Jo Callaghan: Navigating The Labyrinth Of The Publishing World

Ever wondered what it's like to wander the labyrinth of the publishing world, with all its highs and lows? That's exactly where I, Nadine Matheson, alongside my guest, Sunday Times Bestselling author, Jo Callaghan take you in our conversation about the exhilarating rollercoaster of an author's life.  Jo and I talk about her crime fiction debut, 'In the Blink of An Eye',  the sequel Leave No Trace , the influence of AI in publishing and the human attributes it can never replicate.

We also critique the illusion of overnight success and confront the emotional toll of the creative process, while celebrating the unique satisfaction derived from breathing life into our stories. Plus, we tackle the guessing game of publishing, providing insights into the vested emotional and creative stakes that authors navigate.

Leave No Trace
DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock return in the provocative new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of In the Blink of an Eye.

One detective driven by instinct, the other by logic.
It will take both to find a killer who knows the true meaning of fear . . .
 
When the body of a man is found crucified at the top of Mount Judd, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – and DCS Kat Frank are thrust into the spotlight as they are given their first live case.
 
But with the discovery of another man’s body – also crucified – it appears that their killer is only just getting started. With the police warning local men to be vigilant, the Future Policing Unit is thrust into a hostile media frenzy as they desperately search for connections between the victims. But time is running out for them to join the dots and prevent another death.
 
For if Kat and Lock know anything, it’s that killers rarely stop – until they are made to.

Follow Jo Callaghan

30% off The Kill List
You can get 30% off my brand new book The Kill List on harpercollins.co.uk for a limited time.  Add code TKL30 at checkout.  harpercollins.co.uk

Transcript

Jo Callaghan: 0:00

because all you have is hope. You have no facts and no one can guarantee success. There's none of those rationales, none of those rules. Everyone's trying to read the rules and steal these and look at it. Why is her book sold? Why is his book sold? And, um, yeah, so I don't.

Nadine Matheson: 0:17

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the conversation podcast with your host, best-selling author nadine matheson, as I hope that you're well. I hope that you've had a good week. I've had a good week, but actually I'm a bit bereft. Why am I bereft? Because this is normally the time of year when your favourite shows are normally coming to an end. These are normally like the US shows, because traditionally their season would start around September and finish around May. However, you've heard me talk about X-Men 97 before, and the only reason why I'm laughing is that if you follow me on social media and you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you will see that I've made a series of videos which are my commentary and my thoughts about X-Men 97, and they had the last episode last week. And usually, because I'm really sentimental and I like a little bit of nostalgia, I would save my viewing of these episodes until Saturday morning. But for the last episode, because it's been that good, I had to watch it the day it was released, on Wednesday, and it was oh my God it was. So it was just brilliant. It was absolute brilliance. It was perfection in storytelling. It had everything all of the emotions, all of the character developments. It was just brilliant. It was the best thing I've well, well, one of the best things I've ever seen. And if it doesn't win awards, then I don't know. There's something wrong with the world. There really is. So that's just what I wanted to talk about my love for X-Men 97. So as one door closes, another door opens. And why do I say that? Well, even though all my favorite shows are coming to an end, this is also the start of festival season, which means that you get to see me in person. So next week, thursday the 30th of May, is the start of Capital Crime, which takes place in London, and I'll be appearing on two days. First, on Thursday, the 30th of May, on the anatomy of crime, from crime toiction, which is basically a factual entertainment driven account of the timeline from crime to conviction, and there will be a mock trial at the end. So that's where you'll see me. And also on Friday, the 31st of May, I'll be interviewing AJ Finn and Lisa Jewell. So I can't wait for that. There are are still tickets available, so just go to the Capital Crime website and get your tickets.

Nadine Matheson: 2:48

And last but not least, of course, I have to mention the third novel in my Detective Inspector Henley series, the Cure List, which was released was it last week or the week before, god I can't remember. Now it was released a couple of weeks ago, it was released on the 9th of May. And if you haven't read it yet and you're still umming and ahhing about getting a copy, then I have a little incentive for you. You can get 30% off my brand new book, the Cure List on harpercollinscouk, for a limited time. You just need to add code TKL30 at checkout. So that's TKL30 at checkout on harpercollinscouk, and the code will be in the show notes and the link will be in the show notes. And, as I said, the Cure List is the third book in the Detective Inspector Henley series. First book is called the Jigsaw man and the second book is called the Binding Room and they're available in paperback, ebook and audiobook called the Binding Room, and they're available in paperback, ebook and audiobook. Oh, and if you go on Audible, they have a two-for-one sale so you can get the Jigsaw man. If you buy another book in the sale, you can get the Jigsaw man for free. Anyway, that's enough from me, let's get on with the show.

Nadine Matheson: 4:01

Today I'm in conversation with Joe Callaghan, as well as being an author. Joe Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. In the Blink of an Eye, which was released in 2023, does feature an AI detective. In today's episode, joe Callaghan and I talk about how she didn't write her Sunday Times bestselling novel in the blink of an eye to get published, how publishing is a huge guessing game and the difficulty of defining success. Now, as always, sit back. We'll go for a walk and enjoy the conversation. Jo Callaghan, welcome to the conversation. Hello, thank you, nadine. Right, my first question for you is it's a nice general one for you how would you describe your publishing journey so far?

Jo Callaghan: 4:54

Long. I would say, if you want me to describe it. You know, pull up a chair, because I started writing 14 years ago now.

Jo Callaghan: 5:04

So yeah, yeah 54 this is my 40th birthday. I'd always thought I would. You know, I had, you know aspirations when I was a bit older. So my husband bought me a laptop for my 40th birthday and in my arrogance I thought I just need to find the time to write. I started writing, uh, middle grade. My kids were young then they're probably seven or eight, I don't know and so I was reading a lot of middle grade with them. And when I was little I loved to read middle grades.

Jo Callaghan: 5:31

I wrote I think two, three middle grade books. Couldn't get an agent for those. Then by then my kids were a bit older. So then I wrote YA. I got an agent for those. I wrote three ya books actually and then, but, uh, two of them went on on submission and got rejected in the uk. So that that was all for writing.

Jo Callaghan: 5:53

Gave all that work, writing books and all the work with my editor, my agent, for her to feel it was, you know, ready to submit to publishers, and so those, those two got rejected and uh, that that was really completely gutted me.

Jo Callaghan: 6:06

So I'd kind of given up getting published because that had been about, yeah, I'd spent 11, 12 years of my life trying to get published. So I thought I'd, you know, give it up. And also my husband became very ill, um, as you probably know, with um lung cancer, and then it was actually after he died that, um, I went back to writing, and I did that just to keep myself sane, so I'd give. I didn't write this book to get published. I wrote an adult crime novel, which I'd had the back of my head anyway, but because it's about a widow going back to work, which is what I was doing at that time, I just wrote it to sort of literally keep myself sane at night, and so that's how I did that. Of course, ironically, that was the one that got published how do you keep yourself going?

Nadine Matheson: 6:51

because you know, because I think the thing is, you know, when people look at um, in the blink of an eye and they see all your success and they see Sunday Times bestseller and stuff. But I think that a lot of people they're looking at looking, not looking out outside, looking in, they see it all as an overnight success. I know.

Jo Callaghan: 7:09

People have messaged me and said oh, how do you have your meteoric rise? I was like a meteoric. I don't know the shooting stars and dying comets, I don't know, it's just yeah.

Jo Callaghan: 7:19

I just laugh and I don't know. I look back and I just because other when, other people, you know, when you go to bookshops and people come and sign up for signings and some will say I want to be a writer, and they're all sort of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I'm gonna go, are you sure? You know very carefully, very careful, because it is very damaging and it is not. You know that was and I don't know. I think initially it was. I think I was just overly confident that I could just learn this, you know, and then, as it went on, I think I did get quite damaged by it. And you start to question, because in my professional life I've always found that if I work hard at something, I can usually do it. Hard at something, I can usually do it, or there's some kind of correlation between inputs and outputs. The effort you put in is generally best in relation to what you get out of it and there's a clear plan I think, yeah, when you're looking at professional life.

Jo Callaghan: 8:16

Yeah, because yeah, and you can see how to be succeed. You know there's still prejudice and and some people, more than you know, can get on more reason other people ever. But generally there are some rules. You know there's some sort of rationality to the process. So that did bother me. And this is just about the market, because you are asking people to take, you're putting your work in someone's hands and they are taking a gamble on what they think might sell two years, in two years time, yeah. So everybody's guessing and you're guessing what they're, your agents guessing who might like it, the editor's guessing who the readers might like it and the finance people guessing what might sell. So you're just part of this huge guessing game. So even if you're the one of the one percent that gets an agent because that's when you think you've got it all sorted there's no guarantee that you're going to get published. And of course then, when you get published, no guarantee that's going to be a success whatever that is, I've said it before it's that, it's.

Nadine Matheson: 9:14

I think it's one of the few professions in the world being a writer where you have no idea whether the thing you've been working for, let's say, two years is going to get you anywhere, whether it's going to get you an agent, is it going to get you a publishing deal? If even if you do get the publishing deal, are you going to get the sales? Whereas if you look at so, you look at other careers. You know. Look at our careers. You know, if I spent two years training to be a solicitor, I know well I know I need to get a training contract.

Nadine Matheson: 9:40

Once I get the training contract, okay, I know I'm gonna do two years training. Did I be newly qualified? And then I can see okay, this is where I can progress and this is how far I can get to in my profession. And they said it's a clear path, and I'm not saying there isn't support in publishing.

Jo Callaghan: 9:56

But you know there's a pass rate and if you've done a paper and you can maybe reset the paper or they say and you da? And you say, okay, fair enough, I understand why that.

Jo Callaghan: 10:07

I think, that's why it's such a cruel and no one means to be mean, but it is a profession that's guaranteed to break your heart because all you have is hope. You have no facts and no one can guarantee success. And there's none of those rationales, none of those rules. Everyone's trying to read the runes and the steles and look at it, and there's none of those rationales, none of those rules. Everyone's trying to read the runes and the steles and look at it. Why is her book sold? Why is his book sold? Yeah, so I don't.

Jo Callaghan: 10:31

It's awful. It's a bit like when people come to you and say, oh, I'm pregnant, and you go oh, because what time have you got to have teenage and older kids? Your mind feels all the catastrophes that's about to befall them. So I have to sort of force myself to try and be positive and say that good for you. But I do say to people by all means, you know, write. I don't know how it's like that writing, but think very carefully before pursuing a career in publishing. You know how resilient are you and what will you do when you fail?

Nadine Matheson: 11:00

because you will yeah, it's like going back to your careers and your profession. It's when you're a writer and you have said you're involved in that publishing process, rejection is it's all, it's always there. Yes, somewhere along you say you've done your first two books. Let's say your first two books do brilliantly well. And then for some, it might not be reasons beyond your control, maybe there's issues with the publishers, maybe the publishers don't have no money, it's all there, it's all their fault. And then you're like, okay, I need to get another deal because I need to write my next two books, and like, oh, no, we can't give you a deal this time because, I said, they got their own issues. Or you have the same publishers and they're like well, we can't give you that much money as we gave you last time because, due to x, y and z reason, or you give them an idea and they're like, no, we don't like it go and do something else, because you, you work full-time like I do, and it's just how do you?

Jo Callaghan: 11:48

because in your pressure career you've got quite a lot of control. As you say, there's rules, your success, with your experience. I find it quite difficult moving to writing, where I don't really know the rules. I'm not experienced, you know, even though I'm you know. It's quite a contrast, isn't it?

Nadine Matheson: 12:06

It's a contrast and I don't when I'm saying honest I don't like it. I don't like being in places where I'm not in control but not being aware of what the rules are.

Jo Callaghan: 12:19

Yeah.

Nadine Matheson: 12:21

If you know what the rules are, you know normally they're one plus one equals two. You know what the rules are. You know if you know normally no, one plus one equals two. You know what the rules are. You can learn how to navigate it, yeah, and then also you can cross reference it easily more easily with other people's experience, but because there are no rules in this profession or it seems to yeah, it always seems to be that it's always in.

Nadine Matheson: 12:42

The rules are in a state of flux. That's what I say. They say the rules are this.

Jo Callaghan: 12:45

That's true next week yeah, yes so.

Jo Callaghan: 12:51

I had to um, we had to adjust my mindset yeah, so have I, and I had I think it was um somebody else because I was just saying because in my you know where I work. I've worked in this same city for about 30 years, so I've kind of seen the cycle, so I kind of know what good looks like. But when things get bad, I think, oh, this is how things are this time of the year, or I know what to worry about and what not to worry about, which meetings to go to, what not to go to. But this one I'm like the newbie and that was really bothering me initially. So I don't understand and I can't contribute to conversations. I don't know any of this. But somebody else, tim Ryder, said to me well, that's great, because actually we're in our 50s now we're learning something new. You have to embrace that learner mindset and open yourself up to. You've got the opportunity to learn a whole new business rather than trying to, you know, be the person who's the most knowledgeable or in control but it's hard though.

Jo Callaghan: 13:41

I'm on a journey. I'm on a journey, we're all on a journey.

Nadine Matheson: 13:47

It doesn't really matter how long you've been involved in this new part of the journey, whether it's a year, two years or five years.

Jo Callaghan: 13:53

We're all on it, we're all like oh this is a completely different new destination than it was last week and it's not linear, is it Because I'm realising, because I'm saying the book's about to come out next week, and he said oh, it's just, you're back to square one, aren't you? There's no guarantee. You're not building linear. Maybe you're after a bit of time, I don't know, but it just feels like it's. You know, reset, start, you know off, you go again.

Nadine Matheson: 14:17

No, but I think that's absolutely right. I think it is a is a reset. Each book is it's're starting there. You've got it's like snakes and ladders. Yeah, you go up, you go up the ladder. Oh, book two, let's go all the way down, let's start again, yeah. So what do you tell yourself now? Now you're in this point where book one's been out being successful, book two's coming out, and you have all these things going on in your head yeah, I do.

Jo Callaghan: 14:44

So I'm getting to that stage. It's a week before publication, so I'm more relaxed. If you'd asked me a few weeks ago I'd probably been more nervous. But now I'm getting to a stage where there's nothing I can do the realization there's nothing I can do because I think you know it's an illusion. You can kind of control it or something.

Jo Callaghan: 14:59

Yeah, I think I built it into book one because, because I've spent most of my life being rejected in the world of writing. I didn't get blown away by anything that happened to me, but it was amazing. But I'm so braced for failure and rejection. I think I still find it hard when people say, in the blink of an eye, it was a success. Do you know what I mean? I haven't really allowed myself to absorb it. And all the times when we had you know it was water since the month in january, which is just incredible. But even then I knew that the book book two came out in my. That wouldn't count for anything for book two. So I wasn't getting carried away because I knew from what had happened to the people it it doesn't change your life. You know, nothing's changed in my life. It was fantastic, but nothing's different. You must have had that with the jigsaw man, you know, yeah.

Nadine Matheson: 15:48

I think what is is other people's perceptions. So, yeah, you know people, they'll see your book out there and they'll see it's doing well. But then also you have an idea in your head of what success looks like and that doesn't match anyone else's idea of what success looks like. So a lot of it is managing that. So, yeah, I think, similar with the jigsaw man coming out, it was like, oh, but it's doing really well and I'm like, yeah, it's so amazing.

Jo Callaghan: 16:15

And I'm like, has it really? And it has, but it's funny because you don't know what it is. I think it's me. Am I just numbed? I'm just saying so used to being rejected. I don't think it's numb, I don't know, but maybe it's because?

Nadine Matheson: 16:24

am I just numbed? I'm just so used to being rejected. I don't think. I don't think it's numb, I don't know. But maybe it's because we probably have had other careers and maybe because we don't know how to navigate this world, and no one tells you from day one this is what success looks like yeah, this is what. Yeah, if someone says yeah, if someone says to you you've sold this, let's throw a random figure out there. Someone says, okay, you've sold a thousand fifteen hundred books.

Nadine Matheson: 16:49

That is a good number to sell in the first week and if you now consistently go selling about maybe 250 a month throughout the year that's a good figure.

Jo Callaghan: 16:58

Yeah, you want success means this yeah yeah, you want, you need a scale yeah, I keep saying my commission's giving numbers or whatever I go.

Jo Callaghan: 17:07

Is that? I mean, I'm happy if you are. We always have these like very British emails. But when I go, oh, am I supposed to have, is that good? And they go yeah, and I'm like are you sure, is that just like publishing kind of good, as if we don't upset you, or is that actually really good? I'm always playing mind games, you know. Have I disappointed you, or is it? Is that?

Nadine Matheson: 17:25

really good. Yeah, I don't know. I remember having this discussion with my agent, like we were having there's so much stuff going on, and then we got an email back and so we cc'd an email and I've gone through the email and I think I've just responded quite blank, like just flat, and he's like Nadine, read what it says. This is actually good and I'm like is it?

Jo Callaghan: 17:50

give me the ranking. I'm gonna reg rate it.

Nadine Matheson: 17:53

That's what I want. Give me a scale that I can, a color coded scale that I can see and I can say okay, this makes sense.

Jo Callaghan: 18:01

I understand that, that's all right yeah, but I think, because without that you can't locate yourself, can you? Yeah, you know, in terms of, like the Dave Nichols new book out you are here, in terms of I don't know where I am, I know how some of the people see me, but it's, I think you know how. Yeah, how do I locate myself in this? And anyway, it's temporary, so does it matter? Because, yeah, something got very existential very quick, haven't it? What's it all for?

Nadine Matheson: 18:37

why do we do it? But why do you do it? Yeah, you said in the beginning it's because you needed to. It was the writing became therapy.

Jo Callaghan: 18:46

Yeah, it did yeah, yeah, it did, and I did that knowingly because I um, um, yeah, with that. I just needed I well, actually before then I've missed that when Steve became first diagnosed, I started writing a blog about um with his permission, about his um experience of having cancer, and I found that incredibly helpful. I started every two or three weeks and I think it was that and that that generally helped me, and that's when I realized actually I need to write for myself. It wasn't about the publishing, it was the writing. That actually was a therapeutic process to get it out of my chest, you know, just to really literally dump it onto. Once I'd written it, as I felt a lot better, I just moved on. So I think I was probably continuing that.

Jo Callaghan: 19:29

When I um started to write the novel, I just literally going from being like a full-time carer to having the evenings very empty. I couldn't bring myself to sit on the settee and watch telly. Um, yeah, so I just I wrote that. I don't remember much about it. Also, it's a bit of a blur. I think I wrote that first after about three months, quite quickly, annoyingly sorry, but it was. I had nothing else to do in those evenings.

Nadine Matheson: 19:56

That's the thing, and I'm just la, la, la, la, yeah, yeah you needed to fill the space and that was the way in which to fill the space. So when you finished, in the blink of an eye, you had. Did you still have your same agent at the time or did you?

Jo Callaghan: 20:12

have. Yeah, sue hadn't dropped me, which I covered. That was also my parent. She'd gone out twice in submission and I mentioned it. Yes, I wasn't sure I ummed and aahed about because it was so personal to me. But you know, although I don't have an AI detective, unfortunately the character was drawn to my own experience. I did feel quite personal and I thought, oh God, can I bear the rejection for this? And then I thought actually I'll share it with Sue.

Jo Callaghan: 20:41

The place I got to was that I thought actually it served its purpose because it kept me alive during that period. It kept me going. So if it gets published that would just be a bonus. So I managed to get myself to say so, if I didn't really care about it being published and obviously it didn't matter if I was rejected. And so I sent it to Sue to see what she thought and she said she really liked it. Lots of promise. But she did say it's a bit miserable because in my first draft I'd written probably a bit too much about the grief experience of the main characters called DS Cat Frank, who's a widow, and she was saying you've written it for yourself and if you want to get it published you need to write it now for crime readers. I thought it was really good advice, really clear, honest advice, because not many people would say that. I think you know my husband died a few months before. A lot of people would go oh well done, that's great.

Nadine Matheson: 21:33

You've done a good thing.

Jo Callaghan: 21:36

She was really good, it wasn't that, but she just said you just need to now write with a crime reader in mind rather than for yourself. It was really wise advice if you were, and so then it's what I did. A second draft, and that's when it started to come by. The plot never changed, it was just sort of say a bit less misery. I should say it's quite a funny novel in parts. Just it was more humor interspersed with domestic, with the, with the crime scenes, and and really wrote it thinking of the reader rather than my myself.

Nadine Matheson: 22:02

Really, yeah but I think that's good advice to have generally. Yeah, I mean because I think a lot of, I think a lot of the times for writers, we can forget that we kind of have to be, in a sense, writing for the readers. We have to kind of give them what they want. And if you're writing, I say, for writing crime, or even if you're writing romance or fantasy, there are expectations that the readers have. And then, but then I think, in the early days which, when you're starting out, you're thinking I'm writing this story, which is not even a bad thing in itself, you're writing a story that I want to tell yeah, and I'm doing this for me. But then once it it starts transitioning through that process of you know, we've gone through agents, we now need to go out of submissions. Okay, this is a book, you finished it, but you want to get a deal. You didn't have to start listening to the advice of who are you writing this book for?

Jo Callaghan: 22:51

yeah, writing um children's and YA books really enabled me. I'm quite ruthless about plot and length and being able to turn the page, I think because all the, all the stuff I learned right in those five or six books for young people, you cannot waste a word, you know, you can't have a false note. So I think that really enabled me to think very much about readers as well.

Nadine Matheson: 23:13

Once I decided to to try and um, yeah, give it another go so when it went out on submission, how many, how many um editors asked for it?

Jo Callaghan: 23:24

uh three I think, maybe three or four three three.

Jo Callaghan: 23:27

I think so because it went out, yeah. So the other two times I got submission I'd just been you know well, you've ever gone on submission it was just it's just horrible because people say, oh, it's really great, but because you know they all start to trickle in. This is different because I'd started writing 2019. I think I finished it, uh, in 2020, but obviously then then Covid kicked off and nothing was happening. So Sue didn't send it out and waited till early 21 February March, once she felt people were back to reading manuscripts and so that went out and I think in a few days we had offers and I was just very lucky that a lot of this is.

Jo Callaghan: 24:05

Look, as you know, catherine Armstrong made it, had just moved to Simon Schuster, so, and she was looking for new fiction. And I, looking back and I don't know this, but I suspect, because she was new, her diary was probably more empty. You know, she wasn't on the treadmill of edits and stuff. She had time to read, looking at something new, she was a new thing and she's fantastic. So that was just incredible. Look as well that they bought it. And then, of course, that was 21, but because Catherine likes a long buildup, she didn't publish until January 23, which at the time I was like what. So it was quite odd to have a book come out sort of two, three years after you'd written it how are you feeling in that time?

Nadine Matheson: 24:46

because it's that two-year period. I remember when they told me, when I signed with HQ, I signed March 20, yeah, march 2019. I signed and then they said, okay, we expect this book to come out February, in early 2020. Yeah, early 2021. They said I remember thinking what yeah, 2021, you don't know the rules do.

Jo Callaghan: 25:07

Because I remember thinking. I remember being really disappointed and I told my other friends who are writers they're like, no, that's good, because that means they're going to take it seriously, they're going to have a build-up, they're going to have a campaign, because it's all that simple. No one tells you that it's a bit of. A seasoned writer said that is a good sign, you know. And then what? Can we start the year? Those are all good signs, you know. So, okay, well, whatever. But then what I do? Because it is a series and TM Logan at Harrogate and his advice was make sure you finish book two before book one comes out. So it was really good advice. I just concentrate on that because I thought he meant that because if you don't like book one, it will put you off writing book two. But actually, with hindsight, people are so kind about book one, that's that that would have really put me off, because even before, because people say things like oh, it's really clever, it's funny I kept looking at book two.

Nadine Matheson: 26:03

Then thinking oh no, is this one clever, is this one funny? Yeah, that's a struggle, though, because I remember like I had similar advice for my tutor. He said when I got the deal, he said make sure you start book one. Sorry, start book two. Now I'm like I don't want to start book two. Now I'm like I'm riding on this little wave of yeah, I've signed.

Nadine Matheson: 26:19

I've got an eight. I don't think I even got a deal. No, I had a deal. So I'm like I've signed with an agent, I've got my deal. I just wanted like ride on that. Yes, yeah, but I listened to him and I started it.

Nadine Matheson: 26:31

I didn't finish it, but no, did I finish it by the time? But no, I hadn't finished it by the time. Book two, book one came out, but I started it and that was the best advice I think I got, because by the time I'd started it, um, we then went into. I think, yeah, we went into lockdown like yeah.

Nadine Matheson: 26:48

So then I kind of yes. Then things kind of well, everything stopped because I'd already had a bulk of it done. It was maybe a little bit easier to go back into it. But then you're in this very strange process. You're in this very strange chain of events where that you're working on your book two and then book one keeps coming back.

Jo Callaghan: 27:06

I know it's odd, isn't it?

Nadine Matheson: 27:08

yeah, and it's odd you have to keep switching your brain. Yeah, book one to book two, to book one to book two, and if you're working, you're doing other things. Like I was teaching and stuff. I'm like, okay, I need to put everything aside because now I need to go on online and teach a class at least that's what I'm finding people will say to me how do you manage to work and write, and?

Jo Callaghan: 27:27

and that that wasn't hard because I'm probably a very productive person. I'm at work then. Then I write at nights or at weekends mostly weekends now so I'm getting tired at night, I'm getting old, so, um, but then what? What is harder now is working and writing and the backlog of the, the edits and the proofs, and then the book festivals and the promotions are doing all that. That is different now, isn't it? I think, before I was published writing and working. I've done that for 14 years. It's just, you know, some people knit at night. I write, you know, that's yeah. But yeah, all these different, multiple things are happening.

Nadine Matheson: 28:02

That is harder how do you manage it now, though?

Jo Callaghan: 28:08

oh, you're still learning to yeah, still learning to, as I say, because I've just I've only been published for a year. So last year I went to a lot of festivals and I said to my brother that I won't go to as many next year. I'll be more selective in what I do. So I didn't have any holidays. All my holidays were spent going to festivals because I had a long weekend and writing. But, of course, this year I said yes, because you think, oh, I'm not going to get it again. You always think that you're never going to get asked again, don't you? They're going to get asked again, don't you? They're going to forget about you. And I really enjoy them. I love, you know, I love meeting the writers and readers and seeing different bits of the country. To me, that's like a massive bonus of this, of this second job. It's it's a real, that's a real privilege, I think, to be able to do that.

Nadine Matheson: 28:53

It's um not surprised you I'm trying to find the right way of putting it but you wrote a book featuring this AI detective and then, at the moment, the whole world is obsessed with AI, did you? Was it at some point? You're like I couldn't have written this better myself in terms of assignment.

Jo Callaghan: 29:11

Well, again, that's where the look comes in, because when I wrote it in 2019, it was much more speculative.

Jo Callaghan: 29:19

My day job, part of my job, is to sort of plan for the future workforce. So trying to, after they have 10, 15 years in the future, my thinking what were future demographics like, future genomics it? So, because I was thinking about that. That that's part of what gave me the idea about what if you could have an ai detective because the debate is in the workplace to what extent you must have this in law, to what extent would it augment or supplement or substitute for humans and all that sort of. It was very alive in my head. So that's what gave me the idea, which was, at the time, I thought, a bit of a stretch, but then and then it was fairly, because my book came out January 23 and chat gpt just took off a few weeks before christmas, so instead it went from being quite sci-fi like very mind I mean, it's not a sci-fi, but some people could have saw that as very speculative whereas then it became very, very current.

Nadine Matheson: 30:14

Yeah, current, relevant and everyone's talking about it, like you can't turn the tv on and there'll be someone talking about it on the news or talking about it in terms of movie making and then music, and then even for lawyers, there's been people making making applications to court and referring to case law and when they've checked the case laws.

Jo Callaghan: 30:34

Yeah, it's been generated by ai.

Nadine Matheson: 30:36

Yeah, it doesn't exist yeah, yeah it's such a crazy, it's just a crazy concept. How did you feel when you were getting the response that you got to it when you made it into the Sunday Times bestsellers list? I know that's incredible. I know I said yeah.

Jo Callaghan: 30:52

I don't genuinely think I've really sort of processed it yet. So what amazed me? First I thought it would be a Marmite book because I thought pairing a human detective with an AI detective, I thought some people would find that really interesting. Some people would just find that too unusual. But obviously the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. I've had so few negative reviews. It's unreal and people are really warm to the characters. So that was a bit that really surprised me, that the characters seem to really connect with people. And then, yeah, the big shock, I think was when I was selected to be on Between the Covers, the BBC Two programme.

Jo Callaghan: 31:29

So, my book came out in January. Then I got a call in the hairdressers from my publicist who again in true PR publishing style, said you can't tell anybody, but I think that gave it a whole profile it never would have had. Then I just kept getting picked for conferences, val McDermott's new blog panel, you know, I was just very, very lucky. And then the big one was being Waterstone's book of the month, thrill of the month. I didn't quite get. I mean, I knew that was a big thing to get, but my other writer friends were saying, oh, you'll be a bestseller. Now I was like how do you know that? That's nonsense.

Jo Callaghan: 32:09

But when you see the power of Waterstones, get it behind you. They are, and the booksellers are hand-selling. But you're in the window of every single waterstone shop in the country. There's 300 of them. So that's just incredible. And then still there's no guarantee you'll get in the Sunday Times bestseller list because of TikTok and all these other things. There's so many variables now, aren't there? I think probably 10, 15 years ago you probably could have almost had a plan for how you if you probably wanted you to, they could have a pretty clear plan to get you there.

Nadine Matheson: 32:43

but what I'm saying now there's so many more variables yeah, but I think booktokers completely, as I say, skewed yeah, anyone's planned, because it's something that you can't predict. And I don't think booktok is something that publishers can't really get a handle on, because it's not, they don't control it it's great because all the other things there's a bookshop, supermarket sort of, but that's gatekeeper control, isn't it?

Jo Callaghan: 33:09

but, um, you know, book talk is other readers telling other readers, yeah, what they're like. That's fantastic. You know, it might be annoying for me but yeah, that's.

Nadine Matheson: 33:19

It's no different to effectively. You know when they kick, when they'll always. You know they'll always refer to word of mouth. When I've got book talk is it's word of mouth it's just in a different medium.

Jo Callaghan: 33:30

Yeah yeah, that's girl but notice, I did get to, yeah, and when it did chart, that was fantastic. So gosh, I never thought that would happen. So yeah, I was I was so pleased for you.

Nadine Matheson: 33:42

Are you glad it happened? You're welcome. Are you glad it happened now like this success with this book, or do you wish it had happened?

Jo Callaghan: 33:49

oh no, I think I'm actually. I'm glad that I had all that failure before, because I think I've got other friends who their first book was in the bestseller list and then it's very. They found it quite hard later to find out that doesn't always happen, you know, you don't always have your book in the shop window on the table.

Jo Callaghan: 34:06

I think it's such a weird industry and it's so opaque. I imagine myself thinking, oh, that's how it works. You just write a good book and people like it. And now I know how incredibly rare that is. And there's a strange alignment of stars and look, because most people you know they they write good books. There are so many brilliant books out. You know that don't go anywhere and it's tragic. Yeah, they're much better writers than me, writing much better books, and they haven't had the profile I've had. Um, so, yeah, I think I'm glad actually, that this came in the back of a lot of failing rejection, because it does make me appreciate it and not get carried away by it, because you're only as good as your last show in this business, aren't you it?

Nadine Matheson: 34:47

makes? Yeah, I think it. I mean, it depends on your personality as well, but I think I have a very pragmatic approach to life anyway, and I'm glad I am that way, because I'm an optimist, but I'm very much a realist as well yeah, pragmatic. So when it comes to this, this industry, and how I fit in and how it operates, I'm very oh yeah, I'm, I'm doing. I'm not rose-colored glasses about it. I don't think I could, I don't think I would be able to manage if I was, because then when something hits me it doesn't hit in the right way.

Nadine Matheson: 35:22

It's like how do you respond to that?

Jo Callaghan: 35:24

I know it's really hurtful, so yeah. I mean, obviously I'd be glad, I'd be glad, I hope, to get loads more failure. I think I'm done with the failing rejection. That would be a lot. That'd be nice, but yeah but, I do appreciate it and I don't take it for granted.

Nadine Matheson: 35:44

You don't need any more failure. I think you should.

Jo Callaghan: 35:46

No, I don't need any more failure. Everyone needs to have a share.

Nadine Matheson: 35:49

I've learned the lesson. I get it. Thank you. I think, oprah, I'm quoting Oprah Winfrey she was doing an interview and she said I said to Jesus. I don, quoting Oprah Winfrey she said she was doing an interview and she said I said to Jesus I don't need any more lessons today. I've learned enough.

Jo Callaghan: 36:05

Whatever she's gone through, yeah.

Nadine Matheson: 36:08

I have learned enough. Can I ask you like a technical question Do you think because you know we always talk about AI in publishing and AI, written books and people using AI and I'm like don't use ai because you can tell, but do you think it's misunderstood in a way?

Nadine Matheson: 36:26

I am sorry in how it can be used within the publishing industry, and not just a thing that's just that will let you just like, copy and paste and then reinterpret yeah, because, remember, there's no one shared definition of what ai even is, so we don't have a shared taxonomy of it.

Jo Callaghan: 36:44

There's no ai um. All the experts, they don't agree on how to define it. So I think it is widely misunderstood and there are different understandings of it and people take and there's a lot of fear and even sorry, even I say ai experts. So there are technical people who are, who understand how it technically works, and the thing is in terms of how we, how we want to use it, how we should use it to form our lives, our work. That is something that we are all experts in. That's not something just because somebody can create something doesn't make them expert in how it should be used. Yeah, that's so. I think that's what we need to people. Everybody has to be part of that debate. Actually, how do we want to live our lives? You know, what is it humans want to do? What? What do we want? What do we want to form the board of work and leisure and therefore, what is ai capable of and what, therefore, do you want it to help us with or augment or actually substitute for? So that's.

Jo Callaghan: 37:39

I would want to revert the debate. At the moment, it's been driven by what is technologically possible and what is profitable, as opposed to. You know, as Keynes said, you know how do you perfect the art of a good life, what is a good life to us, and then use that, because the example I was giving, you know, I don't want to take out the bins. There are plenty of life admin rubbish that ai can be helpless with. Why are we saying, giving it all the creative interest and things, the writing, stories, the writing but those are things that give us joy as human beings. Yeah, pushing that forward for ai, and it's because it's technically possible to extend and it's profitable. Uh, because the biggest cost of most businesses is labour, it's the workforce. So that's what's driving and that's why a lot of people are over-optimistic.

Jo Callaghan: 38:27

In my day, in my work life, my professional life, I'm very sceptical about the roles and limits of AI, even though my book does expand that for fictional purposes. There are very few whole professions that can be taken out by ai. There are lots of tasks, but most professional jobs, whether it be law or medicine, they involve lots of lots of different um tasks and judgment, and that's what I try and show in my novel in the blink of an eye that you know, dcs cat frank makes decisions according to her gut or instinct, which sometimes can be prejudice, which is why the AI seeing how they make decisions, using algorithms and evidence can actually be beneficial. But quite often they will get things wrong because they don't understand humans. They can join up some dots, but they don't know which dots to join up which are relevant. So, again, trying to show that it's not that AI is bad or good, but it's where the humans add value and and where, therefore, my ai help us.

Nadine Matheson: 39:27

Similar to I always I always say to the lawyers when I'm training them I'm, like I said, a big part of the job which you won't get from when you're, you know, preparing for your exams and when you've done the academics or when you've done your law degree. So the big part of this job is learning how to is one have learned how to read people, also learning how to manage people as well, and this is a lot of what we, a lot of what I'm doing is managing people, managing people's expectations in the process, making sure they understand the process, understanding what my role is and saying what I need from them and you can't.

Jo Callaghan: 40:02

You can't be taught that no, really, and you've got to understand people's fears, haven't you actually? What motivates them and what's what do they need to hear, when and what? And what aren't they hearing and what you need to keep repeating, because they're just not listening or they don't. Uh wouldn't even understand it. So it's all that, and so I'll try and show them some of the interviews as well, with with uh aid lock. So there's an example when they think some uh, the cat has to visit some parents to tell them that their child might be dead, and locks like, why would you do that? It's a waste of time and you'd be much quicker to ring them, you know. So why would you spend an hour and a half driving there? And it was a really inefficient use of her most finite resource, which is time. Because he doesn't understand that actually he don't tell somebody on the phone that that son might be dead.

Jo Callaghan: 40:46

That's a face and and law the process of justice about. It's about someone else having witness to your pain as well and giving people kindness and compassion, even if you can't resolve it. There's that human element of justice which can't just be broken down into a series of tasks that a machine can carry out. I try and say a neutral in the book, but I'm trying to expose and unpack those different elements.

Nadine Matheson: 41:14

I think it makes sense If I'm taking instructions from a client. I don't think I've ever taken instructions from a client over the phone. It has to be in person because even you know but even if I'm in court and I'm cross-examining someone, yeah you're looking for.

Nadine Matheson: 41:29

You need to see their, how they react things physically, because you can tell by looking at someone or even choose how they respond to something. You can choose, you can. You can see whether they're hiding something, and you can't. You're not gonna be able to get that by a conversation, or let me send an email and have you answer these 10 questions. That's what I do in the book you show all those, all those judgments you're making.

Jo Callaghan: 41:53

So there's a book by malcolm gladwell called blink, which is kind of what, in the blink of an eye, is a bit of a play on. So because you could say what you're those judgments you're making are so rapid so they could be sort of prejudicial, instinctive or whatever. But actually they're also my thing to say the result of years and years of experience that you've gleaned from working with people and your thought process almost too fast for you to comprehend. But it's not just that, it's some random gut thing. There is also quite a lot of expertise and experience you're doing, you're drawing upon when you're making those very rapid decisions, just that we're not conscious of them.

Nadine Matheson: 42:32

So, jo, what piece of advice do you wish you'd been told earlier in your career?

Jo Callaghan: 42:37

In this career, the publishing career In this career, the publishing career, don't try and get to the finish In this career. Yeah, just, it's well. Actually I haven't thought about this. Um, yeah, that well for me, I think the mistake I made was trying to write um for the market rather than I. You know, people talk about finding your writer's voice and I think, looking back at the middle grade and the YA stuff, I was writing with my telephone voice. You know, you used to in the old days, hello, hello. And it was when I started writing the blog about my husband's illness that I started writing, because I was just writing what I felt. And when I used to publish it over the weekends, so many people on Twitter would say, oh, it's so beautifully written, and I'd be like I'm just, I just wrote my you know, it's just you know, and you think, oh, I was writing what I felt.

Jo Callaghan: 43:28

I actually was just, and and it took me a long time, I think again, again, because of my day job, I'm writing policy, strategy, fact, probably like you do, and then I had to sort of move away from that and write from the heart. You know, write with the blood rather than ink, as it were. That took quite a long time to get past, to find, and it was only because of things that happened in my personal life. I didn't do it consciously, just happened. It was just there was just so much emotion there, I think. So it's not a very articulate way of saying it, but if people could find a way of actually writing what they feel in a way that they feel, rather than trying to find a voice, a telephone voice or yeah, I love the telephone voice put in mind you're my mum, because you're not talking to gran it's definitely not talking to gran on my audience.

Nadine Matheson: 44:21

To me, I was thinking about when I teach the, teach the baby lawyers how to write, and when I say teach them how to write, it's doing legal writing and I'm teaching them. I have to teach them how to get rid of the noise like I don't. There's no emotion, you're just dealing with facts. If you're writing a legal letter, you're dealing with facts. You're writing applications to the court. It's just facts. There's no emotion. Is that you want? There's no noise, no waffle. Whereas when you were writing our books, you're writing fiction. So when you're not writing to trends, it's, it's the complete opposite. Whereas when you were writing our books, you're writing fiction. So when you're not writing to trends, how did you do that switch?

Jo Callaghan: 45:02

because I found that really hard to move from the, the factual, to the really getting inside a story.

Nadine Matheson: 45:10

I think it's hard and I think I'm still learning how to do it, because I guarantee that when I finish this book that I'm writing now, when I get my edit notes back, there's gonna be a comment in there from editor saying, yeah, but what does Henley feel? What?

Jo Callaghan: 45:24

is she feeling she proceeded a northerly direction to like?

Nadine Matheson: 45:29

a sat-nav. This is what he did. Please take the second exit whereas yeah.

Nadine Matheson: 45:35

So I still I have to work on. I have to work on that. And even when I'm writing my you know I'm writing my first draft now and you know my first I keep telling myself it can be messy. Let it be messy, because I'm still trying to work out where I'm actually. I have a plan, but I'm still I'm working my way through the plan, but I'm finishing chapters and I'm like, okay, you know, in the redraft we need to see the emotion, we need to see her engaging. You need I need the noise and not just facts. So it's even for me it's still a bit hard to do. It's not a natural. I read an article.

Jo Callaghan: 46:06

There was a film writer his name, I can't worked in policy or something factual, and she she had the same struggles and she really had to sort of tap into her dream brain, you know sort of the part of your brain that dreamed and thinks and so sort of writing early in the morning. So I sometimes do this. Sometimes I'll get up at five if I can't get back to sleep, I'll get up at five and do a couple hours writing in bed. Before you know, I deliberately won't put the radio on if I listen to the news and my intellectual brain goes back into you out yeah, yeah, if I go downstairs and the kids what?

Jo Callaghan: 46:38

and I go. So I have to do it, sort of trying to create that bit of a dream space where my brain is a little bit more creative.

Nadine Matheson: 46:46

Maybe, I don't know did you know you're gonna write a series, though, or did you just think I'm just gonna write this one? It's a stand.

Jo Callaghan: 46:52

Yeah, no, I hoped I hoped it was. When I wrote it, I always thought that could be a series. That's so I definitely wrote it, because it's the, the, the, the story arc that the plot is is the characters. For me, that's what takes it through in terms of um, how much can a AI, deep learning machine learn, and what happens when it does so? In my head it's four books, because there has to be an end to those, because they can't go on forever. You know, it's not a buddy cop thing. There has to be some answers, some resolution yeah.

Jo Callaghan: 47:26

And AI is moving so fast as well. I don't want to be sort of caught out by it.

Nadine Matheson: 47:31

Does it surprise you how fast it's moving? All because of your? Yeah, it surprises everybody. There was a paper made time by. Does it surprise you how fast it's moving? All because of your?

Jo Callaghan: 47:35

yeah, it's surprising everybody but as a problem before we just last night about that thing. If that's what's changed in the past 18 months, two years, that the pace, because most things when I was first doing my workforce strategy back in 2017, people always say over the next five, ten years it'll be transformed, but people are always over optimistic. It never actually happens. But the scale and pace of recent changes I think it's caught everybody's surprise by surprise. Which why now you've got so many different views about regulation and what happens, and I think everybody's surprised by that.

Nadine Matheson: 48:05

It's just funny. I just had this thought you remember tomorrow's world, the program, and then they would show. This is what so say it's. I don't know, it's 1990 to this is what you're going to be wearing in 2000 or whatever. We got there and we're like no, where are the flying skateboards?

Nadine Matheson: 48:25

I'm still waiting for my hoverboard. It's like this it what you thought was going to happen 30, 20 years? Yeah, 30 years ago. To now that hasn't happened. But if we look at the last 10 years, the last decade, everything has moved so quickly like you can't even imagine what it could be.

Jo Callaghan: 48:42

Yeah, we have to remember of 2000. So my, my eldest, is born year 2000. You know, we, we had to take, I had to take changing to use a land at the phone. You know you couldn't, you didn't have a mobile phone to. So when he was born forget about. You know, when he was born it was all phones and money didn't have mobile phones regularly. And also even as a child, when he was growing up, that's just when mobile phones started to come in. So when he would have started school he would have had an android phone, a second to school. But the time my youngest is a three years, four years younger, that's when iphones are in and on an iphone you've got access to every single bit of the internet. Suddenly, everything is on that phone and that's happened so recently. This is just the last 10 years and that's mad. It's one of the biggest changes in the whole of society.

Nadine Matheson: 49:34

Yeah, it's like when I think about when I learned to. I learned to drive when I was 17, which was I don't even know what year that was. That was a long time ago 1990, something, 94, 1994 I think it was. I learned to drive and to get around, you know, if you didn't know your local area to get around I had my.

Nadine Matheson: 49:51

I had my a to z. Yeah, when my a to z fell apart, I bought another a to z. I always had my a to z and then, yeah, but it slowly moved along to sat nav. But I remember between a to z and sat nav, so you had to go on the aa's website and download, put your destination in and download the route planner. So then you had a printout of your route, yeah, and you had to try and look try not to crash the car while looking at your printout but that was such a big gap between a you know a to z and route planner and then from route planners to sat navs to it's on your phone, yeah, and that's happened in a very short space.

Jo Callaghan: 50:27

I'm supposed to and that changes how humans interact with each other, with their own thought processes, downtime, how the parents. It's such a radical change for our society. So that's, and that's why I'm just going to put something in the books that you know how technology changes, uh, human relationships, because we've all got it's a part of all our lives and it's weed within it, so you know. So with cat she's not just a detective at work, but lock, because she, locke sort of, is located in a brace on her wrist. It means is there potential when she goes home? So showing how all that home work thing had that, had the boundaries blur because Locke's always available. She can always ask Locke to sort of chat about a case.

Jo Callaghan: 51:06

Look at this, look at that. It's not like if you were at home at 10 o'clock at night you wouldn't read your DI, because you, because you think, oh, they're probably in bed now, but Locke's always available, so he's always able to work. But then also, because he's in a domestic space and they can talk, kind of becomes like a friend. And you have to keep in mind that it's not a friend, it's a machine. But it does affect our brains because our human instinct is to impose our own human centricism onto other. Human instinct is to impose our own human centricism onto other. You know, we give our sat navs names, or alexa, or it's hard to remember that they're not actual personalities yeah, it's like it's like a minefield, but it's like a really fast.

Jo Callaghan: 51:47

It's the mindful yeah, and that's all the playing out with the whole catalog thing in terms of you know that, because they started very antagonistic because cat doesn't trust ai at all because in the book her husband was misdiagnosed by ai, um by in terms of an ai scan. So she's very sort of anti the ai. But actually over time they begin to build a bit of relationship and as the books progress I want to show some of that blurring because cats are also quite lonely. Lock fills a lot of spaces, as a lot of technology does in our lives.

Nadine Matheson: 52:20

Look well, you know, when you're walking around the house and you're talking to Alexa.

Jo Callaghan: 52:24

Alexa's a person. Alexa's not a person.

Nadine Matheson: 52:26

She doesn't give you the right information. I'm like what's wrong with you?

Jo Callaghan: 52:31

Alexa, they just have a lot of information about you, you know. So I said Locke ends up knowing. Their expert topic is cat, you know. So they know almost everything about them, which is you know, the heart rate, everything oh my god.

Nadine Matheson: 52:47

So before I ask you about your second book, what would you change because you've had. Yeah, because you forgot about that, because you've had, you've been in this other, you've been in the industry. You said 14 years what was that?

Jo Callaghan: 53:04

I was just, I was just getting, you were in it.

Nadine Matheson: 53:06

You're still in it, but what was? But looking back now, what would you change? Oh, you've not even looking back, looking forward, what would you change about it? The public about looking forward, what would you change?

Jo Callaghan: 53:16

about it, about the industry, I think all that just being really open, just be, yeah, I want that scale, we want the scale. This is a da-da-da. And then, if I would have a two-column table, so this is like excellent, good, fair, disappointing, probably like an end of the deal again. And then what the indicators are for that in terms of, and then what, what you need to deliver it. So what I realized because, again, a lot of my friends are writers. They always need to be unless your book is in the supermarkets or waterstones throughout the month, then you know it's not going to chart, it's just a fact. You just can't get that.

Jo Callaghan: 53:51

You know word of mouth. It's not going to get you the level of sales. There are certain things. So I know, you know my book next week, that's not the expectation, it won't be the chance hasn't had that um, and that that's really helpful to know that. So I think if we just set out the sort of and obviously rules are laws, exceptions to the rules, there's no guarantees, but it's a gem as a rule, of them all the things I've gleaned from my very kind writer friends in terms of what, what's good, what's bad, what the indicators that that might be what sorts of? You know what's a gold package support from the publisher as opposed to your bronze. You know your copper.

Nadine Matheson: 54:27

I've heard that a lot. Yeah, everyone wants to know like what?

Jo Callaghan: 54:30

yeah it helps your expectations, because the worst thing is in this industry is the hope, followed by despair, whereas actually, if you know, you know you're, what we're hoping for you is not that you'd be a bestseller, but you sell, you know, a couple thousand books, uh, and that that would be a really good result for this and we'd all be happy that's, and we're going to have a slow build of your career. Or then you think, okay, that's, that's good, I can work with that and you know you could always say I might choose to surprise you or hope we do better, but generally you know where you stand, you know where you're standing. And then if things don't go well, well that's fine, because we're all adults and you'll know that things haven't gone great. But then then let's have a review in terms of no blame, what worked, what didn't, what would you do different, rather than just moving on, move on, move on.

Jo Callaghan: 55:27

I don't see anyone doing evidence-based reviews, uh, in a non-blame way, just in terms of also success. Why did that work, why did this not work? And so what would you do? I think people do do it internally. I suspect I think they do it internally.

Nadine Matheson: 55:43

But I don't think that information gets transferred to who it should, to who should know about it, which is the writer. I think they probably do. The publishers must say they, they do an internal review of what happened, what didn't work, what were their expectations and why they didn't reach those expectations. But I don't think that, whatever the conclusion is at the end of that report, that's then not holding on to your. But like I always, even now, I always feel like not embarrassed to say, like I'm always surprised that I didn't know how important pre-orders were, because no, one told me no, no, no, you pick that up, don't you that?

Jo Callaghan: 56:16

that is really really important. Um, yeah, and so things like visiting shops, that's so important to learn that big time you know. To just be really clear with people, my publishers are great. They're clearer than most, as I'm not speaking just about mine, I'd be about all yeah and I think it's it's. I think people don't want to upset us, whereas actually, because, well, because we are authors, we catastrophize, we will fill the space with the worst possible scenario. Yeah, which would be.

Nadine Matheson: 56:44

It's a failure, it's my fault or yeah, I don't know yeah, yeah, I'm used to dealing with, I'm giving you the worst, because normally the worst possible case for you is that if it's coming from me, it's like, yeah, you're going to prison. It's just a matter of how long Exactly I can deal with the bad news. But you may not like it because you're human. But I'd rather know than not know. Yeah, same Right. So, jo, leave no, leave no trace. Book two you like to tell the listeners of the conversation about leave no trace?

Jo Callaghan: 57:19

I would and I haven't sorted out my pitch yet because I'm just still reading book one, but essentially it's book two, so it tells a story the second part in the story about dcs cat frank, who's a widow detective, returned to work, who makes decisions according to her gut, and she reluctantly agreed to pilot an ai detective aid to work who makes decisions according to her gut, and she reluctantly agreed to pilot an AI detective, aide Locke, who obviously makes decisions according to algorithms and evidence. So in the first case they were working on a cold case of two missing boys and in book two they get given their first live case when a man is found crucified, with his ears cut off, on the top of Mount Judd in the Neaton and as more young men are found dead, other young men in Nuneaton are warned to avoid going out drinking in pubs, to not leave the pubs alone, to always let a friend know where they might be. So essentially it's men for the first time are being told that they have to change their behaviour as a result of a crime.

Nadine Matheson: 58:16

I think you were worried about your elevator pitch. You't have to. That was a good pitch. Thank you, so welcome smart. So, joe, I've got some questions for you. Are you an introvert or extrovert, or a hybrid of the two?

Jo Callaghan: 58:26

yeah, I'll say like this I've heard people on your new to say I think I think I was. It's a journey, isn't it? So I think I was. It's a journey, isn't it? So I think I was quite shy as a young child. Then I became actually very peonated, elbows out. I was terribly, terribly, terribly extroverted as a youngster and I think as I've got older I've become more introverted. I'm much more quiet and used to being at home and stuff. So I think I've yeah, I'm sort of becoming more introverted as I get older. I might be just more tired, I don't know. You're more tired.

Nadine Matheson: 58:58

It's like you want me to go where. It's always like when you were younger and like when you went out. It's like, okay, what time does it start? 10 o'clock, oh, it's a bit early. Yeah, now, if a lot of times it start eight. Oh, yeah, really yeah okay, so what challenge you're experiencing?

Jo Callaghan: 59:19

your life shaped you the most oh, it'd have to be the death of my husband. Yeah, that's because I probably I was. I was always very optimistic, energetic, you know, happy and yeah, apart from the awfulness of it, I do, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's changed me. So I used to have a matuta vibe. I always tell people I'm a widow, so I think it sort of defines me now as a person. That that's which kind of kind of depressingly introduces conversation. But yeah, it definitely has changed me and my children. It will.

Nadine Matheson: 59:50

Yeah if you could go back to when you were 25 years old and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Jo Callaghan: 59:57

Stay there Down all the way after that. Yeah, just enjoy, enjoy, enjoy being young. As you said, my eldest is 23 and you know, go to all the music festivals, do all the travelling, live, be happy. And you know, go, go to all the music festivals, do all the traveling, live, be happy. You know, don't, don't work too hard. Um, I spent a lot of time. You know my life, I'm a workaholic. I work very hard at right, but, you know, day and night, yeah, I, I, but I wouldn't listen to myself. There's no point me telling myself at 25 because you couldn't have told me anything I'd have. Yes, it was very interesting yeah, thank you very much yeah, yeah, but it's good times in your 20s.

Jo Callaghan: 1:00:43

Have, have as much fun as you can, is what I say to my kids now, because life's really short.

Nadine Matheson: 1:00:49

I think that's. I think when you're in your 20s, you just think, oh my god, like you should have reached certain peaks, and maybe you haven't reached them yet and so there's a sense of panic and really, when you look back, you're like there's nothing to panic about. So you can know this generation.

Jo Callaghan: 1:01:04

I think it's hard for, as you're most of us in 23 years. He said he's trained to be a barrister, so he's on that treadmill and thinks you know his bio exams. He a parent, you'll be a pupil. I need to be here, I need to be working, I need to be earning and I just think, gosh, you know, just go on holiday, go to the. You know.

Nadine Matheson: 1:01:24

I always tell the trainees and whenever I'm teaching the baby lawyers, I always say to them have something else other than this. Like don't let this job be. I know it's what you want and you know you've worked hard to get here and I'm not taking that away from you at all, but you need to have something more than this.

Nadine Matheson: 1:01:42

Even if it's just that you enjoy baking, like, then do that. But there needs to be more than just that job, because it will take a lot out of you, and it can take a lot out of you. It's emotion drains on, isn't it?

Jo Callaghan: 1:01:53

the laws are, and it's infinite. There's an infinite amount of work there that you can do endlessly.

Nadine Matheson: 1:02:01

It's infinite. And one thing I think if you realise very quickly on, you understand very quickly that not all cases are the same, every single case, every individual, they're unique. They've got their own unique set of problems and circumstances. Their reasons why they're involved in this case in the first place are unique to them. I think when you understand that, it makes it a little bit easier to deal with the next case, because you can't just which is maybe a bit of a shame, you can't have a copy and paste approach to it.

Jo Callaghan: 1:02:32

Well, there isn't that hard. Then you care more about the people. So if you let yourself see them as individuals, you're not finding that emotionally quite. Yeah, I don't think I could be a lawyer or a barrister. I couldn't do it. I'd get too upset.

Nadine Matheson: 1:02:46

It depends what you're doing, because I've always said I'm able to. I don't know why I'm like that, but I can detach myself very easily from the case so I don't get emotionally involved. But that's criminal law. But I found that when I did, I did a secondment um in the family. Oh yeah, gosh, yeah, I couldn't do it.

Jo Callaghan: 1:03:07

I got so involved saying how could you do that? I couldn't. You started talking about some of the cases. I have to say stop, I can't. I can't have that in my head.

Nadine Matheson: 1:03:14

I won't be asleep no, exactly I, I would get so emotionally, yeah, but I'd have such an emotional reaction to the case and the people involved. Whereas crime is just, it's very straightforward mike across the road accused timothy I've seen in his car, it's, it's very straightforward. I can deal with that. But family law, when you're dealing with children and yeah, yeah, it was I remember I had to um this this our client, she'd had her seventh child and because she was, she was a drug addict, all of her previous children had been taken away from her. She'd had them for like a few, for not even a month, and then they'll take trouble going to care.

Nadine Matheson: 1:03:55

And she had her seventh child and I got dispatched off to Chelsea hospital to see her and to see this baby that was withdrawing from drugs and she's so emotional because she really wants to keep this baby and she can't keep this baby. And you're dealing with social services and there's too many people to me, there's too many people involved and I was like I, I, there's, no, there's nowhere on earth I can do family, but I can detach myself from the man getting stabbed and all sorts of interesting. Yeah, so you, I think you learned, you learned very quickly what you can cope with.

Jo Callaghan: 1:04:29

Yeah, what you can cope with, that's interesting yes, gosh, so that also makes writing seem easy, right, compared to that people, I just think, no, it isn't. Working on the bins is hard working with, you know, but you know writing it's, uh, is a privilege. I don't want to belittle it, but it's not hard in the way that some jobs are hard in terms of yeah, no, I understand, but I feel like I need to finish.

Nadine Matheson: 1:04:52

On the light, on the lighter, no, no, no, it's me as well. You know, when you're talking about what you want ai to do, you want ai to take out your bins. I want ai to pack my shopping away.

Jo Callaghan: 1:05:03

I hate packing the shopping is that interesting oh yeah, I don't mind going to get it. I quite like the shopping bit, but you come back, have to unpack it all or again, take unpacking the laundry. No one tells you as an adult, your life is putting things away, putting them in the washing machine and take them, put them and food, and so you just put things in places, aren't you?

Nadine Matheson: 1:05:25

that's all it is. That's all I want. Unpack my shopping away, right, we'll get that. I'll get that in book four. Get a lock on that, put that in book four. So finally, joe callaghan, where can listeners of the conversation podcast find you online?

Jo Callaghan: 1:05:40

oh, twitter, I'm always on twitter, so it's um, joe callaghan cat, so it's all word, because I can't joke and I've been taken up to stick cat on the end, so joe callaghan cat. Um, if there's a dot, whatever, yeah, at the top, twitter. It's the same on instagram, but I don't really get instagram. I do my best, I I muddle about on instagram, but mostly on twitter right, so we can find you.

Nadine Matheson: 1:06:03

That just leaves me to say, joe callahan, thank you so much for being part of the conversation that was great, thank you.

Jo Callaghan: 1:06:09

Thank you.

Nadine Matheson: 1:06:09

I hope you didn't depress everybody thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the conversation with Nadine Mapperson podcast. I really hope that you enjoyed it. I'll be back next week with a new guest, so make sure that you subscribe and you'll never miss the next episode. And also don't forget to like, share and leave a review. It really means a lot and it also helps the podcast. And you can also support the podcast on Patreon, where every new member will receive exclusive merchandise. Just head down to the show notes and click on the link, and if you'd like to be a guest on a future episode of the Conversation, all you have to do is email theconversation at nadinemathersoncom. Thank you, and I'll see you next week.