest real city? Um, but that's kind of like that's what we love, like in the box.
Speaker 1:I tried very hard to pick local based businesses like, um, we have, um, you know, td rn from geeky teas and then there's a place in um houston book and reverie that does wax melts and that's the billionaire book boyfriend, wax melt. That's in there. I think it we're all about how many people can we impact at one time in a positive way? And doing small. I mean you can't get away from big stuff like you're always going to have. You're going to have to to do that and to have just like a huge network of okay, we have a place in maine, or this book is set in maine. Let me call my main people. I'm like all right, this is what the book's about. Let's, let's put together this pr box, because pr boxes are becoming so big and they're like such a huge um. The impressions on videos of pr boxes far exceed most other wow.
Speaker 3:Well, it goes back to all those kids you know, opening, watching videos of things opening yeah surprise eggs or unboxing videos.
Speaker 4:We all love a good unboxing, okay it's really good and I think with like even expanding, like, we really want dark, andirty Hearts to be like an umbrella, because we don't really want to pigeonhole ourselves into one area. If something interests us, we want to add it. It's kind of like when we were talking about how we wanted our Instagram to look, and I remember we met with you and everyone has a look, and Jackie and I thought about it for a second.
Speaker 4:Maybe our look is that we just go with what we like. Maybe it doesn't have to all be in the same color, and I know people like that, but we really want to be able to explore everything that we like without having to say like we're only going to do this because you never know it's going to come up tomorrow, yeah, and your taste is constantly changing, constantly changing, and that's what's so great about the books. It's like you're always going to find something new. I think the biggest joy or one of them is reading is, you know, books give you freedom.
Speaker 4:They give you freedom to find your passions and to find people that are like-minded with you and the same with the book community, and when you bring that all together, like, you find joy and a little bit of peace from your own crazy life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that, and I think there's no competition in this. No, there, love that, and I think there's no competition in this. No, there isn't. There's no competition between you know authors ever. You can read, obviously, hundreds and hundreds of books Like it's on your Goodreads right, it doesn't end, which I think is really cool, that you're supporting small businesses. You're supporting local authors, indie authors. I think what you're doing is pretty awesome.
Speaker 4:And there's no competition between the two of us either no competition between the two of us either, because whatever jackie wanted to do, like it's kind of like when she, when she'll find something to do with that girl, she's like you want to go home, like yep, I don't even know what it is, just trust that it's gonna be well planned out. It's gonna, she's gonna pick me up, yeah, because that's what she does, and then we're gonna go do the thing. So I think that's dark and dirty hearts.
Speaker 3:Do you think that this company has brought your friendship closer together? I think think it has.
Speaker 4:At the same time, I think it's also, I already think that Jackie is amazing. I always say I hit the lottery when I met her, but just seeing all the hats that she can wear with such grace, I don't know how she does it. I think there's like six of her.
Speaker 3:There's no way. There's only one. She's a squirrel on caffeine.
Speaker 4:That's what she is as a person. She literally runs on like coke, as in like you're one to talk, ashley yeah, I know you guys are very similar. We're like we're me, like I could take forever on one thing, and jackie's like just go, go, go. I'm like, okay, one perfect box, and jackie's got like 15 boxes I'm like what am I doing wrong? You know?
Speaker 1:like hers were clothes and mine wouldn't yes mine were like perfectly like organized, you know.
Speaker 4:But I think you need that balance because you know there's a jackie goes by the saying um progress, not perfection, where I would always want perfection, not progress, and I think we need the combination otherwise nothing would ever happen it would ever get done and the same with dark and dirty hearts. I would have never started it if I didn't have someone just wanted. She just just threw up an Instagram and now she's like a producer and a writer and like all these things and it's, it's, amazing.
Speaker 3:Speaking of all the amazing things that Jackie does, I'm gonna bring up something, a project that Jackie and I have been doing for many years. It's called the Burbank Mommy's gift giving. I do have a special, is there?
Speaker 3:a certain word. It kind of the words change, but essentially I'm the admin of the Burbank Mommy's gift giving. Do you have a special? Is there a certain word? It kind of the words change, but essentially I'm the admin of the Burbank Mommy's Facebook group and Jackie helps me to bring gifts to families in need over the holidays. So especially in the last few years during COVID and with the strike, we've seen a big influx of families who really needed gifts for their kids. Do you remember how many kids we gifted last year?
Speaker 1:No, I think there were like 25 families.
Speaker 3:It was like 50, 60, 70 kids. I feel like it was a lot of kids. So parents, moms in the Facebook group will sponsor a child and then they donate the presents and they come to my house and I bring them to Jackie's and we spend a day with Christmas romance movies and we wrap the heck out of everything and then we deliver them to each family before Christmas, which is amazing. So if anybody listening wants to be a part of that, I can put the link to the Burbank Mommies Facebook group because we'll be starting that pretty soon, right, yeah, can put the link to the Burbank Mommy's Facebook group, because we'll be starting that pretty soon, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we always start with requests first, and that's usually early October, and then around just before Thanksgiving is when we'll post what everyone has requested, so that you guys can all take advantage of the after Thanksgiving sales and everything like that.
Speaker 3:And your law firm has always been so supportive in donating gift cards and things like that. Do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, my law firm is just me and my dad. So when I go to him and I'm like Dad. I'm doing this thing.
Speaker 2:Like do you want to help?
Speaker 1:And he's like yeah, sure, whatever, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Well, I couldn't do it without you. I mean, you are like the backbone of that program and so so many families get to receive Christmas gifts, gifts and Hanukkah gifts for the holidays because of the hard work that you put in there. And she packs that van I don't even know how she folds it down like that and fits stuff in there.
Speaker 4:That van. It's like the magic school bus. We were driving somewhere and Haven was starving. I go, just look in Aunt Jackie's van. Just look on the floor somewhere. Just look on the floor. Haven looks down. She finds these jumbo Froot Loops. I didn't even know they made jumbo Froot Loops and the whole car was jealous. Okay, Layton was not having it Because she found a giant.
Speaker 1:Froot.
Speaker 4:Loop and then Haven's like eating it and then she looks on the floor and then she found like her favorite chips were down there. I was hungry, I think there were some. By the way, I mean, you can find anything. I was like we could probably do a post of like a box you put together from what we find in your car, because she's involved in so many activities that you don't know what you're going to find. Yeah, and it's like yeah, so I just tell them, like, check her car.
Speaker 3:You and the van are a magical combination, I know Well. Thank you guys so much for coming and being on the show and talking about what you guys do. I think it's super fun and I hope it encourages people to read and and go on to your Instagram and find something to fall in love with, and I'll I'll post your Instagram and your Goodreads links in the bio of the show and so people can find something to latch on to.
Speaker 4:I hope they do and I hope people remember that, like there is no shame in what you like, we're not going to pick on what you like, just find it. There's something for everybody and it's really about what you bring.
Speaker 3:You have fun and joy and thank you for having us, because this was really really great. I'm so glad. Thank you, ashley. This was fun, all right.