He's Too Dangerous To Love with Kristie Wolf

Rich Bennett 0:00
So I'm joined by Wendy today and we have a lovely young lady on who is an author. Her first book is coming out October 12th. And we are going to talk to her about that. She's from Jersey. I just love saying who always did that? You're Episcopal author. 

Wendy Beck 0:15
I don't know. 

Rich Bennett 0:17
You're you don't know who Joe Piscopo. 

Wendy Beck 0:19
Is, but I don't know who said. 

Rich Bennett 0:20
It. It was Joe Piscopo and saying, I'm from Jersey. From Jersey? You know, you're probably too young to remember that. We have Christie will join us. You are too young to read, but you have not. Oh, okay. How can you not know who Joe? He was one of the one of the greats on Saturday Night Live because today I won't even watch it today. How are you doing, Christine? 

Kristie Wolf 0:42
I'm good. How are you? Thanks for having. 

Rich Bennett 0:44
Me. My pleasure. So before we get into the book, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Christie? Well. 

Kristie Wolf 0:53
Christie Wolf is from New Jersey. I grew up across the river from Manhattan in a town called North Bergen. 

Rich Bennett 1:00
And not far from Toms River. Right? 

Kristie Wolf 1:02
Oh, about an hour and a half from Toms River. Okay. So Toms River is Central Jersey. Which is my south. Jersey, because there is no need. To go all the way South Jersey. When Toms River and Point Pleasant and Seaside Heights, where only an hour and a half away. 

Rich Bennett 1:18
Yeah, it's funny because you look at Jersey and you're like, how can anything be an hour and a half away? It's a small state. 

Kristie Wolf 1:23
It's a long state. Yeah. Yes, Yes. It's a wonderful state. We have our beaches. We have our country roads like we have here in Harford County, which scare the crap out of me. I'm not used to deer. I grew up in an urban area. Like, I can see what's coming around the corner. If I get lost. There is a homeless person or a drug dealer or an old man sitting on the corner playing backgammon, and I can ask them for directions around here you get lost. The wildlife don't know where to tell you to go. It's very dull. 

Wendy Beck 1:53
How long have you been in Hartford County? 

Kristie Wolf 1:55
I've been here about almost 13 years. 

Wendy Beck 1:57
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:58
But you still haven't been able to talk to the deer? 

Kristie Wolf 2:00
No, no, no. I keep jumping in front of my car, 

but I do enjoy it. I married a marine. 

Rich Bennett 2:08
Oh, did. 

Kristie Wolf 2:08
You? And so. Yes. So I met him when I was 30 and I moved in with him. Was living in Connecticut at the time. I met him in Chicago at a technology convention. 

Rich Bennett 2:20
Obviously, he wasn't in the court. 

Kristie Wolf 2:22
He was. He was he what was. 

Rich Bennett 2:24
He doing in Chicago? 

Kristie Wolf 2:25
He was doing acquisitions. He was at our Systems Command's in Quantico. 

Rich Bennett 2:29
Oh, an officer? 

Kristie Wolf 2:30
Yes, he is an officer. And so we met there and then we started dating. And then I moved down to Fredericksburg, Virginia, with him. So I was an Army girlfriend. He got out of the Marine Corps, decided he wanted nothing to do with the military or the government. So we moved to Wisconsin. 

Wendy Beck 2:46
Oh, wow. 

Kristie Wolf 2:48
And he worked for Kimberly Clark. And then after two years of that, he decided he needed to come back to the military type of life. And now he's a government contractor and that's we moved back to we moved to Alexandria, and now we're here. For 13 years and I really like it. 

Rich Bennett 3:05
I take a contrary I don't EPG. 

Kristie Wolf 3:08
No, no, no. He works for ERP. He's worked for many different systems integrators type of contractors. 

Rich Bennett 3:17
Okay. He's your. Okay. So he's your computer tech. 

Kristie Wolf 3:20
He's my computer tech. Yes. That's why I married him. I always have wireless. He's my personal helpdesk. And I thought he'd make you children. And so far, he has, you know, gone above and beyond on all those counts. We've been married almost 20 years, so it works for us. 

Rich Bennett 3:34
Okay, See, us Marines are good. 

Wendy Beck 3:37
And now you're residing in Bel Air. 

Kristie Wolf 3:40
Yeah. Okay. Yep. I have two kids, 13 and 17. 

Rich Bennett 3:44
So, what were you doing as this is your first book that you've written? What is it that you actually do? 

Kristie Wolf 3:52
Well, in the. 

Rich Bennett 3:53
Job, besides make. 

Kristie Wolf 3:54
Children write? I make children only to know more that Chip herself. I work for a wonderful, small, family owned business in Washington, DC, called Fat Insider and we do educational I.T. briefings and webinars in government technology. Oh, wow. So it's my primary responsibility to recruit the government speakers that we have at our events. So CEOs, security officers, scientists, things like that. 

Wendy Beck 4:24
And you work virtually. 

Kristie Wolf 4:26
Well, we do in-person events. And then during COVID, we were doing virtual, and now we're back to doing in-person events. And it's a wonderful job. I work with a wonderful family and they are super supportive of my writing career, so they don't mind after events when I go up to the chief information officer from a government agency and say, Hey, so what's your worst nightmare? Like, what is the worst thing that could happen to your agency if a foreign entity hacked into it? And then. 

Wendy Beck 4:56
They just based on what you write. 

Kristie Wolf 4:57
About? Yes. And so I get a I get a lot of my ideas from the work that I do. And so and and with my husband in technology, it all kind of comes together. I have a lot of resources to go to. I can turn my computer on and off. That's about it. I, I am not technology inclined at all, but I can write a story about it. 

Rich Bennett 5:18
So. 

Wendy Beck 5:18
All right. What's the name of the book? 

Kristie Wolf 5:20
The name of the book is Too Dangerous to Love, and it is book one in the Project Viper Series. 

Wendy Beck 5:27
Wow. 

Kristie Wolf 5:27
Oh. 

Rich Bennett 5:29
All right. With you working out in DC, were you actually driving down? 

Kristie Wolf 5:33
Oh, no. I've always worked from home. That's a oh, perk. 

Rich Bennett 5:36
Okay. Yeah, even before COVID. 

Kristie Wolf 5:39
Even before COVID. And then I go out to events. We go to San Antonio often right now we're doing a series with state and local government. So I was just in Ohio last week, and we've been to different state capitals over the course of the year, and we'll continue that next year. And so there are there are my little working vacations for three or four days. I get to go on a plane by myself. And so. 

Rich Bennett 6:02
The kids don't go. 

Kristie Wolf 6:03
Don't go with me. Okay. Hang out with my colleagues who are friends and meet really interesting people. 

Rich Bennett 6:09
Oh, wow. Yeah, that sounds like it'd be a lot of flying, except for the flying part. 

Wendy Beck 6:14
And it was the inspiration for you to start writing. 

Kristie Wolf 6:17
I've always wanted to write ever since I was a teenager, and I always thought that I would write maybe contemporary romance, kind of like small town type of thing. And then in 2016, I saw a book. It was a coffee table book of photographs by a photographer called Michael Stokes. And it was called Always Loyal. And he had these really smoking hot photos of veterans who had lost a leg or an arm or several in combat. 

Rich Bennett 6:49
Right. 

Kristie Wolf 6:49
And these nearly nude photos of men and women. And I was like, wow, those are heroes. And they they should have a happily ever after. They deserve a story. So I decided I wanted to write about a male hero who lost an arm or a leg and write his story. I had no idea what that story was, and I had just completed my second novel, which was a contemporary romance that took place in Vegas. Nothing suspenseful about it. And I went to my first writer's conference in New Jersey, and I met an editor there, and I asked her what kind of book she was looking for and she said something about maybe like DNA enhanced soldiers and a super smart stem heroine. And that's how I got the idea. I'm like, Oh, my veteran, It's going to have lost his arm and he is going to have a weaponized prosthetic that is going to shoot lasers at the bad guys. 

Rich Bennett 7:39
Okay. So before you went to the writer, because most authors usually don't go to a writers conference until they've already written their first book at least. What made you decide to go to a writers conference and how did you find out about it? 

Kristie Wolf 7:54
Well, I wrote this book, and so I wrote a book. It was second I wrote my first book when I was 25, and it was on a dare from my sorority sisters. And they were like, Christy, you've been talking about writing a book since college, since we've known you. And we were in a bookstore in Manhattan, and there was an advertisement for a writing contest for a romance writing contest. And the date the deadline date was 30 days from that day, and I wrote a 60,000 word novel in 30 days. What? No, I had no idea what I was doing. I'd never read a book on how to write a book. I'd never taken a class on how to write a book. But I had read a lot of romance novels, so I totally knew what I was doing, but not so much. 

Wendy Beck 8:37
Well, did this get published? 

Kristie Wolf 8:39
No, it did not. So I sent it. I snail mailed it because this is 27 years ago to five publishers. It did not win the contest, sent it to five publishers. I got rejected by all. And what you do is you send the synopsis and you send some sample chapters. But one of the publishers and I can't remember who it was, but I found a letter the other day asked for the full manuscript, really. And I had no idea what a win that was like. If an author gets a request for a full manuscript, like it's cause to go out and get drunk, have a party, post it all over social media, like whatever it is you do to reward yourself, you do that. And I used to blame it on like, self-doubt and like, not feeling confident in what I was doing. But now I realize I just didn't want to put the work into it. Like I didn't know what I did wrong. I thought I knew everything and I wasn't willing at that time as a 25 year old to figure it out. Right? And so it wasn't until I was 47. So a long time later when I was like, I'm going to try again. And my husband, my Marine husband, who was an overachiever, kept pushing me. They like, all right, when are you going to write this book and make us read? So I'm like, well, the rich part I don't know about, but I finally wrote the book. So it took me two and a half years to write my second novel. And then after I wrote it, I'm like. What do I do now? You know, like everything had changed. I wasn't snail mailing it to publishers, like there was self-publishing. I had no idea there were all kinds. Yeah, So I was that my daughter was four. I was at a party at my gym and I was talking to one of the preschool moms telling her because she would see me like at ballet class and all over the place and in the corner with my laptop and my book. And I told her, I finished. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. And she's like, Oh, my. Mother in law over there, she's published a couple books. You should go talk to her. 

Wendy Beck 10:34
Oh, wow. 

Kristie Wolf 10:34
Yeah. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 10:35
Who is that? Do you know. 

Kristie Wolf 10:36
Her? I don't remember her mother in law's name. Okay. Yeah, I don't remember at all. And I talked to this woman who was lovely, and she said, go to a conference. She said, Don't go to the Nationals. She said, Join a romance Writers of America. 

Rich Bennett 10:51
Okay. 

Kristie Wolf 10:51
Don't go to the National conference. Go to the New Jersey one. It's nice and small. And so that's what I did. And I went home and I signed up for it. And I told my husband and I said, you know, like there's like add ons to the conference, Like there's this this like pre conference thing the day before. With this, I forget who the author was, but she was a big name. And it says, like, you're going to share your work and stuff and I don't know if I'm ready for that. And then there's this other thing where the anonymous anonymously read the first 500 words of your book. And like editors, a panel of editors will critique it. 

Rich Bennett 11:23
Yes. 

Kristie Wolf 11:23
I'm like, Oh, no, about that. And he's like, look, he said, If we're paying for this and I'm watching the kids for three days, you're going you're going to go there. You're going to sit in the front seat and you're going to talk to everybody. And that's what I did. And I really I found my tribe. Like, I've always thought that writing was a solitary endeavor. I never really told anybody what I was doing because I wasn't confident in what I was doing. And I was like, imposters. And I'm like, I'm a writer, but am I really a writer? And then I went there and you need your people. And so I joined Maryland Romance writers. I joined New Jersey romance writers, and I joined a critique group with four other women. And every two weeks we sent each other 15 pages. And that's when I wrote Too Dangerous to Love. It took me a year. 

Wendy Beck 12:13
And that's wow. 

Kristie Wolf 12:14
And that's the book that I'm publishing now. And I met so many wonderful people. Like, I went into that conference thinking, okay, I'm going to meet a bunch of women and we all want the same thing. We're all here because it's going to be competition that's going to be catty. Like, I was so super nervous and I walked into the hotel that night and all and automatically there was an author in the lobby and she said. Oh, are you here for the conference? And I said, Yes. And she invited me for a drink and she showed me around and everybody else was that welcoming and wonderful. And from that conference I still have people who I can email and say, you know, Hey, can you read this. Or can you suggest an editor? Or just like, how are you doing? Like and catching up. Like we're all friends on Facebook. We, you know, we interact. It really is a welcoming, supportive community. That's awesome. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 13:03
Now, are you self-publishing? 

Kristie Wolf 13:06
Yes, I'm indie publishing. Okay, So I wanted a traditional contract. I self-publish indie publishing rather. We rather call it indie publishing. Yeah, it scared me. It's just so overwhelming. So many decisions to make. Yes, so much to do. So I wanted that traditional contract for two reasons. One, so someone else could do a lot of that work for me. And two, I needed that validation. I needed that credibility just for me. Right? So in 2018, after I wrote Too Dangerous to Love, I pitched the book. I went to another couple of conferences, pitched it to editors, did some Twitter pitches. Which is a really cool thing. There are certain days like that are advertised within writers circles where someone organizes a Twitter pitch where editors and agents will be on Twitter and they'll be watching. So you use certain hashtags and you write your pitch and then if an editor or an agent likes it, you contact them and then they say, Send me your stuff. Which was really cool. 

Rich Bennett 14:07
Do they still have that? 

Kristie Wolf 14:08
I'm I haven't done one in a while, but they probably I would think that they do. 

Wendy Beck 14:12
I think it would be a pretty Yeah. Cool thing. 

Rich Bennett 14:15
I would hope so. I mean, I knew they've made some changes over there. 

Kristie Wolf 14:19
So yeah, I don't know what's going on with Twitter, but there's probably some other like platforms. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. There's a lot of. 

Rich Bennett 14:26
Twitter still doing it. 

Kristie Wolf 14:27
There's a website, blog, savvy authors, and every couple, several times a year they do online pitches where they gather a group of editors and agents. And then so. 

Wendy Beck 14:40
Is that online? Did you get any activity? 

Kristie Wolf 14:42
I did. Okay. So I had got two contract offers from small e-book publishers, one through the Savvy authors pitch and one through a conference that I went to. And I also landed an agent from a Twitter page. 

Rich Bennett 14:55
What? 

Kristie Wolf 14:56
And yes, so that was huge. I was pretty excited. Wow. Yeah. So those Twitter pitches, if they're still doing them, they do work. And I turned down the two contract offers because I, my agent and I decided that we wanted to go for something a bit bigger. Right. And so we revised the book. She sold it and we didn't have she tried to sell it and we didn't have much success. People were saying that they like the book, but readers weren't buying that type of book right now. So my military, a romantic suspense, kind of a band of brothers type of feel to it. For Heroes, they'll each have their own book type of series. And so then I tried to write some contemporary. I had it in my head that I wanted to write for Harlequin, so I wrote two books for geared specifically to Harlequin that didn't work out so well. And my agent was like, Look, you're better at romantic suspense. Let's stick to that. I wrote her another one and she was so honest with me. She's wonderful. She was like, I can't sell this. She said, I nobody is going to buy this right now. And so I went to her last October and I'm like, look, like, is it time to self-publish? I said, You told me that when you felt it was time for me to indie publish Too Dangerous to Love you let me know. And she like, Yeah, you can't sit on that book anymore. You need to get it out there. Okay, so I decided a year ago. 

Wendy Beck 16:12
Okay, Yeah. Oh, I mean, this is a lot of information, which is a lot of good information. So now you. You're self-publishing it. Tell me a little bit about that journey, because that seems like a lot. 

Kristie Wolf 16:28
Yes, it is a lot. So the first thing that I did was I had to, you know, decide how long it was going to take me. So I gave myself a year because even though the book was done, I hadn't looked at it in a couple of years because I'd been working on other projects. And so I reached out to my author Tribe, and I was like, Okay, what editors are you using? I interviewed editors I hired to a developmental editor and a copy line editor, and then I had to figure out my book cover, which was the funnest part of the whole process because I write steamy romance. So for weeks I poured through photos of shirtless men 

looking for my hero. It was a lot of fun. My friends had a lot of fun with me, looking at pictures like we would text back and forth, like, What do you think of this one? What do you think of this one? And then when I chose my photo, I bought an exclusive photo from the photographer, and then I hired a cover designer and it was so neat. We zoomed and I sat with her while she designed my cover. And my hero has a black, weaponized bionic arm that shoots lasers. So she designed that on my hero. So my cover is my shirtless military hero with his bionic arm. 

Wendy Beck 17:46
Nice. 

Kristie Wolf 17:47
And so it is the cover of my dreams. And I know now that if I would have went traditional publishing, I wouldn't have had that. 

Rich Bennett 17:54
You wouldn't have had the. 

Kristie Wolf 17:54
Would have had that cover? No. And I'm in love with my title, too. I love the title. Too Dangerous to Love. It goes with the whole series because the rest of the series are too lethal to love, to damage, to love and to kill, to love. And a traditional publisher could have changed my title. Yes. 

Wendy Beck 18:10
Yeah. Right. Now, are these books Have you written these? Yeah. No. Okay. 

Kristie Wolf 18:14
My agent had told me not to write any more books and so we got interest in the first one. Okay, so I do have a second book coming out in February. It's a different series. It's called The Blood Snow Series. And that book's done. I'm editing it now with an editor. 

Wendy Beck 18:30
Is that the same genre? 

Kristie Wolf 18:31
It's still romantic suspense. Yes. And so my plan is to do the Viper series in the fall and then the Blood Snow series in the spring. And then keep it going. Okay, one, then the other. 

Wendy Beck 18:44
How much how much time do you dedicate to writing? 

Kristie Wolf 18:47
I would love to be Nora Roberts and. Write for 8 hours a day. But that's not. Realistic. Right? And at this point, yeah. It depends on the day, because I'm not dedicating a lot of time to writing right now because there's a lot of business things to do, you know, setting up that Amazon Kindle account and the Ingram Sparks account for my paperback, I hired a marketing company to help me. So getting them all the materials, figuring out how to make TikTok reels. 

Wendy Beck 19:15
Yeah, that's a challenge. 

Kristie Wolf 19:16
Yes, I'm working on that, but I usually dedicate about 2 hours a day. Okay, Sometimes more, sometimes less. And when I say writing, it's not actually writing. It's to the business. 

Rich Bennett 19:28
Of writing part. 

Kristie Wolf 19:29
Yeah. Yeah. The marketing part. 

Rich Bennett 19:30
It is a business. 

Kristie Wolf 19:31
It is. Yes. And I keep reminding myself, like I was telling my husband the other day, I'm like, I spent the last half hour going through my email looking from receipts to put them in my spreadsheet. I said, And I really need to start thinking like a business person. Like as soon as I have a receipt or a invoice or something, file it in the right spot, right? 

Rich Bennett 19:51
That's where a lot of authors I, I want to say make the mistake. They don't they write the book and then they don't they don't look at it as a business. It is if you're selling something, it's a business. 

Wendy Beck 20:05
Well, not all authors are are trying to become a business. Sometimes they're just writing because it's in them to do it and then they're satisfied. Oh, yeah, You know, so like, there's the. 

Rich Bennett 20:17
But that's something I never understood. So if you're writing a book just to be satisfied. Yeah, well, you write in the manuscript, why publish it? 

Kristie Wolf 20:26
Well, you're writing it for your family, your friends, or it's yours. 

Rich Bennett 20:29
Yeah, you could. 

Kristie Wolf 20:30
You could you. 

Rich Bennett 20:31
Yourself. 

Kristie Wolf 20:32
If you have time. 

Rich Bennett 20:34
Well. 

Wendy Beck 20:35
Well. And that's again, we depends on what you what's important to you. 

Kristie Wolf 20:41
It's the difference between looking at it as a hobby or as a business. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 20:47
That's sort of like podcast, right. A lot of people do it for high, right? Some people do it for business. 

Kristie Wolf 20:51
I know a lot of authors who, you know, write their books and put them out there and they don't they don't have the time or the drive to market them on social media. And they are, you know, very happy with their reader base. You only need a small reader base and I'm you know, I can't wait for the day when I get an email from a reader saying, I love your book. When's the next one coming out? Right? And when someone says that to you, even if you only have since 50 dedicated readers, you're still going to write that next book. 

Rich Bennett 21:18
Did you register to be in the author's and artist show at the Armory in Bel Air? 

Kristie Wolf 21:25
I'm on the wait list. I found out about it too late. 

Wendy Beck 21:28
There's a when is that? 

Kristie Wolf 21:29
November 4th. 

Wendy Beck 21:31
So anybody can go. It's just yeah, it's. 

Kristie Wolf 21:34
A yeah, it's an hour off. Oh, it's it's an author's holiday holidays. It's like a sale type of thing. 

Rich Bennett 21:40
November 4th. I knew that date was going to go for some reason. 

Kristie Wolf 21:44
Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 21:45
I'm going to try to. 

Rich Bennett 21:46
Right. So since your husband's the tech guru at home, something that's been helping a lot of authors that you need to do, have him. Do you have a webcam on your computer? 

Kristie Wolf 21:58
I do. 

Rich Bennett 21:59
I do. You have a microphone? I do and have. 

Kristie Wolf 22:02
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 22:03
So you could do podcast. 

Kristie Wolf 22:06
I could. 

Rich Bennett 22:07
There's a lot of authors. This is how I get a lot of them all. But I have one young lady who wrote a book and she did what I call the podcast circuit. She went on through all these different podcasts throughout the world promoting her book, and her book is self-published and it exploded. 

Wendy Beck 22:25
Who was it? 

Rich Bennett 22:26
Oh, God. 

Wendy Beck 22:27
Did I meet her? 

Rich Bennett 22:28
No, no, no. This is what I recorded virtually. Okay. And then she released her second book. But she the good thing about it was the reviews and the sales just went through the roof. Yeah, because reviews are an important thing. 

Kristie Wolf 22:41
Absolutely. Really? 

Wendy Beck 22:42
Well, and I also realize, like, right now that that preorder is really important for authors as well. Have you heard about that? 

Kristie Wolf 22:51
Yeah, I'll have my pre-order link up two weeks before. 

Wendy Beck 22:55
Okay. Now can you give us like a little like, I don't know, like a back cover of the of the storyline or, you know, like give us a little. 

Kristie Wolf 23:04
Oh sure. 

Rich Bennett 23:05
Tell us, you know, tell us the story without. 

Wendy Beck 23:08
Without telling. 

Rich Bennett 23:08
Us with that. Yeah, without telling the story. 

Wendy Beck 23:12
So read the back of the book or whatever. You feel comfortable. 

Kristie Wolf 23:16
My hero thinks that he's too dangerous to love, and my heroine thinks that her only value is her brain. 

And so when the two of them come together and those two core wounds or the lies that they tell themselves have to be addressed, that's when the conflict starts. And so he's she. Is the. Scientific genius that helped turn him into the super soldier and everything. All the technology in his arm is networked with his brain. So it's cyber network type like technology. And so when the program that weaponizes him that runs him is hacked, she is responsible for solving who the enemy is. And they're they're thrown together. So it's an opposites attract romance and it's also forced proximity. So there's an element of the book that's forcing them to be together. And so because of his dangerous body, he's a human weapon, Right. And because of his his past, he that led him to losing his arm and becoming a human weapon. He thinks that he's too dangerous to love, like he thinks that he. Could kill her. By accident. And she thinks that because of her past, she thinks that the only reason that men need her or anybody is because of what is going on inside of her head, because of her genius gift. And he needs her to save the program. He needs her to save his life. And so there's those questions there. Like, I love her, but am I too dangerous for her? You know, I'm falling in love with him, but does he want me to stop him from. 

Wendy Beck 25:04
Setting like Washington, DC modern. 

Kristie Wolf 25:07
Day? Yeah. Yeah. And there's a little bit of sci fi to it because the technology that I described isn't quite there yet. 

Rich Bennett 25:13
Yet? Yeah. Yeah. 

Kristie Wolf 25:15
I've been told by sources in the United States military that it can be done well, but we as a country are not doing it. 

Wendy Beck 25:26
That's crazy. 

Rich Bennett 25:28
Oh I just had who has real, real life prosthetics on Arcade in Hartford County. Oh wow. It's amazing what they've been able to do with prosthetics, you know, compared to what it was like several years ago. And I had jokingly mentioned, oh, yeah, is anybody got any bionic ones yet? So. Oh, yeah, they're out there. 

Wendy Beck 25:50
Can we see the cover? 

Kristie Wolf 25:50
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:51
Well, no, the listeners can. 

Kristie Wolf 25:54
I can show you the cover. It's not, it's not being revealed until September 13th so. 

Rich Bennett 26:01
Oh well then you have to send me it so I could put it in the shirt. 

Kristie Wolf 26:04
Yes, yes. Like for me on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, big cover reveal coming up on September 13. 

Rich Bennett 26:10
So I going to see that guy with his shirt off. 

Kristie Wolf 26:13
I will show you. 

Wendy Beck 26:14
The cover of her dream. 

Kristie Wolf 26:15
So it really, really is. Oh, so I found my little blurb that I can share. 

Wendy Beck 26:19
Okay. 

Kristie Wolf 26:20
It is. He lost his arm to the enemy. The military gave him a weaponized one. Now he's stronger, deadlier, and much too dangerous to fall for the shy scientist who helped turn him into a super soldier, our problem is underneath the science. He's still all man. 

Rich Bennett 26:35
Like a mixture of Lee Majors from the $6 Million Man and RoboCop or something. 

Kristie Wolf 26:41
Yeah. So I have two covers. It's a thing now for authors to do two. Covers. There for romance authors. There's the traditional man chest, cover man, chest. That's what I said thing. Fabio Okay. And then there's the discreet cover, which doesn't have a man without a shirt on it. Okay? And so I thought I'd seen authors doing this on Instagram and TikTok, and I thought, like, that was for like, people who actually have readers, like, established authors. And my author Bestie was like, No, no, no, no. You need to do too. Like, it's a thing. And there are book collectors who, if they really like your book, they're going to buy both, even though the entire book is the same, except for the cover, they will buy both of your books. And I have actually did that the other day. My friend published a book and I loved both covers and I couldn't decide, so I bought them both. 

Wendy Beck 27:31
You bought both books? 

Kristie Wolf 27:32
I had already read the book. I you know. 

Wendy Beck 27:34
It's pretty interesting because I have seen I've actually purchased books where, like I saw the book and I was like, Oh, that's the book. And then I went to look for it and it didn't look the same because it had a different cover. So I didn't know if it was like another edition or something like that, or I don't. 

Rich Bennett 27:51
Even get knock off. 

Wendy Beck 27:52
Maybe. 

Kristie Wolf 27:53
And there are some authors who like big authors, if they're doing like a special signing or something, they'll do a special edition cover just for, Oh, I gotcha. 

Wendy Beck 28:01
All right. That's cool. 

Kristie Wolf 28:02
It is. I can't wait for everybody to see it. 

Wendy Beck 28:06
And what's his name? 

Rich Bennett 28:07
For those of you listening? Yes. She just showed Wendy the book cover. 

Kristie Wolf 28:12
So. 

Rich Bennett 28:13
I. Yeah, I'm sorry. It doesn't do. 

Kristie Wolf 28:14
Anything for me. Oh, that's. That is actually very cool. 

Wendy Beck 28:17
I love that. 

Kristie Wolf 28:18
My designer did a wonderful job. My name is Laura Hidalgo and she is out of Arizona. Spellbinding design. If anybody needs design, work done. 

Wendy Beck 28:26
That's amazing. 

Kristie Wolf 28:27
Sam. You know what? On my website, if you want her information. So when I back to when I got the idea for the book, I had seen that book by Michael Stokes of the photographs of the veteran amputees, and they're on the cover or inside of it. I don't remember which. There was a photo that was my favorite, and when I was looking for the cover for my book, like I had people tell me, like, it would be really great if you if you could get a veteran on the cover since your book is about veterans. And I had a I was like, Yeah, that would be amazing. So I asked my author, my author bestie, her name is really it. Her books are amazing. 

You know, I mention that to her. She goes, You she got a guy named Betty Fiorella and she said, he's a veteran amputee and he's a cover model. And so I looked him up and it was the same guy that I saw that was what. 

Wendy Beck 29:19
Is that really. 

Kristie Wolf 29:20
In that picture? So I contacted the photographer and I bought one of his exclusive photos. So I hope he doesn't mind that I turned him into a super soldier. While I don't. 

Wendy Beck 29:31
Think he would. 

Kristie Wolf 29:31
I don't think he would either, because that's pretty. 

Rich Bennett 29:33
Cool. Oh, you're going to have to send him a copy of the book. 

Kristie Wolf 29:35
Yeah. Tag, I will. Absolutely. I can't wait till this cover comes out. And so 

I want to talk a little bit about how I named my character. 

Rich Bennett 29:46
I was good. I wanted to ask you about that, how you came up with the names for the characters. 

Kristie Wolf 29:49
So my character's name is Christopher, called Chris Chris Davion, and he is named after a real life hero. His name was Christopher Charles Amoroso, and he was my friend from growing up from North Bergen, New Jersey, and my chosen family. I'm very close with his family. His sister was a bridesmaid at my wedding. 

Rich Bennett 30:11
Oh, wow. 

Kristie Wolf 30:12
And he was a Port Authority police officer. And on September 11th, he rescued two groups of people. He was injured and he went back in for a third when the second tower fell. And so he's my hero. And when I decided to write this book. There was no you know, there was no thought about who I would name my hero, after. All. 

Rich Bennett 30:31
Which is, wow. 

Kristie Wolf 30:33
Yeah, very powerful. 

Rich Bennett 30:35
And if you would have gone publishing, that's one of the things they may have done was change the name of the character. 

Kristie Wolf 30:38
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I that's something I would have thought for now. 

Rich Bennett 30:44
What about the heroine? 

Kristie Wolf 30:45
So her name originally was Charlene, and I called her Charlie in the book. Right. Because I love that nickname, because originally I wanted her to be like a tomboy and like her father called her Charlie growing up and just too because in the way the book is written now, she's an awkward, sheltered genius. She's attended boarding schools her whole life. Like she does not know how to act around anybody that is not in her scientific circle. So when she's thrown into this job where there are testosterone fueled Special Forces veterans, she's so out of her element. And then I had the book kind of evolved where she she wasn't like a tomboy. And but I still kept the name because I liked it. And then I had a friend tell me at my at a conference I went to she said, you need to change one of your names because they both start with. 

Wendy Beck 31:38
C, h. 

Rich Bennett 31:40
O. 

Kristie Wolf 31:41
And she said, readers will get confused. And then after that I found myself reading. And if there were characters that had similar names, even though I knew the difference in my head, I'm getting confused. And so now I keep a list of every character's name and make sure that I don't start anything with the same letter. And so I went from Charlene to Scarlett because in the book she wears a red dress that is it's a big part of the book, and it's a pivotal point for her. And so that's why I chose I chose the name Scarlett so I could play that off of the shy scientist with the sex game. 

Wendy Beck 32:15
So how how how many pages is the book? I mean, just curious, is it a is it. 

Rich Bennett 32:21
A it's a novel or a. 

Kristie Wolf 32:22
Novel? It's I mean, it's 75,000 words, which is 260 odd pages. Maybe that's all I don't know. My formatter told me the other day and I don't remember. It's funny when you ask an author, A, you know, about their work in progress how many pages it is, because we're we're doing it on word. We're like. 

Wendy Beck 32:39
Okay, I gotcha. 

Kristie Wolf 32:40
I don't know. Like we're always talking about word count. Like word counts a big thing. It's like, okay, I'm going to write a thousand words today. And we put on Facebook. I wrote 2000 words. Today, and then everybody responded saying, how much? Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 32:51
You getting the flow is. Yes. And loading was your goal. 

Kristie Wolf 32:54
We're very proud of ourselves. You know, we that word counts important. So page is not so much but word count so. 

Rich Bennett 33:02
Right. And you're using Microsoft Word. 

Kristie Wolf 33:04
Yeah I write and word. 

Rich Bennett 33:06
How many because there's you know some aspiring offers that listen authors offers authors that listen 

what when you're writing since you're using word how many different places do you back up to? 

Kristie Wolf 33:21
I back it up to the cloud, of course. 

Rich Bennett 33:24
And then try the most secure. 

Kristie Wolf 33:26
Yes. And then I always in the right before I start working, I changed the file name to the date. So today's date. And then if I do it again, I'll change it to a different version. So like on a given day, I might have August 30th version one, two or three and four, depending on how many times I went back into it. And then at the end of the day, I try to remember to email it to myself, which is a tip I got from a few friends there. And I take my laptop everywhere. I rarely leave it in my car. I'm just so paranoid about somebody taking my laptop or or dropping it because, I mean, I have I. Don't know how many words I have on there, you know? Yeah, novels are written and all my ideas and everything that I've started and my. Laptop comes with. Me everywhere because I'm a mom with kids who are involved in 12 different sports. And so I write at the rugby field and I write it swim team practice and I write in my car. When my daughter is at horseback riding, I have a desk, a lap desk for my car. I have I have a portable second screen. 

Wendy Beck 34:33
It's the it's the age where. 

Kristie Wolf 34:35
You work. 

Rich Bennett 34:35
Somewhere. You at least have a microsoft surface, something that's not very big. 

Kristie Wolf 34:40
Oh, no, it's a regular laptop, but it's not very big. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 34:43
Yeah, Yeah. See? Yep. Well, something's got, like, this huge muscle. That's why I. 

Kristie Wolf 34:48
Have a bad back. 

Rich Bennett 34:49
It's so. So when it came to writing the book, although I'm sure most of the research you already did because of your work in your husband's work, what the hardest part of the research. 

Kristie Wolf 35:05
Hmm. The hardest part is the hardest part of writing a book is figuring out the internal conflict. So once you figure out in in a romance, there needs to be a solid reason why those people can't be together. All right? If it can be solved over a cup of coffee, it's not. 

Wendy Beck 35:24
Strong. It's not a good right? 

Kristie Wolf 35:25
Yeah. And so once I figure that out, then everything else just kind of falls into place. And so what's hard is being like, okay, I just wrote a steamy scene and they just had the best sex of their lives. And I'm in the middle of the book. What is going to bring me through the rest of the book? Right? And so then I need some sort of external force that has to do with the external plot, like someone shoots a bullet through the window or the cabin is ambushed or they get an email, you know, from the enemy or something. And then I'm like, okay, that's what's going to interrupt that. And then that is what is going to make them think about the reasons why they can't be together and bring up their their core wounds. You know, like in like, let's go to Too Dangerous to love. My hero thinks he's too dangerous to land. 

Rich Bennett 36:14
So yeah. 

Kristie Wolf 36:16
So if something happens to make him think that he's putting her in danger, yeah, he's going to back off. Right? Right. Or if somebody says something that. That, you know, exacerbates whatever the characters lie that they're telling themselves they're going to back off. And then that's when I'm like, okay, now I have my reason. Now I have my bullet come in through the window. Now I'd be research what would actually happen when a bullet comes through the window. 

Rich Bennett 36:43
While somebody is having sex? 

Kristie Wolf 36:45
Exactly. Yeah. Now that that happens in this book, but I do have a book plan where that happens. 

And so, yeah, it's a lot of like what happens when somebody is shot to the chest or how long does it take somebody to bleed out? 

Wendy Beck 37:03
And that's all, you know, details that the reader wants to be able to believe. So you have to kind of take that seriously. 

Kristie Wolf 37:11
But in romance you only need a sentence or two because that's not why people are reading, right? Like, I got advice very in the very beginning, not let the technology not to let the the external conflict overtake the romance. Because in a romance novel, if I spend five pages know detailing everything about the shot coming through the window, people are going to put the book down. You know, they want to see how it how it affects the hero and the heroine. They want to hear from them. But you can get lost down rabbit holes. And so one of the big, you know, problems is just how much time I waste sometimes because, like, I'll write those five pages and then I'll be like too much. I need two paragraphs out of all of the research that I just did and everything that I wrote, but everything that I did and I wrote has made those two paragraphs good and it's made it cohesive. 

Rich Bennett 38:05
Well, no, that's not. I mean, what you didn't use, you may end up using for. Yes. Later on down the road or for like a second edition. Right. 

Kristie Wolf 38:15
I once watched that 3 hours worth of videos of a man chopping wood to describe my character, chopping wood, and how his body moved and how the axe moved. And I'm Googling. What sound does an axe make when it hits wood, oak. And little things like that. And another challenging thing is you do all this research and then everything you put in the book has to count. And so we call it the gun on the mantel. Like if you're watching a play and there's a gun sitting on the mantel, somebody needs to use that gun like. 

Wendy Beck 38:50
Why is it there? 

Kristie Wolf 38:51
Right, exactly. So if I put in some sort of detail and it doesn't come up again later. 

Wendy Beck 38:57
Yeah. Then what's the point? 

Kristie Wolf 38:59
Then? What's the point? And it's it's hard to keep track of all that. 

Rich Bennett 39:02
And people call you out on that. Oh yeah, we had it. 

Wendy Beck 39:06
I remember that was an author who did this. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 39:09
Talk about that because like right down to your wherever, wherever you're scene is at, you know, if you're using a real place and you say they're walking down the tar road, you know, tar cover grew. Well, no, there's cobblestone streets there. You write it. People will call. 

Wendy Beck 39:28
Details. Yeah, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 39:30
And I had to crack up because I think I didn't have anybody knocking on my door two separate episodes. So she thought we were talking about research. And she said for her one book because she writes the same type of stuff for her one book, she had to write or do research on. 

Wendy Beck 39:47
How to. 

Rich Bennett 39:48
Have it. 

Wendy Beck 39:48
Haven't had a bury a body variable, right? Like, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 39:52
What a Danny co-host with me sometimes. We had another author on from Scotland who was in Scotland or somewhere I came. But anyways, this woman also worked in the CIA. You know, she was local. She also worked in the CIA and she was all about different like how to kill somebody. Where's why are you all talking about this on my show? Yeah, they're going to be coming after me. Knock on my door. 

Wendy Beck 40:17
Well, it. 

Rich Bennett 40:17
Just it's just amazing the. 

Wendy Beck 40:19
Level of research that does go into it. It's not just someone sitting there and, like, just whipping out some a story. The details have to make it believable. And you. 

Rich Bennett 40:28
Know what? You're doing too well. 

Wendy Beck 40:29
Even like there's one who's the one author and he always does everything down in like the Outer Banks and stuff like that. Nicholas Sparks Yes. And so, you know, his detail in that area like kind of sucks you in because it's such a romantic kind of area. And, and it is very true to, you know, the story. So it is important and I don't think that, you know, if you're not a writer, which I'm like not a writer like that, you know, you don't think about all those details, you. 

Rich Bennett 40:57
Know, But that's what makes a book good, too. 

Kristie Wolf 40:59
Yeah. And then when your critique partners read them and they point those things out to you, they're like, All right, like, what is it? Morning? Is it afternoon? It's sunny. Is it cloudy? What does it smell like? Like getting those five senses in, you know, And you forget that like, you get so caught up sometimes you get hung up on one thing, like it smells like roses. And that's all that you think about. And you're writing all of these wonderful things about how it smells like roses. And then you get it back with the red ink from your friend going, Okay, but like, where are they? Yeah, you know, like women have this paragraph about roses, but I don't know until six paragraph graphs later that they're in her office. Yeah. You know, and so like, it's a lot of moving things around and making sure that the reader always knows what's going on because we call it being taken out of the story. As soon as a reader stops for whatever reason and they're taken out of that story, it's a reason for them to put the book down. 

Rich Bennett 41:57
Mm hmm. 

Kristie Wolf 41:58
And so that's like, you know, there's I read a lot of books and there's big words in them, words I've never heard of, and sometimes I can't figure them out from the context clues. And if I have to stop and think about what a word is or Google it, I'm not probably not picking that book. Right. Or I'm not picking it up for quite some time right now. 

Rich Bennett 42:18
You also going to be doing a audio version of the book eventually. 

Kristie Wolf 42:23
Okay. It's very expensive to produce your own audiobook. 

Wendy Beck 42:26
Yes. And because of the would you would you be the one who read it then? 

Kristie Wolf 42:31
God, no. 

Rich Bennett 42:32
I wouldn't be as expensive. 

Kristie Wolf 42:35
If I'm going to do it. I want to do it professionally and I want to do it well. And I've I've taken that approach with everybody. I've hired my editors and my cover designers. I bought an exclusive photo. And so that's where my budget's going. And I'll eventually get to audio book. But I have so many other books in me that I want to put out there. I have five other books for it, and so I want. To use my budget to get those books out to readers first. 

Rich Bennett 43:03
Wow. 

Wendy Beck 43:04
So fun. 

Kristie Wolf 43:05
Yeah, well. 

Wendy Beck 43:06
I love your passion. I do like she radiates when she talks about it. 

Kristie Wolf 43:12
And I keep forgetting. I mean, people can see me and I keep smiling. 

Wendy Beck 43:15
Well, that's good. That's good. Because I feel like that, you know, the energy, they can hear that energy. And also, like, even I'm not typically a sci fi fan. I mean, I wouldn't choose that. But the romance part makes it enticing. So like, I feel like it's something that I would I would want I want to read now from like, I don't know if I would have without talking to her, been like, Oh, yeah, that's not like, you know what I'm saying? I do like thriller stuff. Like I yeah. 

Kristie Wolf 43:44
There's a bit of thriller. 

Wendy Beck 43:45
Yeah. So I feel like that's, it's kind of has a lot to offer. 

Rich Bennett 43:49
I mean I the, yeah, I mentioned it before because the first time I tried to read a romance, whatever it was, nor is the trilogy because we spent the weekend at her. 

Kristie Wolf 44:03
Oh yeah. 

Rich Bennett 44:05
Oh yeah. 

Kristie Wolf 44:06
That is on my bucket list. So I hope to sign books at Nora's bookstore someday. Oh, because she's very supportive of local authors. 

Rich Bennett 44:13
Yeah, she is. 

Kristie Wolf 44:14
And that is where I'm staying. 

Rich Bennett 44:16
It's a nice place. 

Kristie Wolf 44:17
I can't wait. 

Rich Bennett 44:18
It's haunted, too, supposedly. 

Kristie Wolf 44:19
I know. I read the book. 

Rich Bennett 44:20
Yeah, I found that the last morning we were there was. I'm the only guy in the place and they're telling me about. Oh, I forget her name already. I want to say Jenny. 

Kristie Wolf 44:29
I forget to. Yeah. Is that the same as in the books, maybe? 

Rich Bennett 44:32
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Up in the library. 

Kristie Wolf 44:35
Uh huh. 

Rich Bennett 44:37
Because, I mean, if I would've known that, I would have gone into the library last night waiting for her. Like, really? You would see. Yeah. I want to talk to her, find out what's going on. Oh, well, who she waiting for? Because apparently she's waiting for her fiancee who was killed in Antietam in the Civil War. During the Civil. 

Kristie Wolf 44:55
War. Writes a lot about nobody does ghosts like Nora. 

Rich Bennett 44:58
Oh, you're going to love it there. 

Kristie Wolf 45:00
I can't. Wait. And I'm not going until I sign there. I've been to one of those signings at Nora's bookstore to support one of my equity partners before COVID, and I've seen the in from the outside. But I said, I'm not going inside. And so I'm a published author and I sign at Nora's store that is number one on my writer's bucket list. Okay. 

Wendy Beck 45:18
And that'll happen. 

Rich Bennett 45:19
It will happen there. 

Wendy Beck 45:21
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 45:21
I mean, it's nice. 

Wendy Beck 45:23
It sounds like it. 

Kristie Wolf 45:24
They speaking of like books that you wouldn't typically read, being an author and interacting with the reader and writing community has opened up my horizons to other types of books. Still romance. But I am in love with dark romance right now. Okay, some stuff where I question too. Any therapy because I'm reading this? Well, yes, I'm really dark stuff, but if it's written well, yeah, good. And fantasy romance. I can't get enough of Sarah Jane Moss and Jennifer Almond Child. And I'm so excited. That Hulu apparently is turning a cord of thorn and roses into a series you got to watch. Going to be amazing. 

Rich Bennett 46:07
Okay. Yeah. Books probably stacked up to the ceiling from authors that have sent me copies that I still haven't read yet. So it's a mixture of everything. 

Kristie Wolf 46:16
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 46:17
Yeah. I mean, it could be a self-help book. It could be, you know, romance, suspense, whatever to a vampire. It it, it varies. But with the writers conferences, what are some of the biggest things you took away from them? 

Kristie Wolf 46:34
Like I said earlier, the biggest thing I took away from is that you need your people. You need to make those connections. 

Rich Bennett 46:40
And you still go to them. 

Kristie Wolf 46:42
Yes, I went to the romance Writers of America conference last year. Every year it's in a different city. Yeah. And so it was in California this year, so I didn't go. There aren't that many. Like they're starting to come back. COVID was you know, tough. I went to a few virtual ones and but now I'm looking forward to going to like signing events. I'm going to one in Baltimore on May 4th called Dreaming Dirty in Baltimore at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. Oh, wow. How many books there? So I'm really excited about that. 

Rich Bennett 47:11
Nice. 

Kristie Wolf 47:12
I'll be at the coffee bar on Main Street on October 12th, the morning of my release from 9 to 2. Okay. Signing book in Bel-Air. In Bel-Air. Yep. Okay. On Main Street. But, you know, at every conference, it's a little different. When I went to the RWA conference this past last year, one of the the keynote speaker was an indie author by the name of Alex Liddell, and I'd never read her books. I do read them now, and she was fantastic. And she talked about her indie author, Journey, and afterwards she was wonderful. Like after, you know, whenever she had free time, she would just sit down at the table and she would invite authors to come and just talk to her. So I was telling her about my journey and I'm like, you know, I want to traditionally publish first and then I want to be a hybrid and I want to do some indie publishing. And I was telling her about my struggles getting there, and she looks at me and she goes, Why don't you just indie publish first? And I'm like, I don't know. 

Wendy Beck 48:10
I don't I because you have this, you know, pre-conceived, you know, path that you wanted to go down. 

Kristie Wolf 48:15
So that was a 32nd conversation. But that was the biggest thing that I took away from that conference was I can my thinking about things and I can do things differently. I don't want to stay on that set path, you know, And what I love about the conferences and, you know, like there's this woman up there who's making six figures a month in DC indie publishing. She's obviously good at what she does. She's the keynote speaker. But then you go into these other sessions and she's sitting right next to you furiously taking notes. 

Wendy Beck 48:44
Learning. 

Kristie Wolf 48:45
And so you keep learning. And that's what I love about it. Every, you know, people are the experts and they're up there on stage. But when they get off that stage, they're learning just like you are. Yeah. And so, you know, one conference, my biggest takeaway was I heard one of the presenters say if your character thinks it, they can say it. 

Rich Bennett 49:05
Oh. 

Kristie Wolf 49:06
And so I do that a lot. Like, I'll write my character thinking about something, but I'm like, Ooh, if they say it, that's going to start an argument. Yeah. Or that's going to make my heroine think about whatever's holding her back, right? And so I think about that all the time, and that was one sentence. And to me like going. 

Wendy Beck 49:24
That was 200. 

Kristie Wolf 49:25
Dollars to go to that conference was worth it. 

Rich Bennett 49:28
Huh? 

Wendy Beck 49:30
And everyone's going to get something different. 

Kristie Wolf 49:31
Exactly. Mm hmm. Yes. 

Wendy Beck 49:34
Duchess struck a nerve with you, and that's paid off, so. That's awesome. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:38
Who was the first one to read your manuscript besides you? Of course. 

Kristie Wolf 49:42
My mom. 

Rich Bennett 49:42
Your mom? Okay. What did she say? 

Kristie Wolf 49:45
She liked it. Well, the first. The first book I ever wrote when I was 25, she read it and she goes, I've read worse, I've read better. And I was like, okay, like, that's honest. Like, thank you. I appreciate that. And then there a character in my book, and he talks about his wife and the wife that he talks about is, is my mom. And she said she said it made her cry. So that made me happy. But she reads everything I write. I also have my cousin Tammy and Tammy is an amazing proofreader. I'm horrible at proofreading because after like you, my mind just says what I right. Write like, yeah, like I read the sentence and I'm reading it as I want it to be. Not exactly what's on paper after you've looked at this 86,000 times. And so Tammy is one of my first people to read my book because she'll fix all of my typos and things like that. And then the other people that read it are my critique partners, and they read it as I'm writing it. 

Rich Bennett 50:43
I actually had an author talk because she uses a word and she told me that read aloud. 

Kristie Wolf 50:49
Oh, read aloud has changed my life. Oh, yes. 

Rich Bennett 50:53
I love it, because it's it makes a big difference when you're hearing it. 

Kristie Wolf 50:58
You hear it. You. 

Rich Bennett 51:00
Then you reading it yourself. 

Kristie Wolf 51:02
Yeah. I mean, it. 

Rich Bennett 51:03
Taught me a lot. 

Kristie Wolf 51:04
Even just printing it out. You look at it from a different perspective than when you're reading it. Like I can find other things. And then sometimes I have to just change my mindset. Like the last read through that. I went over this book before I sent it to my marketing company to send to my team, and our team is advance reader copy. So these are people that get the book early in exchange for leaving a review. I had a like be detached when I read it. Like I couldn't think about plot, I couldn't think about character. I just had to really focus on those words like I couldn't take in any emotion, anything like that. Like and then once I started getting into the story again, I was reading too fast and I had to backtrack. And that really felt like work. Like I did not enjoy doing that right? 

Rich Bennett 51:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Kristie Wolf 51:56
Yeah. And I'll have friendships. I You're a cop is there, like, let me know of any typos and I'll finish the book. And I'm like. Wow, there might have been typos. I then I was like, Oh, wasn't that right? I didn't even read it right. 

Rich Bennett 52:08
It's hard to do. I've got a couple copies of them. It's like and they'll author contact me afterwards. You like Well, did you find anything wrong? So, no, no, I really mean it. You don't. Because when you're reading something, it could be misspelled, but it's in your mind right away to just write. 

Kristie Wolf 52:25
And if you're enjoying it, you want to get to that. You know, you want to get to the next part. And I'm losing sleep over typos, like I'm having nightmares about there being typos and things wrong with the book. When it goes out there. 

Rich Bennett 52:38
Just make sure you don't have the bullet hit him in the ass during the sex scene, because that could really ruin everything. 

Look. Si, si, si, si. That's for you. All right. What about a bionic hip? 

Kristie Wolf 52:52
What about if a villain gets hit in the ass while he's having sex? All right, that's fine. That's. 

Rich Bennett 52:57
That's okay. Tell everybody the name of the book again. 

Kristie Wolf 53:00
Too dangerous to love. Project Viper Series, Book one. 

Rich Bennett 53:04
And what's the website? 

Kristie Wolf 53:05
Christy Wolfe dot com k r i s t i e awol f dotcom c. 

Rich Bennett 53:12
Good thing you said i e and not y. Yeah. And because I'm. 

Wendy Beck 53:17
Excited. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to follow you on this journey because I think it's really interesting and I love the passion and I think it's, I think it sounds like a great book. Thanks. I really do I think it's fascinating. 

Rich Bennett 53:28
Is it is it giving you encouragement to go start writing again? 

Wendy Beck 53:32
I don't know. 

Kristie Wolf 53:34
It sounds like a lot of work. 

It's a labor of love. 

Wendy Beck 53:38
Yes, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 53:39
Yeah. Just just do it. 

Wendy Beck 53:42
Yes. 

Kristie Wolf 53:43
And after. 

Rich Bennett 53:43
The bingo. 

Kristie Wolf 53:44
On my website, you can sign up for my newsletter. And so in the coming weeks, I will be revealing my cover. And so my my newsletter subscribers will see that first. 

Wendy Beck 53:56
Freebie will be to sign and. 

Kristie Wolf 53:58
Stuff. Yep. And I'm it's not up yet. I need to send my web designer a note today, but I'm going to add an events page where I'll be signing and there'll be some Facebook parties that I'll be taking part in. Which are quite interesting. Facebook part. Yeah. So it's a time when I'm on Facebook, I invite followers or whoever to come and interact with them. 

Rich Bennett 54:21
Virtual. Virtual, Yes. Okay. 

Kristie Wolf 54:23
And so I may or may not be like live. 

Wendy Beck 54:26
Liz Gilbert, Elizabeth Gilbert. And she does show. So come on live and yes. And then do a book review or whatever, you know, So is that what you mean? 

Kristie Wolf 54:36
Yes. And I will typically do a giveaway, like I'll give away a book or I'll give away some sort of like merchandise with my logo on it or something like that. You know, I might ask a question like. You know, if any paranormal creature could be real, who would you prefer? Vampires, witches or werewolves. You know? And so, like, the first person to respond or like, you know, if you respond, I'll randomly pick a winner to that. Anyway, I my choice is vampires. 

Wendy Beck 55:02
And we can say, Well, witches are already real, so. 

Kristie Wolf 55:05
Right. 

Rich Bennett 55:06
I know I'd say werewolf because I'm going to shave him and steal some of his hair. Put it on my head. 

Kristie Wolf 55:11
But think of romance. Readers pointed out when available. Oh yeah. 

Rich Bennett 55:16
From my point of view, definitely a witch. 

Kristie Wolf 55:18
When a vampire bites you, he gives you an orgasm. 

Rich Bennett 55:22
Boy. 

Kristie Wolf 55:23
And the books I read. 

Rich Bennett 55:25
Really? No wonder Dracula has for many women. 

Kristie Wolf 55:29
One of my favorite authors, Rebecca Zanetti. Her vampires give you an orgasm when they bite you and her wit her male witches burn your clothes off. Ooh. 

So this whole question about who would you rather be with? A vampire or a witch? Like it's a hot debate. 

Rich Bennett 55:49
Demon would become a male witch. Vampire. 

Kristie Wolf 55:56
And also on my website are all my social links. So Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. So go ahead and follow me. Be patient with me on TikTok. I'm still learning. 

Wendy Beck 56:08
I will definitely I will definitely follow. 

Kristie Wolf 56:10
Rich is still astounded by this whole vampire. 

Rich Bennett 56:13
Yeah, I've never heard that. I. Wow. 

Wendy Beck 56:17
Well, I mean, I guess that's the 

vampire's superpower, I guess, for that writer. 

Kristie Wolf 56:25
Yes, somewhat. Sort of. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 56:28
I don't know. 

Kristie Wolf 56:29
I'm, you know, kind. Of like the whole mating thing. Yeah. Whenever it's very small, the whole to very dear connection. 

Wendy Beck 56:34
Yes. You saw the whole Twilight series, didn't you. Which I think is fabulous. 

Kristie Wolf 56:39
But I wonder. 

Rich Bennett 56:40
I wouldn't watch Twilight. Good night. What was it you had all these characters on there that my daughter liked? 

Kristie Wolf 56:47
It's good. I like it. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 56:50
So? Well, it was a pleasure. I am excited to read this. 

Rich Bennett 56:58
Are you sure about the fan? I never heard that. 

Kristie Wolf 57:01
You know, I would love to see firsthand experience like, but maybe someday. 

Wendy Beck 57:09
I guess it all depends on who the writer is. 

Kristie Wolf 57:11
It depends on who the writer is. You know, like in Rebecca Zanetti series, vampires can go out in the light. They don't turn people into vampires. It's just like in your DNA. And they're good guys. They're. They're like, defending the world from, you know, the demons. And the demons are not necessarily bad. The demons are pretty hot, too, because there's good demons and bad demons. And J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series, which I highly recommend her vampires are more traditional. They they can't go out at night and they're fighting a group of evil people called the Lessers, and they're protecting the world from that. And so, you know, and I love seeing how authors do their own certain spin on the vampire or on a demon or on a witch, because they just take a little nuances of what we think that we know or what you know, Laura says. But they twisted a little bit to make it their own.