Libro.fm Podcast – Episode 18: “Interview with Nadia Odunayo”

On today’s episode, we chat with Nadia Odunayo, Founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, an indie alternative to Amazon-owned Goodreads. We discuss how The StoryGraph was founded, how it grew, and where it’s going next, as well as the importance of indie companies in an ever-monopolized industry.

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About our guest

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The audiobooks we discussed

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Full transcription

[Upbeat intro music] 

Craig Silva:

Hi, welcome to the Libro.fm Podcast, the monthly series where we talk to authors, narrators, booksellers, and more. I’m Craig.

Karen Farmer:

And I’m Karen. On today’s episode, we interview Nadia Odunayo, the CEO and founder of The StoryGraph. And if you haven’t heard of The StoryGraph before, it’s a website and an app that is amazing for tracking your reading and it was founded in 2019.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, I think I found StoryGraph right around when they launched. It was the same time that I think I found Libro as well. Obviously prior to working here. It was in a very de-Amazon my life type of moment where I was just trying to find replacements for all of the Goodreads and Audibles of my life. What about you?

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, I think same. I had a very similar journey around that time. You’ll hear more about this in the podcast, but StoryGraph kind of went viral on social media because people were so excited to learn about it. And so I almost definitely learned about this from Instagram, I’m guessing back in 2019. Huge fan, use it all the time. Craig, what is your favorite StoryGraph feature?

Craig Silva:

Oh, that’s a good question. And it wasn’t in our script so I wasn’t prepared.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, I know.

Craig Silva:

But let me think for a second. Honestly, this is going to sound generic just to say the stats because that’s kind of their thing. Again, for folks that may not be familiar with The StoryGraph, it does all the normal things like a Goodreads does. You can track what book you’re reading, mark it as finished, start a reading challenge, et cetera. But what it does really well and in a way that Goodreads doesn’t do really at all I don’t think, is get into the stats. So you can see how much fiction and non-fiction you read, what pace of books you like to read, the genres, the page counts, it has crazy stats and I love it. I love digging into the details.

Karen Farmer:

I thought you might say that.

Craig Silva:

Oh, what’s your favorite feature? I’ll throw it back at you.

Karen Farmer:

Well, so I would say I like the stats but for a different reason. I like all of the ways that the titles are broken down because then it really helps with book discovery. It helps me find mood reads that I want at a very specific moment in time. Like it’s July, I want a fast read. I don’t want anything trying. I just want a, like, little flippy happy book.

Craig Silva:

A flippy. I love a flippy happy book.

Karen Farmer:

It really helps you drill down into finding new and exciting content that will be your cup of tea in general or your cup of tea at that moment in time, which is great.

Craig Silva:

Love it. Well, let’s not bore everyone with our love of The StoryGraph. Let them hear it from the source itself. Before we start the interview. If you don’t follow the podcast yet, please do. And if you do, thank you. If you have a second, please rate and review it. And lastly, if you don’t have a Libro membership yet, use promo code LIBROPODCAST and you can get two books for the price of one when you sign up for a new membership.

Karen Farmer:

All right, everyone, enjoy the interview and as always, stay tuned afterwards to hear a little bit more about what Craig and I are currently reading and enjoying.

[Upbeat interlude music] 

Karen Farmer: Welcome to the podcast, Nadia. Craig and I have been super excited to talk to you for a long time. So we’re really, really happy you’re here. To get started, we would love for you to introduce yourself to us and our listeners and just share a little bit more about who you are and what you’ve been up to.

Nadia Odunayo:

Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s a real pleasure, big Libro fan. So I’m Nadia Odunayo. I am the founder, CEO, and software developer of The StoryGraph. We are an indie alternative to Goodreads and we say that we help you choose your next perfect book based on your moods and any topics or themes that you are interested in.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

You mentioned that you’re the CEO, founder, software developer. That’s a lot of hats to wear. How many people are working at StoryGraph now? How big is your team?

Nadia Odunayo:

I stop at those three because anything more would be too much, but I wear several more hats. But in terms of full-time, it’s me and then I’ve got a co-founder called Rob and he does all, any feature around machine learning or AI. So recommendations, similar users, he powers that. But I’m still the only software developer in that, so anything that he does, I still have to hook it into the website and app. And he also manages all of our infrastructure, so all our servers and things like that. And then just the general great co-founder in terms of business conversations, that kind of stuff. He supports me in that. And then there’s Abby, @Abbyreads on Instagram and she works for us and she does all sorts. So everything from, she’s the main customer support person. So if people email into support, she manages our volunteer librarians program. And then just anything else that could… Over the years, there’s so many different things that she’s done like helping to train machine learning models or helped me, right now she’s helping me run the giveaways platform that we have. And then I also, when I talk about the other hats I do, so I’m also the product manager, I do the accounts, I run the Twitter and the Instagram. So I’m the social media manager. So several hats that I wear. Yeah. But so we’re a tiny team and indie, bootstrapped all that.

Craig Silva:

Wow.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

So to kick things off, you kind of started getting into it a little bit already, but I read that StoryGraph started as a e-publication for short stories, and then you… Obviously that’s not what you guys do anymore. So I would love just the short version of the history of how StoryGraph got kicked off.

Nadia Odunayo:

It’s good that you said the short version because I could take forever to tell the story.

Craig Silva:

We have a lot of questions.

Nadia Odunayo:

Okay. Short version is when I was at university or what you all call college. I had a friend and we were readers, but we found that we weren’t managing to read a lot. And so we thought, why don’t we start a short story publication where university students around the world could write amazing short stories and we would publish them, and then we’d also get custom artwork made from artists around the world. And then we’d get to read more stories. Obviously what happened was we were just managing this platform or this e-publication and not actually reading stories beyond reviewing which ones were going to go on the publication. But essentially that was the original incarnation of The StoryGraph. And then I shut that down some years later after I’d graduated and there was no time for me to manage it, so I shut it down and my mom said to me, I remember she said, don’t give up a company like The Limited Corporation because I love the name and I feel like you could use it for something else. And I was just like, okay, mom, sure, I’ll keep it. So the company, The StoryGraph Limited, just laid dormant for years. And then it wasn’t until the beginning of 2019 when I found myself with five tears of runway because of a past business partnership that I left. At the point, actually in 2019, I had four years of runway and I had two side projects. One was a running app and one was a reading app, reading lists app, which was originally called Read Lists. And I started to work on this side project, but then it grew and grew and morphed into a more holistic reading recommendations and tracking app. And that’s when I felt like the name Read List didn’t fit anymore. And I remembered, oh, I’ve got this thing called StoryGraph, actually this fits. And so that’s-

Craig Silva:

Thanks mom.

Nadia Odunayo:

Yeah, exactly. Thanks mom. So she’s always happy when I tell her that story. But yeah, so there’s basically two. The StoryGraph has existed in two versions, essentially. Completely separate, unrelated gap of years in between where StoryGraph was nothing.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, I had no idea. Well, that kind of makes me think of this moment that we all witnessed. And I’ve heard you talk about in other conversations where Bookstagram and book Twitter kind of just went wild for StoryGraph during the pandemic. And I’m so curious what that was like for you being the one person working on all of this, doing social media, doing all of the coding, like building everything to suddenly have all of these people speaking about this, recommending that other people join it. How did you scale all of this so quickly during those moments?

Nadia Odunayo:

So that was one of the most stressful times in the history of StoryGraph. So as you mentioned, it was during the pandemic. By this point, Rob had joined full-time, he was about six months or so into being full-time. So the first year I spent completely solo, even I think I hired Abby nine months in and its contract basis anyway. Anyway, but even though Rob, by that point full–time, I was and am still the only web developer and I live alone. So already it was a wild, strange time being locked up alone at home. And we got a series of viral tweets and we went from having a thousand users to 20,000 in three days. And the app essentially came to a standstill because, so I didn’t study computer science or anything like that. I did a bootcamp after university. And so I was relatively junior in the software engineering space and that I kind of had a bootcamp, but I’d had years of experience by that point, but never by myself running it out with that many users.

And because it was exploding on Twitter, it was very fast-paced. We had 18,000 Goodreads imports that needed doing. And the platform that I built just couldn’t handle it. I’d never built anything by myself for that scale. So previously at the one job I did have, the one software job I did have, I’d either was working on new projects for startups that came through to the consultancy that I worked at, which was called Pivotal Labs. Or I was working in bigger companies where there’s dozens of engineers. And I was always pairing and working with a more experienced developer. So actually I call them the dark days. There was two weeks for the apples almost at a standstill in that no one could get Goodreads imports. We shut down our recommendation service and I called it the dark days. And I remember saying to Rob at the time, several times, if someone could just tell me that you’re going to get out of this in, it doesn’t matter if it’s the month or two months. If someone just told me you’re going to get out of this, that’s fine.

What I hate right now is I feel like, are we going to get out of this? And there was this one particular moment, and I talked about this in a conference talk I did in October last year in LA. Where there was this moment where I had to go into my bathroom and sit in the dark on the closed toilet seat. And I was holding back tears because I’d always wanted whatever I worked on to be successful and go somewhere. And I felt like, oh, it’s finally happened and now I can’t handle it. And I was just on the verge of telling myself, oh, I can’t do this. It’s over. You got your first spike and now StoryGraph is going to die. But I didn’t let myself cry and I didn’t let myself say that. I just held back tears. And I remember emerging from the bathroom being like, come on, you can do this.

And eventually after two weeks of trying different things, speaking to some friends in the industry and just figuring things out, Rob and I managed to figure out what was up and rearchitect different parts of the app. And well, at this point it was just a website, but rearchitect different parts of the website such that we could support all the new people who joined. So since then whenever we’ve had any stressful periods or spikes or things like that, I always remind myself of that time because that was the worst time. And I remember thinking, if we got through that, especially given that was what, four years ago now or something. So obviously right now the app is more mature. I’m more advanced in what I can do. If I remind myself that we got through that then, then everything in comparison is just a lot easier to handle.

Craig Silva:

God, that must have been so stressful. I’m picturing those thousand people that were happily using this tool and then all of a sudden 19,000 new people are on it and now it’s breaking and you’re excited that it’s growing. But also God, that must have been…

Nadia Odunayo:

And on Twitter we had tweets, so many tweets every minute, obviously every hour, every day, basically saying, where’s my Goodreads import? I’ve been waiting for my import. For days, memes and gifs and things. And I would reply to all of them being like sorry, it’s coming. And it’s funny because we had some snarky sarcastic ones and whenever I replied saying, oh, sorry, we’ll get it sued. It was always like, oh, I wasn’t really complaining. It’s like people didn’t expect someone from the company account to reply. So they would be, oh, I wasn’t complaining, you take your time, I’m just excited.

Craig Silva:

And you’re like, okay.

Nadia Odunayo:

And I would always just be like, okay, that was another way that you could have framed that.

Craig Silva:

That was really helpful feedback. Yeah. God, that’s so stressful too because they’re like, oh, I’ve heard of this new platform, I’m going to jump onto it. And then if it doesn’t work, do they just leave and not come back? And as you’re trying to scale the business, ugh, at the same time you’re trying to re-architect it.

Nadia Odunayo:

I’m sure we’ve got thousands and thousands of people over the years from that time or other spike, subsequent ones that we’ve had where the app was super slow or did it work that have gone away and are yet to come back. And I always just say to myself, eventually they’ll come back. Because assuming we keep growing, we keep doing well, they’re going to try it again and they’ll see how much the platform has advanced and how for years now we’ve just been continually improving the product and bringing new features, listening to our users. So yeah, we’ve definitely lost people and we will lose more people in the future. But I always just have confidence that if they are a reader who likes tracking, eventually they’ll try it again and hopefully the next time they do, they stick around. Yep. Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

Absolutely. I still remember the day when I got the email that said, okay, you can create your StoryGraph account now, and I was celebrating in my house. I’m like, it’s here. So yeah, you’ll get them back.

Nadia Odunayo:

Yay.

Craig Silva:

One thing, both myself and Karen and anyone else who uses StoryGraph loves about it is the stats that you’ve been talking about. You don’t get that same level of stats on other platforms. It’s not just average page count or favorite genre. It’s really in depth and you can really dig into that. Given that you were such a small team and apparently still are such a small team, prioritizing a feature like that must have been hard initially. What about stats felt important enough going in to build?

Nadia Odunayo:

As in why did I have confidence that it was worth investing in building a stats portion?

Craig Silva:

Yeah. Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of different features, right? Community, adding friends, comments, reviews. What about stats was one of the things that felt important to build for customers?

Nadia Odunayo:

And it’s good you brought up community actually, because I can go into it after we’ve… Up until recently, purposefully deprioritized community. But to touch on the stats side first. So I built up the user base and the features very slowly and iterations with as small chunks as possible. So when the beta first started, I had five to 10 users and I actually had people pay $5 a month, I think it was. Was it a month? I think it was $5 a month. And essentially the exchange was, it was to check that I had invested testers and they would get a monthly call with me where I’d interview them and find out about their usage, but they would also have a group conversation as well. And these calls were incredibly valuable to help figure out what the next priority should be and what value people were getting out of the product. So yeah, when the first version of the beta started it, there was no concept of stats. And again, thinking of the name StoryGraph, it fits so well now but it didn’t start as a stats reading app, even though that’s now our main or most popular section. So I just remember, I think I got to a point with one of my interview rounds where I was looking at all of the feedback and synthesizing it and analyzing it. And I think one of the things that was coming out is that especially because in the early days, StoryGraph was focused on mood readers in particular. It was very much people who already identified as mood readers, this is for you. And one of the pain points of mood readers was to knowing what to read next and making a good choice and then sticking with the book. And I think from one of my research rounds, I remember what was coming out- … my research rounds, I remember what was coming out was, well, StoryGraph’s already helpful because it’s helped me think more about the type of books that I do like, with the whole mood classification thing. So where the data was leading me was more towards how can I give people even more insights into their reading, and new ways to think about their reading, which helps them to choose their next book even more? That’s where it came out to, “Okay, I think there needs to be a stat, let’s see what proportion of books with a certain mood you’re reading? And let’s see this month, how has your reading… How have you rated books? And if you’re seeing that it’s a low average month, maybe you can look at what type of genres or book size or pace you were choosing. It came out of my customer research and working with a small group of users, and basically following where their feedback was taking me.

Craig Silva:

What stats do people want and ask for all the time that you haven’t built yet? Do you get a request for a certain type of stat all the time?

Nadia Odunayo:

Yeah. Over the years, the one that we’ve actually got the most requests for is author, demographics, diversity, that kind of stuff, so author identity stats, sexuality, gender, location as well. In particular with sexuality and gender, originally I remember thinking, “Okay great, we’re going to offer this one day.” But when it came to actually thinking about it and thinking about certain labels and thinking about the sensitivity of those kind of tags, and also the dangers around if StoryGraph is seen as officially labeling authors and where that information comes from, we started to move away from saying that we wanted to offer that because there were just so many potential issues with it. Issues to cause harm, to mislabel somebody, there are so many aspects to that. And if anyone listening wants to see more about the discussion that we’ve had around it with other users, then you can head to roadmap.thestorygraph.com, and in the long term column there is a post called Authors Stats. You can see a conversation I’ve had there with an author, with authors, with users, and also a link to a Instagram video I do where I talk about it in more depth. But what we are going to offer to Plus users is a way to make custom stats, so essentially a way to make your own charts and tables. And then if you want to tag your authors, you can choose what delineation you want, tag your books and then get your charts. So that is one stat. Another category of stats, which I know is popular and we want to do something around soon, is average time taken to read a book. On our wrap up, I don’t know if you have seen a wrap up from StoryGraph, but on your wrap up there is a over this year it took you on average this many days to read a book, and I want to bring that to each different time period, so all time, year, month. So that’s one that’s a popular one in general, timings. Yeah, those are two things that come to mind.

Craig Silva:

Last follow up, and then, sorry Karen, we can get to your next question.

Nadia Odunayo:

No, no.

Craig Silva:

You mentioned the roadmap that you guys have, and I’ve never really seen another company do that, where you literally have, it’s almost like your Jira board is just public information. I guess my question is why have that level of transparency? It’s not super standard. I mean I look at it too, right? I really like being able to see it, so what was the decision there, to be so public with that?

Nadia Odunayo:

I think it comes from earlier in the product’s journey. When I started I was alone and I wanted some form of accountability. I also wanted to build a community, and so I started a newsletter, and every week I would just update people on what I was doing and where it was going. Even in the first newsletter, I say something like, “I don’t even know if this is going anywhere, but I’m just starting this. We’ll see where it goes.” And I think over time… I’d seen this from other companies and also just thinking about the type of company I wanted to build. Particularly if you want to build a loyal and engaged user base, I think communicating with your users and telling them what you’re thinking means, one, they feel invested in the product and the journey. And I think that’s very important when you’re an indie, bootstrapped company, especially when you’re in a space where, I mean the biggest competitor is Amazon-owned Goodreads. So just having a base of invested users is key and helpful.

But also a lot of the story of success has become because of the way I prioritize customer research and talking to users, and figuring out what the next step is. Even though I have an overall vision, I still need to check the pain points and the needs of the users, and move with it, like towards that. So I think when you’re transparent and open, it also leads to more honest conversations with your customers because they know that you listen to them, they can see that you are taking on board what they’re saying. So that’s one thing, and then we have so much feedback and I also got tired of telling people, “It’s on our radar, it’s coming soon.” And for each individual person, especially those on Twitter and Instagram, they can think I’m just saying that so that that ends the conversation.

So the roadmap was also a way of saying, “No, look, I am aware of this point, I am aware of this feature. It’s on our radar, it’s literally on the roadmap. Look at all the other people who’ve suggested it, look at how…” It can work the other way where someone could say something and then I show a roadmap post that’s like, “Well look at someone who thinks the opposite, so you can see why we haven’t done anything on this yet, because we literally have hundreds of people who want it this way.” It’s just such a useful tool in having more effective conversations with users. And also of showing them that they are heard and they’re being listened to, and I think that’s just so powerful in building a product.

Karen Farmer:

Everything that you just said is tugging at my heartstrings because my role at Libro.fm is customer experience and our voice of the customer program. So yes, I relate to all of this so much. I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about what some of those mechanisms are that you’re using to get the feedback? I know from my experience that there’s definitely some science in it, there are quantifiable things that come through, but there is an art as well because you get just a lot of conversational feedback from people. So how do you take all of that into consideration as you’re building the roadmap?

Nadia Odunayo:

So many different factors. I will say that at the base of it, or at the core of it, there is still some level of gut and intuition because we literally have thousands of people, tens of thousands on our Instagram and Twitter, thousands of Plus users, and they all get access to the roadmap. That’s why I mentioned it’s important to have a vision because you need to listen to customers in the right way. You can listen to people and then just do everything they say, and end up with a product that has no clear direction, does so many things such that everybody is confused.

So I will say even though there is a science to it, and I’ll get into some of my specific methods in a second, I do want to say that at the core… When I’m approached with something, there is an initial, “Definitely, maybe, definitely not.” You do have a sense of, “No, that’s not for the product, that doesn’t fit into the vision or it doesn’t fit into…” Or it’s just so low down the priority ladder that I’m just not even going to think about it right now. To, “Okay, maybe,” or, “Interesting,” or, “Hadn’t thought about it that way,” to, “Oh, this is definitely on the plan, it’s just about when.”

So there’s that and then there’s different levels of feedback. Part of the gut and intuition as well comes from not only having a product vision, and given that I built the product as well, that really helps in terms of just being in tune with where it’s going. And also being that I’m a reader, and particularly on the Instagram, there’s the product side, but there’s also the Nadia side where I share what I’m reading, so that helps me relate to readers and also understand their needs. A great example actually is I never listened to audiobooks. I listened to my first audiobook last year, I think, or maybe it was in 2021, actually. But I always said, they’re not for me in the sense that I love music and podcasts. And I would just always be like, “I don’t have time to listen to audiobooks.”

And with podcasts, it’s okay because if you lose attention, you could either continue on or go back. With music it doesn’t matter about your attention. And I just thought it just wasn’t for me and I didn’t know where I’d fit it in. But I had so much feedback from audiobook listeners, such that when Libro came along with the ALC program, I remember being like, “Yes, I need to get on it. I need to start listening to audiobooks.” Then I had increased understanding of the pain points that audio readers had, so that’s another example of how just fine tuning that gut, that intuition, and understanding the needs.

Then there’s a whole scale of customer research methods. At the most basic, yeah, it’s just hearing from everyone on social media. But I like to do polls on Instagram and Twitter, especially when it’s a case of we know we want to do this thing, or I think I want to change this thing, let’s just do a straight poll and if it’s very heavily one way, then let me just implement that change. Because we suspect that the vast majority would prefer it another way, let’s do that. So that’s the most basic form of research method.

Then on the other end of the scale, it’s actual customer research rounds, so this involves figuring out what the hypothesis is for the round. Figuring out how many people I want to interview for a round, it’s often minimum five to eight, to 10, really. Writing the script for the interview, so actually writing the script that doesn’t have leading questions, make sure that I’ll have enough information to answer the hypothesis, all that kind of stuff. Conducting the interviews. I record them, I do them on Zoom, I record them, I watch them back, taking out notes. And again, unbiased notes so actually taking word for word what people say, summaries, and not trying to put my own bias into it.

Laying all of those out on a virtual whiteboard and figuring out what the themes and the patterns are, and then putting that eventually in a spreadsheet and figuring out, “Okay, these were the key learnings. What are the next steps based on that?” And more recently, a few months ago, I did my first ever bout of usability testing, because we did a big redesign, and so that was different. That involved developing markups and then figuring out what are the pain points with the current design? So therefore setting up user interviews where people had to do tasks. Because the point is, everyone says, “I don’t know where to go to add a review,” so let’s do the redesign and one of the tasks is, “Where would you go to add a review here?”

So we actually had scores for that, like success or no success? How many tries? What was the pain threshold? Use that to assess, is this design a go or a no go? And then implementing the design. So that’s the most scientific type of user testing that I’ve done because we literally had averages of the pain scale. And the amazing thing of why this works is, before the redesign I had… Because we’ve had three or four design iterations, but in the one before the current one, I had put the ad review link above the title. So at least once a week we would have one person saying, “Where do you add reviews on StoryGraph?” So when I did the usability testing… And again, I had different cohorts, so I had everything from… I had active users, active and happy users, people who used it but struggled, people who tried it and didn’t like it and left, and then we had those three across mobile and desktop.

And there was only one task out of all the tasks that was a hundred percent first try success rate, zero pain, and that was add a review. And since the redesign has gone live, we’ve not had a single person… And we would have a handful every week, we’ve not had a single person ask us, “How do you add a review?” So it works. Yeah, that’s just an insight into the range of techniques when I do customer research.

Karen Farmer:

Oh my gosh, thank you for sharing that.

Nadia Odunayo:

It’s awesome, yeah.

Karen Farmer:

I could tell Craig’s eyes are lighting up too. Craig is our user testing person at Libro too.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, I do design at Libro, so we do a lot of user testing as well. And I was like, “Oh, this is all… Love to hear it.”

Karen Farmer:

Amazing.

Craig Silva:

Obviously we all know that, and you mentioned it, that Amazon is kind of the Goliath in this sector, with Kindle and Audible and Goodreads all under that umbrella. Why do you think it’s so important that indie alternatives exist? Companies like The StoryGraph and Libro? Why is that so important for folks?

Nadia Odunayo:

I mean, I think it’s important on a few levels. In general I had used Goodreads since 2012, and there was a time in my life where it was my favorite app. And I remember at some point, maybe it would’ve been… I started using it in 2012, maybe it was around 2015 or 2016, I remember just having the thought… I didn’t hate Goodreads. I never got to the point where I was like, “Oh, I hate this app.” But I remember thinking, “It hasn’t changed at all in the full five years I’ve been using it. That’s strange.” And then being like, “It’s owned by Amazon, isn’t it? Don’t they have a lot of money?” Know what I mean?

Craig Silva:

Yeah.

Nadia Odunayo:

“I don’t understand, why has it not changed at all?” So I think one of the reasons why just having indie alternatives in general, in any space is a good idea, is because humans, we’re creative, people have a range of different ideas, a range of different perspectives, and I think it’s just there’s something for everyone. People have alternatives. People can find the product that suits them. When a space is more competitive and there’s different… And I don’t mean competitive in a negative sense, just in that there’s a few players, it just means that it incentivizes the creators to really try and cater to a particular group, to keep innovating, to keep iterating.

I just think it’s better for everyone involved in that respect of just the factors, as users, as consumers, there are just more options, more chances to find something that fits you and fits your needs. Because I just think it’s such a shame that a tool like Goodreads just hasn’t innovated and they’ve got all the resources to. And then obviously there’s a whole side of it for authors and publishers, I think authors in particular, when you’ve got an entity that has a monopoly, it just means that they’re not getting competitive rates. They’re not getting the money that they deserve for all of their work as well. So those are the high level, two of the main reasons.

Craig Silva:

Totally. With a company that has unlimited money and sway, like they can go into publishers and demand certain things that smaller companies can’t, how do you think companies like ours will survive? Either by not being acquired and just rolled in, or just being undercut in a lot of ways, how do we continue to survive?

Nadia Odunayo:

It kind of touches on the stuff that we’ve spoken about previously in terms of building that community with our users, being transparent and being open and honest with them. They always say with startups, that timing is key, so I felt like if I had started to build StoryGraph back in 2012 or back in 2013, probably would not have survived then. But whereas now there’s kind of an anti… There’s a big anti-Amazon sentiment just in general… In the publishing industry, rather. There’s a general distrust of big tech companies, the whole venture capital space, things like that. So the timing is also right.

Actually one of the reasons why we exploded in the pandemic is because a bunch of these things came to a head, which was… I remember there was a whole thing about Jeff Bezos getting richer during the pandemic, and then there were all the things about Amazon workers. It was also a pandemic, and it feels weird to talk about being fortunate for things out of the pandemic, but one of the things was reading’s very doable. People were reading, so that didn’t stop. If anything, some people were reading more because they now had the time or they had screen fatigue. And then there was already the dislike of the fact that Goodreads hadn’t innovated or changed. So there is a timing factor as to why companies like StoryGraph and Libro.fm are doing well now, and I think to keep doing well, it’s to keep talking to customers, keep being transparent and honest about what we’re doing and why. And I think there’s something that you can’t change, but which is in the makeup of our companies, which is that it’s started by people who care and who are actually readers, and who care about this. And you can’t change that, but I think that’s part of why the companies have been doing well, because people, when they interact with us on social media, they can see oh wow, there are people behind this who care, who are readers. They get that good vibe because it’s all genuine.

Yeah, and then I think hopefully it’s… Yeah, and I just think if we keep iterating, innovating… It doesn’t matter even if you’ve got unlimited resources, I mean, we see it now. If you don’t care and you don’t have the incentive to, you’re not going to iterate and keep your customers happy. So I think having the resources… And it also, even if you have all the money and all the resources, if you don’t care, if you don’t know how to do customer research properly, if there’s no vision or mission underpinning, then the money won’t be well spent. And you can have a huge team, but you’re going to move slowly. You’re going to get stuck because ultimately the core foundation isn’t there.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah. That reminds me of what you said earlier about the surprise people had when you would respond to their individual tweets and they’re like, “Oh, you’re actually there, you’re listening.” I’d experienced that a lot with customer support too, when we reply and people are like, “Oh, you’re not a bot. I didn’t realize that.”

Nadia Odunayo:

Yep. Still have that today, every day.

Karen Farmer:

On a more personal note, you mentioned that you did this talk, I think it was The Rails SaaS conference-

Nadia Odunayo:

Yes.

Karen Farmer:

… in Los Angeles recently. And to everyone who’s listening, the whole talk is on YouTube. I watched the entire thing, it is amazing. I highly recommend that everyone watches that video. Something that just was so motivating and inspiring to me was hearing about your academic career and your early career, and what led you to the point of being the founder and the developer at StoryGraph. So I’m curious for myself and also our listeners, what advice you have to folks who want to use their skills that they’ve developed for something different, something disruptive? Something to make the book community better, or just the other communities there, in general?

Nadia Odunayo:

Thank you for watching the talk and for your very kind words about it. Yeah, that means a lot. I think if you have something at the back of your mind that’s nagging you and you think, “Oh, I want to do something in this space, I feel like there’s something I could do,” definitely explore it. And exploring it, this is the thing, it doesn’t mean you have to quit your current job. It doesn’t mean you have to throw everything away. One of the things that I wish people in general knew or thought is that there are ways to test things cheaply. What I mean by that is it could just be an hour doing research online. It could be setting up a couple of calls with people in the space, or a potential user. It could be reading a couple of books, or doing a landing page or something. There are certain… Depending on what you’re doing and what your skill set is.

What I would say is I would actually recommend taking a look at that Rail SaaS talk I did because it’s essentially my playbook or my tips for the pillars of starting something by yourself, and doing something independently. Ultimately I would say start with talking to people, and I would recommend The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, and I talk about that in the talk. It’s a super short book, you can read it in one sitting, in less than an hour. It’s all about how do you talk with people such that they give you helpful feedback? The reason it’s called the mom test is because in general, your mom is always supportive of what you’re doing and would say it’s great, and so this interview technique is such that even your mom won’t know that, oh, this is my child’s idea and so I’m going to be supportive. They’re just going to be upfront and honest so it’s called the mom test.

So I would recommend just carving out some time in your week and thinking about, “Okay, what are little steps I can do to test if this is something worth doing? What are the skills I need to learn? Let me also have some short conversations with people, just 20 minutes.” Most of my customer interviews are 20 minutes, 10 to 20 minutes. I know some people do ones that are hour longs, but I don’t think that they ever need to be that long, within reason, depending on what you’re doing. And just get started and immerse yourself in the community of whatever it is you want to do.

Before I even started building StoryGraph, when I had an idea, in the first few months I didn’t even build anything. Alongside talking to people, I went to events, I went to the London Book Fair, I went to the panel discussions. I just immersed myself in the industry, and that’s another thing that you can do. I think for all communities, there is an in-person component, there’s also a digital, online component.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Thank you so much. I hope there are little solopreneurs listening to this right now, like, “Okay, I’m starting my thing.”

Nadia Odunayo:

I always tell people, if you do something and I inspired you to do something, tweet at me and let me know how you’re doing. Because yeah, I’ve always got time for people who are trying to be entrepreneurial and start something. And especially solo, it can be scary. There were definitely moments in the first year of StoryGraph where I would just be alone in my house, especially during the pandemic when it got to 2020, but even in 2019, I’d just be alone at my house and just be like, “Boy, what am I doing? Well, this is ridiculous. Just me, and I’m trying to build a whole meeting tracking app? This is wild. Wait…”

And especially when I did some research rounds where the feedback was suggesting I don’t really have anything compelling, because I worked through that as well. Realizing that if I just said, “Okay, I’m done with this, that’s it,” it would just stop, that would also be like, “Wow, okay, is this worth continuing?” It can be quite scary, so yeah, don’t be afraid to reach out to me on Twitter or Mastodon, @nodunayo on both, and we can maybe share the links. But yeah, I’m always open to talk with people about next steps for their entrepreneurial adventures.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

So another great reason to use small indies instead of Amazon. I don’t think you can just reach out to Jeff for feedback.

Nadia Odunayo:

No.

Craig Silva:

You’re very available. Yeah.

Nadia Odunayo:

No, you can’t.

Craig Silva:

He’s too busy in a rocket or something.

Nadia Odunayo:

I don’t know if we would want to.

Craig Silva:

That’s very true.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, same.

Craig Silva:

He’s not on my list of people I want to talk to you. Our last serious question before we get into our lightning round that we told you about, is we all love StoryGraph and love the stats features and the tracking features, and community and reviews. And as someone who talks to users constantly, could you give us a little bit of insight into what’s coming next for StoryGraph, feature wise? What should we all be excited about?

Nadia Odunayo:

Okay, the main thing is historically I’ve deprioritized community features for a bunch of reasons. One being that when I started it, I remember online, seeing a lot of people talking about being burnt out from social media. Even burnt out from Goodreads because people, they’d get into arguments with people on their reviews and all that kind of stuff. And I just said, “I don’t want to build something that anyone can get burnt out from. I just don’t want to build something… We don’t need another social media app.” Then the other side of it was things like commenting, friends, all that kind of stuff, they’re solved problems. That was never going to be a differentiator. You could always add that stuff later, as we eventually did with following and friends and things like that. So why spend time, especially being a solo dev, building out commenting, once you build out commenting, you’ve got to worry about moderation and privacy and blocking users, all that kind of stuff.

So for those reasons we have said, “We’re just putting it on hold for now. We’re not worrying about it.” And then we’ve continued to grow over the years and we’ve now got to the point where, I mean we’ve got 1.6 million registered users, we’ve got four to five million people who use the app and website every month, because you can use it and get value and browse without having an account. And it’s gotten to the point where the sticking point is now becoming, “Oh, but all my friends are on Goodreads,” or it’s, “My reading group is on Goodreads.” So for the latter half of this year, something that we’re going to focus on more is community. We’re still going to be very intentional and careful about how we do it. We still want to do it differently and in a refreshing way. So it doesn’t mean that suddenly it’s going to be commenting and DMs. We’re going to be more intentional about what we do and really want to give StoryGraph a unique feel.

We’ve already got our buddy read feature, we’re definitely going to be taking that to the next level. We want to do a book club feature, and we’ve got some really cool ideas for what we’re going to have for book clubs, and other reading group features. Even just things such as, right now to… You start a buddy read, you go into the app and you say, “I want to start a buddy read for this book.” And then you put in the usernames that you want. You have to already know the usernames, all of that. We want to do it another way where you can see, people can just post, “I want to buddy read this with someone,” and people can join. Or people can share a link on Instagram, on Twitter, and you can click to join. So just ways to bring people in, ways to find friends, both in real life and also on other online communities. So just working on the community aspect is something that we’re excited to get to.

Craig Silva:

Awesome. Yeah, I can’t wait. Thank you for sharing the roadmap there with us. Feeling like a plus member right now.

Karen Farmer:

Yes.

Nadia Odunayo:

Yeah, yes.

Craig Silva:

I mean, which I am anyway, but-

Nadia Odunayo:

Oh, are you? Amazing.

Karen Farmer:

All right, well I’m excited to let you know Nadia, we have made it to the lightning round. The lightning round are a series of, I think five or six questions that, some of them are ridiculous, some of them are not. But just really quick little zingers that we will shoot your way.

Craig Silva:

All right. So as a reader, if you could visit one fictional place or world from a book, where would it be?

Nadia Odunayo:

I’ve only read a lot of dark fantasy lately, so I guess I would want to explore but not actually live there. And that’s the Stillness From the Broken Earth trilogy, which is like an alternate Earth world.

Karen Farmer:

Do you reread books that you love?

Nadia Odunayo:

No. In fact, the books that… I have recently. The first time I reread a book was actually a few years ago, and I was inspired to do so because of the Bookstagram community. But beforehand, I was very much of the, “Life’s too short. You’re not going to read all the books you want to read, no time to reread.” But I now see the benefits and the comfort from rereading, so I’ve reread a few books.

Craig Silva:

What was the book that you reread for the first time?

Nadia Odunayo:

The Secret History was one.

Craig Silva:

Perfect choice.

Karen Farmer:

Yep, I like that.

Craig Silva:

I think everyone at Libro has also reread that book. Now I know the kind of history of where The StoryGraph name came from so maybe this question doesn’t make sense anymore. But when you were thinking about launching The StoryGraph in its newer iteration, were there any other names in the maybe pile that it was almost going to be called?

Nadia Odunayo:

Well ReadLists.

Craig Silva:

Right.

Nadia Odunayo:

ReadLists, which is the original name, and then I honestly just went straight to StoryGraph after that. I didn’t have to go through that really stressful thing of figuring out what the name is going to be.

Karen Farmer:

If you had unlimited time and unlimited resources, how would you spend your day?

Nadia Odunayo:

Reading? Alternating between reading and going to dance class. I love it. Reading and dancing are my two main hobbies, so I just alternate between those two.

Karen Farmer:

Well, that makes sense.

Nadia Odunayo:

Maybe I’d try writing too.

Karen Farmer:

I have a follow-up question on dancing in a moment.

Craig Silva:

Yes. What’s something that improved the quality of your life so much that you wish you had done it sooner?

Nadia Odunayo:

I think it’s discovering dance class, actually, in that I only started going when I left university, and I wish I’d started doing it earlier because it just makes me so happy. It’s so much fun. Just like reading, it’s a form of escape, so yeah.

Karen Farmer:

All right, our last lightning round question. If you are at trivia night, what is the category that you absolutely crush?

Nadia Odunayo:

Right now, the BBC Luther TV series, because I’m rewatching it to watch the movie, and so it’s very fresh, so I would do very well. But I always say I feel like I know a lot about a lot of things, just very generally, I’m such a generalist. So I’m always like, oh, I’m not a good quiz person. But yeah, if I could choose that topic, I would do that.

Karen Farmer:

A Luther dedicated trivia, I love it.

Nadia Odunayo:

[inaudible 00:50:00] series one to three in particular.

Craig Silva:

Our last segment before we say goodbye is Instagram story time, where we comb through your Instagram and pick a picture or video that we want to know more about. We mentioned there was a dance question coming up, so Karen, take it away.

Karen Farmer:

Yes-

Nadia Odunayo:

Oh wow.

Karen Farmer:

I’ll say usually Craig and I go back in the Instagram archives to get something that’s maybe a few months old, a couple of years old. But your most recent post, and I think it’s also pinned on your account, just blew us both away. For everyone who’s listening, please go check this out, it’s amazing. It’s a dance video of Nadia dancing, that is a professional music video, starring you. It’s so awesome. And you mentioned in the caption that it was for your nine year danciversary, so you’ve been on the dance journey for a while. What’s the deal? Tell us more about this.

Nadia Odunayo:

Wow. Yes, so I started… That was on…March 10th is my dance anniversary, so nine years ago from March 10th, I walked into this dance class and it was with this particular teacher called Joel Defontaine. And I remember that there was a studio around the corner from where I worked, and I was just trying to…. There were so many classes on offer, and I remember his was the second teacher profile I looked at and I just really liked… He just had this pose that, like this, like his head cocked onto his fist. And I remember being like, “I like his vibe.” So I went and yeah, I ended up dancing with him for years, and then when it got to…

I remember my first ever class, I went home and I filmed the video and I thought I was good at dancing, like really good. I was like, “Oh my God, look at this.” And I was showing my friends, my boyfriend at the time, and now I look back and honestly, this video is so bad, it’s hilarious. I cannot watch it without laughing. It’s the kind of thing that, when I hear other people who come to dance class and I overhear them saying things like, “Wow, you’re so good, I could never be that good.” And I say to them, “No, no, no, you should see how I started.” And they’ll say, “No, no, no, no, no, there’s no way.” And I’ll say, “Trust me, you dance better than I did when I started.” And I show them this video, it’s like they were protesting and then they’re not protesting anymore. And they’re like, “Oh, okay.” It’s almost famous in my dance circles.

So anyway, when it got to my five years, I remember saying, “Oh my gosh, I would do that first one so much better now.” So I did it again and I put them side by side or posted them back to back, and then ever since then, because I love doing projects and those kind of goals and milestones, that kind of thing, nearly every year since then, I have done a video, produced a special type of content. And the year before last year, it was just a great dance video, this was the eighth year one. And then me being me said, “Okay, now I have to do something even better this year.” And I just had this vision and I realized it, it’s just basically my vision came to life. So because of the success of this video, I’ve now said to Joel like, “Okay, year 10 is the last year because now I want to do something even better and I can’t keep putting this pressure on myself, so I’m going to do a final thing for my 10th year next March, and then that will be that.” But yeah, so I-

Karen Farmer:

I can’t wait.

Craig Silva:

Until the 11th year where you feel like you have to do it again.

Nadia Odunayo:

No, I can’t. I’m going to publicly say it, “10th year’s the end,” and probably I’ll just keep reposting old ones on future years.

Karen Farmer:

Thank you so much for sharing that. And Craig and I, as we were watching this, we’re like, “You are just so talented and good at so many things.” We’re like, “How do you have enough hours in the day to do all of these things?”

Craig Silva:

Yeah, and that was before I knew you could also do user testing and research. I’m like, “Oh my God.”

Nadia Odunayo:

It’s my calendar. Live by my calendar. People ask me that and I have my hour… Actually yeah, that’s something that I didn’t mention before. Putting an hour reading in my calendar every day, it’s been so helpful to actually get reading done and to prioritize it. And people often say to me, “Oh, surely since you started StoryGraph, your reading has gone down.” If anything, it’s doubled, tripled. Well, not quite tripled yet, but it’s getting there. And it’s because, one, being part of the books community and building a product for books, it’s gotten me even more excited about reading. But also, so many more books have come onto my radar that I really want to read. And it’s also just, it feels like part of my work, but not in a way that’s become a chore, but it’s like, “No, I should make time to read because this has been serving me well,” identifying as the reader, and being able to actually have great conversations with friends I’ve made from the community.

Craig Silva:

All right, we have made it to the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for your time.

Nadia Odunayo:

Thank you.

Craig Silva:

We always end with a little bit of a self-serving question where we ask you for recommendations on what we should be reading next. So either something that you’re reading now or read recently that you would like to share the good word about.

Nadia Odunayo:

I’ll do fiction and nonfiction, since I typically always have one on the go, or both. The most riveting, gripping nonfiction I’ve read this year is American Kingpin by Nick Bilton, the epic hunt for the criminal mastermind behind the Silk Road. And that is just, I love the kind of narrative nonfiction, fast-paced, drama filled, especially because my life is very low, there’s no drama in my life. So when I read nonfiction that’s packed with drama, I’m like, “Wow, people out here are really living some wild lives.” And then I’ll recommend an audiobook that I got through the Libro ALC, and it’s a romance book. Again, romance is a genre that only I started to explore because of the Bookstagram community. And it’s Thank You For Listening. And it’s just a lovely book. And there’s a meta aspect to it, which if you read it or you check up the blurb, you’ll know what I mean. But if you like romance and you like audio, then Thank You For Listening is perfect for you.

Craig Silva:

Yes, and Julia Whelan is a national treasure, so it’s lovely.

Nadia Odunayo:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, yeah.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. We don’t typically ask this question, but given that you are a founder of a company and a startup that we all love, we also would like to ask you for a recommendation of any other small companies or startups that we should be users of?

Nadia Odunayo:

Ooh, well, the first thing that came to mind is actually my weightlifting app.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, that’s right up my alley. I’m in.

Nadia Odunayo:

Right. So it’s called StrongLifts 5×5, and I think it’s a one-man team, in that, I’ve used it for I don’t know how many years now, seven, eight years. And whenever I email in, I get the response from the same guy, Mehdi. And yeah, it’s perfect for whether you’re used to weightlifting and you just want a new program, and you haven’t done the StrongLifts 5×5 one, or you have been hearing that, “Oh, I should get weightlifting into my workout regime. I’ve heard strength training is good.” It’s a great app to get started with. You start from, there’s like five core lifts, it’s a five, you lift three times a week, and everything is in there. The way to track it, the videos, lots of notes, lots of docs. So yeah, I would say StrongLifts 5×5, it’s called.

Karen Farmer:

I’m going to download that immediately when we sign off. Awesome. Nadia, thank you so much for spending an hour with us today. This has been an absolute dream, and we just can’t wait to continue cheering on StoryGraph, and seeing all the success that you have, and partnering with you at Libro.fm.

Nadia Odunayo:

Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun, and the hour flew by.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for the time.

[Interlude music]

Craig Silva:

Well, everyone, thank you for listening to that interview. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Getting to talk to Nadia was amazing. I love The StoryGraph, and I love it even more now.

Karen Farmer:

Absolutely. She is so inspiring to me, as you can probably tell from how much I fangirled out on this episode. It was so lovely to get to talk to her.

Craig Silva:

I know. I knew StoryGraph was a small team, kind of like Libro, but I didn’t realize that it was like-

Karen Farmer:

Nadia.

Craig Silva:

It was 2.5 people working in an apartment. It’s amazing how large they have grown, and the features that they put out, and how stable the app and site are. And with that few of people, it’s amazing.

Karen Farmer:

Yes. And just her ability to learn new things and take the plunge. That’s how I want to be, so.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. And read a million books, and be a dancer, and give TED Talks, what the hell?

Karen Farmer:

Yep. Yep. I need that number of hours in my day, please.

Craig Silva:

Yes. So, Karen, it has come to that time of the podcast.

Karen Farmer:

Mm-hmm.

Craig Silva:

I would love to know what you are reading right now.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, Okay. Well, I just finished.

Craig Silva:

Why do you act surprised, this is episode 20?

Karen Farmer:

I’m not surprised, I’m using my theater degree. So I just finished reading Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. And I’ll preface this by saying that Kiley Reid’s novel, Such a Fun Age, which came out I think a couple of years ago, is one of my favorite books of all time. I love that book. If you haven’t read it, please do. Come and Get It comes out in January. It is about a bunch of drama, and the relationships between young women on a college campus in the South. I don’t want to say too much more as always, because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I super enjoyed it, huge Kiley Reid fan. Can we please ask her to be on the podcast?

Craig Silva:

Yeah. Yeah, we should. Especially if that’s not coming out until January.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah, I would love to speak to her.

Craig Silva:

Shoot an email.

Karen Farmer:

Perfect. And then you know what? I’m just going to be completely transparent that, as I said in the intro, it is summertime. I’m interested in happy, flippy fun books right now. And when our team was in San Diego, we went to… a group of us went to the cutest bookstore, it’s called Meet Cute. And it is a romance bookstore that is just so impeccably curated. I cannot say this enough. The staff there is absolutely killing it at deciding what content comes into this bookstore, how it’s categorized. So while I was there, I purchased a book called American Queen, which is a romance novel. I’ve been very much enjoying that this summer. I will say it is not for young readers, it’s rated R plus. But it’s been really great, and it’s a trilogy. I’ve-

Craig Silva:

R plus? Are you making up a rating?

Karen Farmer:

No, I think so. I wouldn’t say it’s-

Craig Silva:

NC-17.

Karen Farmer:

… X-rated, but I finished the first one this week, and I have already gone to my local bookstore and purchased the next two in the trilogy. Because I’m-

Craig Silva:

The next two?

Karen Farmer:

Yeah.

Craig Silva:

Oh, you’re in it now for sure.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, absolutely. And I should say, so the author of this trilogy is Sierra Simone, who I think has written several of the romance novels of different varieties. And I really enjoy her work. So yeah, that’s what I’m up to. What are you reading, Craig?

Craig Silva:

I love it. I never read Such a Fun Age, obviously I know that book was huge. I don’t know why I thought that was like a nonfiction. Is it not?

Karen Farmer:

No.

Craig Silva:

Oh, and it’s one of your favorite books ever?

Karen Farmer:

I love it.

Craig Silva:

Wow.

Karen Farmer:

I absolutely love it. Yes.

Craig Silva:

All right. Well, I’m on it.

Karen Farmer:

Great.

Craig Silva:

I am reading… Or I have two, one that I just finished and one that I’m currently reading. Just finished, even though you asked me what I’m currently reading, I’m so excited to talk about this book that I’m going to squeeze it in there. You probably already know about this because I have been talking about this book nonstop, and I read it in like 18 hours, called The Art Thief by Michael Finkel. It is the story of Stéphane Breitwieser who has been described as the world’s most consistent art thief. This is a nonfiction.

Karen Farmer:

What a title.

Craig Silva:

It’s amazing. So, spoiler, this happened in the ’90s, and it’s a nonfiction. It was in the news, so this is not a spoiler. Consistent because he stole a piece of art once a week for eight years. I can’t think of anything I’d do once a week for that long.

Karen Farmer:

We don’t even podcast that often.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. And he didn’t like to work. He would pick up odd jobs here and there as a waiter or whatever, just to literally keep the lights on. He lived in his mom’s attic. His mom had an ancillary space above her apartment, and just let him live in there. And by again, spoiler alert, he does get caught eventually, hence why there’s a book about it. When all was said and done, he had $2 billion worth of art in his mother’s attic. It’s absurd.

Karen Farmer:

It defies logic.

Craig Silva:

And the best part about it is this isn’t like Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston where they beat up the security guards, and tied them up and locked them to a pipe, and then cut the canvases out in the dead of night. He just did all of this during normal hours. He would just walk in, buy a ticket, and just pick stuff up and leave, like he was stealing Chapstick from CVS or something. It was just him and his girlfriend. She would keep an eye out, and he would just take stuff off the wall and walk away with it. Anyway-

Karen Farmer:

It’s got to be The Purloined Letter situation where it’s just happening in such plain sight, that if you’re observing this, you’re like, “This must be correct. Because no one in their right mind would come in here and do this.” This must be some art dealer that’s supposed to be here.

Craig Silva:

Exactly. And this also wasn’t in the 1920s before security camera. This was in 1998, they had security cameras. Anyway, it’s not that long. I think the audio is seven hours or something. It is so good if you’re into art, nonfiction, heist. It’s also told in a very… it almost reads like a novel. Anyway, go buy this book.

Karen Farmer:

I went to my local bookstore, Booksweet at Ann Arbor last week, and they ordered it for me. And I cannot wait-

Craig Silva:

It’s so good. It’s very page-turny. Well, I just took up the entire podcast talking about The Art Thief, I will blaze through what I’m currently listening to, so that I answer your question. I am currently reading Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward. She did The Last House on Needless Street. It’s good so far. I’m about a halfway in. And honestly, I know I’ve said this before, but it kind of reads like a Stand By Me, coming-of-age, Stephen King-ish horror book.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

It’s hard to explain, but it’s very good. The general gist is the family, the family’s kind of on the rocks. They go spend the summers on this cute town in Maine, which again is probably why I’m getting Stephen King vibes because it takes place in Maine, murders happen, things ensue. It’s very good. It’s very thrillery, but horror, but also just very coming-of-age. This young man is finding himself. It’s very good.

Karen Farmer:

Fantastic. I will add that to my list as well.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. They’re both great, but read The Art Thief first because I’m obsessed with it.

Karen Farmer:

I will.

Craig Silva:

I’m dying to talk about Stéphane Breitwieser with everybody.

Karen Farmer:

I’m hoping my phone rings at any moment, and it is the Booksweet staff saying, “Hello. Please swing by, your book is here,” and I will fly over there.

Craig Silva:

“Your book is not here, someone stole it.”

Karen Farmer:

It was-

Craig Silva:

The book thief.

Karen Farmer:

Stéphane Breitwieser.

Craig Silva:

Yes.

Karen Farmer:

All right. Well, before we let you all go, I wanted to briefly tease the two upcoming interviews that we have. I’m very excited about them. The next person we’re interviewing is James McBride, who is an author of most recently Deacon King Kong, which was a bestseller, it was huge a couple of years ago. Loved that book. He has a new book coming out called The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, which Craig and I will be reading before we chat with him. And we’ll get all of the scoop on that.

Craig Silva:

And then after that, we are going to interview Danny Caine, who runs and owns Raven Book Store. And also you may know because he wrote How to Resist Amazon and Why. And we are going to interview him and talk about his bookstore, and why independent bookstores matter, and his book and everything. And we’re super, super excited. So those are our next two episodes.

Karen Farmer:

The Danny episode is very fun for me, because at the beginning of this podcast, we say, “We talk to authors, narrators, booksellers, and more.” And Danny is all of those things. He wrote a book- … he narrated it, and he runs a bookstore. So we have tons of questions for him.

Craig Silva:

Yes, yes, yes. So like we said at the beginning of the episode, if you are not a Libro member yet, sign up for a membership, use code LIBROPODCAST, and you’ll get two books for the price of one. And as always, thank you for listening.

[Upbeat outro music]