Johnny B. Truant joins us to talk about the journey of getting a story picked up by a network and adapting his Fat Vampire books into the TV series Reginald the Vampire.
Johnny B. Truant is a bestselling, full-time author with over 100 books to his name. Today we'll discuss what it's like having one of your books (in Johnny's case, Fat Vampire) adapted for TV (Reginald the Vampire) by the SyFy Network. We'll also discuss the work Johnny's done -- such as his popular book, Write. Publish. Repeat. -- to help newer writers become more successful authors and publishers. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//
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Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:02]:
We are live. Thank you for tuning in to Self Publishing Insiders with Draft2Digital. And today we have a guest, I don't even know how to refer to you, Johnny longtime friend, acquaintance. I don't even know where we fall anymore. But you were friends.
Johnny B. Truant [00:00:19]:
Of course we're friends.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:21]:
You guys, you and the rest of the self publishing podcast guys. That was the early days and we go back to those days. You were very inspirational and influential in my career and the career of many other self published authors. So first, before we do anything, thank you for that.
Johnny B. Truant [00:00:45]:
Well, I mean, you realize how long ago that's been because our podcast was called the Self Publishing Podcast. Like that's getting the one word domain name or something. It's crazy.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:56]:
Yeah, it's nuts. And there was so much that was going on at that time. It was Wild West days, but even back then you had already written Fat Vampire by the time I discovered the show.
Johnny B. Truant [00:01:09]:
Well, that was very early on. So yeah, I don't know when you discovered it, but yeah, that was early days.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:14]:
Pretty early days, yeah. Was it a series yet? At that point I thought it started as like a standalone.
Johnny B. Truant [00:01:20]:
It was originally a standalone and the only I don't know if you want me to go into this whole thing.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:24]:
But oh yeah, we're going in short.
Johnny B. Truant [00:01:26]:
And so I figured I could just whip that out and then when people wanted a sequel, I was like, well now what? Now it gets hard again.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:32]:
Yeah. Okay, let's loop back just a second. 1st thing we want to talk about. First of all, the book is called Fat Vampire. But it's been adapted into a series on Sci-fi called Reginald the Vampire. I have read your blog post and I loved it. That was a great post. If you have not read it, by the way, anyone watching or listening, I'm going to drop a link to it in the comments and you can feel free to go peruse that. No real spoilers or anything. But let's talk a little bit first about you mentioned this in the post, but let's talk first. Why the name change? What happened?
Johnny B. Truant [00:02:13]:
Well, first of all, I should mention if you're audio and you can't it's Johnnybtruent.com, you'll find it for the post. Yeah, I did a whole write up. I was like, because I'd never seen anything like that before and so many people had asked. But the reason and I do cover this in there is I'm going to admit I'm friends with all the people in the production and they've been very gracious and letting me stay involved. That said, I don't like the name change. I think it's a mistake, honestly. I get why they did it, which I don't have inside information, but my guess is they felt that it was just, I don't know, they were worried about being canceled or something. They thought maybe that it was body shaming. And it's supposed to be ironic. It's supposed to be that the slim and pretty vampire nation, which is too good for itself, those are the people who dismiss him as a fat vampire. But it was somebody up the chain between me and the small pool of people that I was working with originally and the top NBC brass, someone in there made that decision. And it was originally a temporary name. And I and some others were kind of like, is there anything we can do about that? Because, man, do you lose a lot of immediate curiosity, like the curiosity factor of it with Reginald the Vampire, but I think it got name share. I think people got used to calling it Reginald the Vampire and they were like, let's just call it Reginald. So that's the only major issue I have with it. And even that, it's like, well, whatever.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:03:42]:
I mean, it could have been worse. It could have been like a vampire experiencing fatness would be the equivalent.
Johnny B. Truant [00:03:49]:
Yeah, that would be really bad. And at least Reginald is enough of a quirky name that it doesn't usually it's like Sven the Vampire. Honestly, though, I'm kind of treading on Build a Vampire. Right? Isn't that the other series that I think it's called Build a Vampire, where it's like, well, that's a weird name for a vampire.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:04:12]:
It's interesting to me, though, I actually feel like there's an advantage in having a different name because it sort of creates two different properties, in a way.
Johnny B. Truant [00:04:23]:
Yeah, I suppose I would have liked the direct line, just personally, just selfishly. But in the opening credits of the show, it doesn't just say, based on the novels by Johnny B. Truant is based on the fat vampire series of novels. So they do at least make that connection for me.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:04:38]:
Good. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the origins of this because according to your post, this just sort of magically happened, which is irritating to those of us who have. I've had options on some of my work before. Go as far as yours has is pretty impressive.
Johnny B. Truant [00:04:57]:
Well, there's certainly an amount of luck. I mean, I'm stepping on you. I assume you're going to say, well, tell us the story of how it.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:05:04]:
Tell us the story. Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant [00:05:05]:
Okay.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:05:06]:
You're showing out.
Johnny B. Truant [00:05:07]:
Yeah, because the reason I said that, I don't know if I use those words, but it did have a magic feel to it. And not just the initial contact, the initial option, but every step along the way has kind of felt strangely inevitable. And it's weird because I've been in the opposite position many of times where you're like, it's frustrating to those of us who that hasn't happened, where I'm like, I have the exact same reaction to something else. What the hell? Why is that so easy? And that my thing, is not, by the way, am I allowed to swear on here. I don't know if I'm allowed to.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:05:43]:
You know, it's never come up. I'll be good. Let's make this a family friendly I'll.
Johnny B. Truant [00:05:48]:
Be good, let's make it list fun for the whole family. Well, first of all, it came to me out of the blue, so anybody who's ever had any inquiry about an option or an option, we know that those things do happen. They don't happen constantly, but they do happen. And an option is, first of all, enthusiasm is free. So interest prior to an option is just nice, but just kind of garbage attention. And then the actual option is nice because you get a little bit of money and you get a little bit of confidence in somebody believes that what you're doing is worth doing. But that is a placeholder that's a way of saying, I'm just putting my finger on this so that you other producers can't take it. But there was an inevitability to it that I only look back and I go, wow, that was weird that there was an inevitability. It was weird that it always marched forward with the assumption that it was truly going to be made and that they encountered obstacles. I mean, not the least of which was COVID, but it always marched forward. And I think the reason is because Harley Payton and Jeremiah Chechek, the two people who approached me initially, it's like they were looking specifically for a project for them to do going forward. And that's true of all producers. But since these guys are smaller and it was like their baby in a way that if you had adoptioned by DreamWorks, it might just be one of a billion things that they're doing. And so from the start and they told me this initially, that they were looking for something, that they were going to give their best to go all the way, which meant that if it didn't work, it was just as bad for them as it was for me, whereas that's not always the case.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:07:34]:
So once you kind of got that initial call and things started rolling, did you do anything to help nudge things from option to production?
Johnny B. Truant [00:07:44]:
No, I sat back, I said, Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I'm always available. I didn't want to butt in excessively, but I didn't need to either, because not only did it happen without a lot of my push behind it, it happened at what I understand to be a pretty fast pace for Hollywood. Now, for those of self publishing, hollywood time is glacial. It's like, Come on, guys, let's go. But it progressed steadily forward and so there weren't huge periods of time where I was like, well, maybe I could be doing something, maybe I could be promoting it. So, no, I just let it happen.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:08:24]:
Yeah, and you talked about all of that. I will say that from my perspective, I've done some work I did some work in La. And I worked in film and TV for a while and I know how tedious and slow that process can be. They actually gave you quite a bit of trust over the entire span of the production, like inviting you in. You mentioned in your post that you were kind of invited in that virtual writers room. They asked you for feedback from time to time. That's just unheard of, honestly.
Johnny B. Truant [00:09:00]:
Well, yeah, I can give a little bit of background on that. I think part of it is that we got to know each other ahead of time. Now, let's be honest, if I had hated these guys and they wanted to make my show, I probably would have, right. I wouldn't have resisted. Right. I would have been like, you guys suck. But I did like them. And that did factor in. I mean, I didn't want to end up with a product that I hated and I don't. I felt that they would take care of it. And so by the time we got that far, we had already had a little bit of back and forth. So one of the things that I mentioned was Harley mentioned to me just off the cuff when we were talking once about he told a story about well, no, he kind of hesitantly said, well, I am thinking about maybe changing some things. And just something about the way that he said it made me go, okay, this isn't just an idle thing. Like he's walking on eggshells to see how I react. And I basically said, I don't really care what you change. It's your product now. I understand that. And so I think that those sorts of interactions were what made them say, okay, maybe it's okay to let him in. And just to be clear, when I was invited into the writers room, at any point they could have said, shut up. They could have kicked me out. The only thing that they did that was really and truly, like, irreversible, if I had screwed it up, was Comic Con when I moderated the panel. But by then I had kind of proven myself to be either not a jerk who was going to screw something up or a really good con man.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:10:34]:
Which is six of one, really. You talk about that and I think we should zero in on that because I think this is a component of this that a lot of authors, especially indie authors, should think about and consider, which is you kind of went to bat for yourself, marketing yourself as someone who could promote this. You want to talk about that a little bit?
Johnny B. Truant [00:11:00]:
Yeah. The people who are watching this, I don't know if I'm going to hit the ball, if I'm going to hit this like the target squarely on this. But my impression is that most authors tend to be more introverted than extroverted. Right. And advocating for yourself requires at least a certain amount of extroversion. And so I just kind of I just kind of kept trying to find that line of, like, advancing and saying, I can help, I can help. But I think they were so unused to that that they kind of didn't know what to do with it. So there was a lot of put me in front of press me on interviews that was either not part of the plan and they already had the plan, so they just kind of moved on, or they specifically thought, yeah, no, that's not going to happen. But finding that line of trying to make myself available to help whenever I could, as opposed to insisting that I'd be available or really trying to butt in. Like, I tried to walk that line in a very fine way, and every time they would give me an inch, then I saw that as an opportunity to make good on it, to prove like, okay, you gave me this much. Now let me show you that I can be responsible and I cannot be a jerk. But I do run down in the article that's on my site about trying to get them to send me on press junkets or whatever and them kind of saying, thank you, but not really. But my persistence has almost been like there's this gag in Friends where Monica says she was scrappy and she managed to get back in Phoebe's life because she was scrappy. And that's kind of the way I felt that I just kind of kept persisting without, again, hopefully being obnoxious. And so that has let they have given me some leeway. I don't know that I know I can I think I can talk about this. So one of the things I'm doing this is flashing forward in time, but I am doing a companion podcast for the show. And that happened because I just kept saying, look, guys, I've done podcasts. Here's some interviews. I'm reasonably good at speaking to people. And by then they had seen enough that they were like, okay, yeah, let's go do it.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:13:19]:
Yeah. I don't think that that world is necessarily up to speed on our world. I don't think they're versed in what we do because any interaction I've had with that crowd, they're surprised at the volume of things that we create and.
Johnny B. Truant [00:13:39]:
The speed at which we move. Despite my best efforts to be cool and not be up in everyone's face, I'm probably a little more up in everyone's face per their standards than they're used to because there have been a lot of initiatives where they're willing, but I'm just shocked at how long it takes. And so I keep, okay, I can do it. When I was originally pitching this podcast idea, I wanted to get it launched before Reginald the Vampire showed up on Hulu. That didn't end up happening. But a lot of the pushback I was getting was, you don't have time to do that? Well, I did it in a day. I'm just saying, like, I launched the podcast, I launched a website to support the podcast, I recorded an Episode zero, just a three minute introduction, created the show, did all like it's, it was launched within a day. And I think that that world isn't used to the speed. I think some of them are a little afraid of the speed because it is a conservative industry. It's an industry that likes to bank on sure bets. It doesn't really like to take chances, and there's a lot of corporate I got to get sign off on this and sign off on that. And so, yeah, we weird indies who aren't like the traditional authors they're expecting, but these weird, hybrid entrepreneur artists, I don't think they know what to do with us.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:15:02]:
Yeah, I think you're right, because when they talk about a podcast, I've run into this with inviting guests on the various shows that I host. You'll get occasionally a PR rep or somebody will say, john Grisham doesn't have time to fly to Austin and do that podcast with you. I don't need him to do that. I just need him to turn on his laptop on a given Thursday and we'll just chat. So, yeah, it's a whole different ballgame. I think your approach, by the way, the whole play it cool thing, I think that probably benefited you quite a bit. Right. Because you weren't being pushy. Were there limits on what you could you have gone out on your own and done interviews and things regarding the book and the show?
Johnny B. Truant [00:15:47]:
Yeah, I'm sure I could have. I don't have the contacts, I'm not going to get to Variety on my own, that sort of thing. So I could do the podcast rounds. Yeah, I could do I mean, we're talking right now, right?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:01]:
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant [00:16:01]:
So, you know, I could do that, but, you know, there's a limit to what I can do. But there was no gag or anything. I wouldn't have wanted to talk about anything that normal social decorum would have prevented me, anyway, from talking about, like, let me tell you about this thing that we were talking about when we were behind the scenes. No, that's private, that's privileged. But anything other than that, it's all good.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:24]:
Yeah. Are there limits on the sorts of things you can talk about? Like, with the podcast that's coming up, do you have to get that stuff vetted?
Johnny B. Truant [00:16:35]:
I don't think so. Just for reasons of well, you just never know. I don't want to really talk about the specifics of the deal, but I do, I'll talk with you about it later. Right, exactly. But basically, it's my show. I mean, anybody can do a fan podcast. I could do a Breaking Bad podcast if I wanted.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:58]:
You just happen to have more inside knowledge, which I don't know if they're worried about that sort of thing.
Johnny B. Truant [00:17:07]:
I hope they're not by now because we've all known each other for a couple of years at this point and I've made some friends there. The production has been I'm assured that they're a unicorn. Like I've heard that most productions are not this way, but I love everybody I've talked to. Like, I haven't run into anybody who's been a jerk and I've tried to make myself helpful rather than obnoxious, which I think kind of proves even when I was on set, I spent my time I was a guest and so I could just sit there and kind of be like, when's lunch? Give me lunch. But instead I was trying to do things like, hey, do you want coffee? Do you want coffee? I'll go get them for you. I think that they've let me off the leash to some degree and just kind of trusted that I will do it right. But also the companion podcast isn't just going to be me, it's going to be me and the people on the show and the producers and stuff. So they have their own limits. And I imagine that if I'm talking to Jacob Babylon and he's like, well, maybe we shouldn't talk about that, then I go, okay, you're right, but I don't think that's going to happen.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:18:10]:
That's cool though, and that's very exciting and I want to know if it is already and I want to see if it does even more. So. But how much of an impact has all this had on the sales of the book?
Johnny B. Truant [00:18:25]:
Yeah, you know, I wish it was more. I don't know if it's because people just kind of read a little less now. I mean, I think we all know that as authors it's just a little harder. I think we're talking about a media transfer. So the people who are watching a show aren't necessarily automatically going to go and read the books. But I also think that it's kind of a groundswell thing. You probably have heard this, I'll be curious to see if I'm right about this, but since you're drafted digital and just your own stuff, I have heard a few times and have found from my experience that the fourth book is when you if you're going to get critical mass, that's when you get it.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:19:02]:
You get it after book your stride. Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant [00:19:04]:
And so I wonder if it's the same sort of thing that it just kind of needs to be out there in the Zeitgeist. I mean, Song of Ice and Fire. Is that what Game of Thrones was? Yeah, I mean, that was already huge. But some other things that have I can't think of any examples, but there are other things where the project has been huge and then the books follow. But I'm just curious if that's taken several seasons. There's been an uptick at Sterling and Stone. We're kind of acting as like a weird hybrid indie. So we're in indie technically, but we're big enough and we're operating in such a ways we might as well be a traditional house. And one of the things that we're doing then is it's kind of about image and brand. So normally as indies, we would sell at so Fat Vampires is small, it's 35,000 words. I would normally either make that free as a loss leader into the series or we would make it 299.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:20:03]:
Right?
Johnny B. Truant [00:20:04]:
And I think it's 599. And then accordingly, the other books get bigger and so the entire box set is I think 22 99, which in some ways is shooting ourselves in the foot because we would make more money at 999 because it's a 70% on Amazon instead of the 30%. But it's an appearance thing. So I guess all of that is to say that people are buying it. They're probably buying it at a slightly higher rate than they normally would, but they're buying it at higher prices. So that to me feels like at least a confidence win. But no, I haven't seen it take off yet and believe me, I've been watching and I've tried to tell myself, dude, stop looking every second because you're just going to be disappointed.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:20:50]:
Yeah, and again, it's a different product in a different market and it's okay that one does better than the other. You just have to kind of come to grips with that. Hold on, I'm sorry, I have a question has popped up, if you don't mind. Let's pop.
Johnny B. Truant [00:21:09]:
Yeah, I don't see the question, so I was wondering if anything all right.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:21:13]:
And by the way, everyone who is watching live, drop your questions in the comments and we'll see we can get to them. So how did you handle the contract money? Do you have an agentlawyer or did you do it yourself on your own?
Johnny B. Truant [00:21:27]:
I added that I did it myself on my own with a lawyer, but not an agent. So I don't have a manager. Sterling and Stone does have a team of managers, but this predated them and we don't have an agent either. And I don't have an agent. So I had a lawyer who actually, I'm remembering now, this lawyer was introduced to me. I was introduced to the lawyer. I was given the contact information for a lawyer from somebody who attended one of the Smart Artists summits. So that was kind of cool. It was somebody who had had something optioned and he said, hey, I have a Hollywood lawyer. And you kind of need that. You need people who understand what options typically are. It can't just be a normal contract lawyer. So yes, I would never ever have done this without a lawyer. But what was kind of cool was that my lawyer advised me, okay, here's how the contract should be structured. And I won't talk specifics for obvious reasons, but in general, the way that a lot of these contracts are written, at least mine was is what you're going to get at each stage of the process is in the initial contract. So it's not like we do an option and then the option goes and they say, okay, we want to buy the rights. Here's a new contract with new terms that we need to negotiate. Like, I knew from that initial contract what I would get for any option periods, what I would get for the rights, purchase what, if anything, I would get out of any back end or merch or whatever. I don't even remember those details. But all of the things, the ways that I stood to make money and what rights I was signing over were all in that initial contract. And so she was able to help me kind of parse that and understand it, but also get what was like. Right. And there were times when she said, ask for this, they'll offer this, and you'll settle in the middle. And that was exactly what happened. And I don't think this broach is anything just to be complimentary. I talked through after I sent the contract to Jeremiah. Jeremiah Chechek was one of the initial partners, not NBC, but his company is Modern Story with Harley, who initially bought it. And he helped me out. He was like, okay, so you can probably nudge this up or remove this, but substitute this. And they were all things that like, looking back a few years, I'm like, no, that was genuine. He wasn't BSing me. Those were things that legitimately were in my favor. So another vote for the team being awesome.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:23:51]:
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that's necessarily unusual. I mean, I think depending on who you're working with, you'll get good advice. It's just those folks who are out, if their primary interest is, you should take this deal, because it benefits me. That's when you're going to get sideways on things. Right? Okay. I don't know if you know this story or not, but the book and film Bonfire, the Vanities, that book was like a number one bestseller for like a decade before they made the film. And then the film tanked its success. And I want to know if you're at all worried about something like that happening in this situation.
Johnny B. Truant [00:24:36]:
No, I'm not for a few reasons. Number one, the book has been successful. I actually have a little make sure I get back on track because I'm going to tell a side story and.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:24:44]:
Then probably you tell us whatever. Side story?
Johnny B. Truant [00:24:46]:
Yeah, what I was talking about vampire. This is kind of like so your implied question early on was kind of, how does this happen? And the big thing that I say at the beginning is that it was everywhere. Right? So your book has a life independent of you. By the time this was kind of by the time somebody picked it out of the crowd, it had been out for seven, eight years. And it had been free for a lot of that time. I'd run a bunch of BookBub promotions and stuff. And as authors, we don't know the spread of our book. We might know the raw download numbers, but when I started googling for it and immediately backed off because I don't like it when I run into things where people don't like me. So I just kind of like, looked for some good stuff, but there were like reddit threads discussing I read that book when I was a kid, and I'm like, when you were a kid? But it's these people who they're in their twenty s and so they were a kid when they read it. And so the story I was going to tell is that Sean and Neve, who run Sterling and Stone now, were in a meeting with a producer. They do a lot of general meetings where they're just kind of meeting people from various production companies and they do a lot of those. And they were talking to a producer, and it was somebody substantial, I don't remember who. And they mentioned that they worked with Johnny Betruant and that his book, Fat Vampire whatever. And the guy goes, Hold on. And like you, he had bookshelves behind him, but they were right behind him. And he turns around and he pulls a hard copy of Fat Vampire goes, I mean, this guy. So that sort of thing was just out there. Anyway, my point is that the book has a certain amount of popularity to begin with, but it wasn't Bonfire the Vanities, so it's kind of like my standards as far as tanking that book are like it would be hard to tank it just because it wasn't a spectacular thing. And second, I like the show. I mean, is it something that I would probably have picked out if I had no association to it? Probably not. It's a little younger audience on purpose. Like it had to mold around Jacob, who is in his twenty s. And so it has a younger vibe, but it doesn't feel like Riverdale, which I do not like, and I would have been really disappointed if it had been like Riverdale. And I do genuinely like it. And the Rotten Tomato score is above 70%, so knock on wood, I don't feel like that's going to happen.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:27:11]:
I mean, you have Ned Leeds from Spider Man as one of your characters. I mean, that's the guy in the chair.
Johnny B. Truant [00:27:18]:
The guy in the chair. And that comes up all the time, the guy in the chair. He's such a sweetheart. I've been told that the star sets the tone for the entire production. And Jacob is just so he's exactly what you would think. He's very, very nice, very open. He doesn't hide in his trailer, at least when I was there. He doesn't sit around and be on his phone. He just talks to the people.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:27:39]:
Has he read the books? I'm. Assuming he has.
Johnny B. Truant [00:27:42]:
Yeah, everybody read the first book at least. And they're probably reading the second book now because they're shooting season two now.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:27:48]:
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant [00:27:49]:
And I was told so if you've seen the show, I'm going to give a minor spoiler. So plug your ears if you don't want to hear it. But angels become important to the story. And there were angels introduced in the first episode. And the fact this comes up in episode two, so it is a spoiler, but for episode two that Reginald can glamour other vampires, those two things, especially the glamouring, did not appear until later in the series. And so I actually called Harley and I said, hey, I'm curious if you only read I said, did you read the whole series? Because you're pulling these items forward? And he said, no, we have series historian. So there's somebody whose job it was to go through, read all the things and note them all. And he said, I actually don't want to read them in advance because I don't want it to bias it too much. So he's read the second book. I don't know that he's read the third.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:28:41]:
Johnny, that could be. The thing that impresses me most about your entire experience is that there's an actual dedicated person who is the serious historian.
Johnny B. Truant [00:28:49]:
Historian, yeah. If you want to talk about in that same vein, that same feel of like, oh, my God, there's a serious historian going to the set and something about the epiphany of not just the set, but the offices and going, there are like several hundred people, and they made a little business about my book. There are these people whose full time job, their livelihood right now depends on creating this thing about my book. It's nutty.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:29:18]:
Yeah. You were writing about being there, and you happen to be there for the opening scene, which is interesting. And hearing your words come out of actors mouths is always a trip. How much have they deviated? I mean, fairly? Is it closed?
Johnny B. Truant [00:29:39]:
I have two answers to that. They deviated a lot and a little. Those are the two answers. The first episode, if you allow for the things that had to go with the demographic. So, again, Jacob is, I think, 26, and so his love interest had to be around the same age. His business had to make sense. Like, I had a guy work in office space in an office that makes a little less sense for somebody in their mid 20s. So they made it in a slushy shack, which necessitated more young people. And so if you allow for those changes, the first episode is actually very much like the first act of the book. Like, it's very close. And they even kept things like so that scene I was referring to is the scene that opens the book. It doesn't open the TV series, but it does open the book is where Reginald is making this like prayer to an unseen God about why did he get such a raw deal in life. And so all of that stuff was very, very similar. As I went on, though, I was really curious because my book, again, it's like 25 no, I think it's 35,000 words. And so it's basically a novella. And if you were to read it from start to finish, it would probably be a four hour audiobook. And they had 10 hours to fill in season one. And so I immediately thought, well, there's got to they're going to have to do something. And so there's a lot of, like I said, demographic sorts of changes, but the plot, once I start paying attention to it, is not very changed at all. What they did was they filled in. So if you read this and you go, what's all this stuff about Maurice and Angela? And okay, Angela didn't exist in the books, but certainly their relationship didn't. And there are full episodes devoted to, like, Maurice's backstory. And so they kept the bones of the Reginald storyline. I wrote it limited third person. So everything is from Reginald's point of view, if he doesn't see it, we don't know what happened. And so because it's a multi perspective TV is a multi perspective medium, they needed to add those other POVs when he isn't necessarily even there. And they needed to be able to go back and forth, because in TV, you can't just tell one uninterrupted story unless you're 1917 and you make it work. So that's my answer, is that there are a lot of things that aren't in the book, but they're things that fill in gaps in what is otherwise a coherent, like, true to the book sort of story.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:32:12]:
So in terms of things like the rights that you maintain over the books, that sort of thing, is there anything that you are limited now in doing with the books? Like, could you release, for example, a recovered version of the book that's titled Reginald the Vampire? Could you do that?
Johnny B. Truant [00:32:34]:
I don't know. I actually don't know that. I don't see why that would be a problem, though. Maybe I'm wrong. Before I were to do something like that, I would obviously look it up. But I do know that I had to finish I have a side series, and it still needed another book, and so I didn't think twice. By the way, the last book of that side series is Breaking the Fourth Wall. It's basically like the story of what actually happened. And so I know that I'm not limited in that way, but I do know, and I don't think any of this violates confidentiality because it's just kind of I think how things work is when somebody buys your rights, they're buying the rights to the world. Because if they were to say, okay, if we only want fat vampire one, or we only want the fat vampire series, then their conflicts could arise, and somebody could be like, well, I want to make the Vampire Maurice series. And I'm like, no, NBC owns the rights to that. But no, I know that we put a new cover on it with a sticker that says now a Sci-Fi thing or whatever, but we had to get permission for that. And if we were to use what I really wanted to do was use that graphic that they use for original the Vampire, where it's just Jacob with the beanie on and he's looking straightforward, those fangs out and the orange background. That would have been a nightmare to get even. Just getting that little seal was a thing.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:00]:
Wow, that's interesting to learn, because you would think that they would consider that part of the marketing, that they would.
Johnny B. Truant [00:34:06]:
Actually I could probably could. It's just like, is that the hill I want to die on? Like, I'm already trying to do various other efforts. Let's just say that. Various other things I'm trying to get them to let me do for the mutual good. I'm not trying to do this for me. And so I think there's only so much they can handle.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:24]:
Yeah, don't push your luck. A couple more questions have popped up. So this one's from some guy named Mark. Oh, I know that guy.
Johnny B. Truant [00:34:33]:
Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:34]:
What was it like being treated like a celebrity when you visited the set of Reginald Vampire in Victoria during filming of season one?
Johnny B. Truant [00:34:42]:
That was pretty sick, because I don't remotely consider myself a celebrity. I mean, when I would go to.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:49]:
The I don't either Johnny things.
Johnny B. Truant [00:34:51]:
Yeah, of course. Why would you? I mean, you know, there were like when I would go to those things, people knew who we were because it was our event. But authors aren't usually celebrities. There's, like, five authors in the world who you could pretty consider a celebrity.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:35:04]:
Right?
Johnny B. Truant [00:35:05]:
And I'm talking, like, F list. Like, nobody knows who I am, so but when I went to the set, I tell this story in I don't know that it's in the the article that you read, but I did a series of deeper dives that the second one publishes today. There are six that I'm, like, sharing, like, all my photos and all the stories, and it took six posts worth of time to write it up. But in one of those, I tell this story, which is there was a teamster that was my driver. Like, he's an office driver, so whenever I need to go anywhere, he would drive me. And I got in the car with him the first time, and I said his name was Jeff. And I said, Jeff, you have to tell me everything. Give me the real story. I don't want the polished version. You have to tell me what it's really like. And so he proceeded to introduce me to everyone. And so at one point, we go into the makeup trailer and the two actors who play Sarah, her name is M. Hayne, and Todd, who is Aaron Bucholtz, were in two chairs. And that's all there was, was two chairs and makeup people, hair and makeup. And he goes in and he says, hey, is it okay if Johnny comes in and says hi? And I was like, I just followed his lead. And he wasn't used to giving tours. He didn't tell any of them who the hell Johnny was. He just said, Is it okay if Johnny comes in? And they gave me a badge, and the badge was backwards, so you couldn't really tell. And so I don't realize this until after I've been talking to them awkwardly for a while because they're getting their hair done and stuff, like, who am I intruding all of a sudden? And at some point, after just making pleasant small talk but awkward, m. Said, what do you do with the production? It was kind of like, Why are you here? Was that question. And I said, oh, I wrote the book, and I turned it around. And then she kind of did that. There was this moment, and then she goes, oh my God, oh my God. And she swore a bunch of times and then gave me a hug. And this is during COVID times where you're not supposed to do that.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:36:52]:
Yeah.
Johnny B. Truant [00:36:52]:
And that kind of reaction. Now, hers was really exuberant, but I got that a lot. Oh, there was always a sincere double ticket. Was never that thing where you go you know how, like I mean, everybody's listening to this as an author. And if you've ever had somebody ask you what you do for a living, and you say, I write books, there's this response that people give you that's kind of like, oh, you poor person. Good for you. Good for you. It's really great. It's nice that you're indulged, but they don't like, nobody takes you seriously.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:37:24]:
I know books bought my house. Okay?
Johnny B. Truant [00:37:27]:
Right, exactly. And nobody gets it. They're just like, oh, I'm going to pretend that I'm happy for you. And this was the opposite of that. This was like, oh, we're here because of you, in a weird way. And I always got a sincere, like, oh. And then they would have follow up questions. I talked a lot to so the girl who plays Claire, her name is Tylee, and because she's a minor, her mother had to be there the entire time. And so I talked to her mother a lot, and it was the same thing. And what was cool with that is again, no spoilers, but later in the series, Claire developed some abilities. She's twelve in the books. I think she's a little older. No, she's twelve in the series. Tylee's 14. But they hadn't read the whole series, and Claire develops a lot of abilities, and I kind of was talking to them about this, and they didn't know that. And so I said, oh, yeah, she becomes really important. They were really curious. They were like, oh, that's OOH. And it was in real time watching them react to their future trajectories based on I said, if they stick with the books, then your character is going to get super important. She's monumental. So, yeah, it was great. It was great.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:38:33]:
Yeah. Okay. Sorry. We got a couple more questions on pop up. How did you balance writing and working for a steady paycheck?
Johnny B. Truant [00:38:44]:
Well, I don't have another job, so that's the main reason. Yeah. I'm a full time indie author, so that is a blessing, and I try not to take it too lightly, but I don't need to work for a living. I can write for a living now. It wasn't always that way. I mean, to be fair, I've always been kind of unemployable because I'm an entrepreneur through and through. So there was a time when I was balancing non writing work that was still not traditional work. Like, it was entrepreneurial work. It was back when I had my old blog, and I was still doing some courses and stuff, but I was always able to make my own schedule. I think the standard advice would apply for anybody who's juggling that, whether they have a book or TV. Now, that said, when the book writes finally went, it was a nice paycheck, and that would have allowed me some.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:39:42]:
Time, let's just say, yeah, always handy. Money is good for the change of goods.
Johnny B. Truant [00:39:48]:
And so money is freedom.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:39:50]:
Money is freedom. So you mentioned a little bit in the article that you actually got to do kind of a cameo. Now, where would you place yourself? Are you at a Lee Child level cameo, or is it a Stan Lee level cameo?
Johnny B. Truant [00:40:07]:
Well, I don't know Lee Child's cameo, but I think I will say I'll answer the question by saying that cameo is probably overstating it. Basically, this is one of those things where I'm trying to get my wishes across without being pushy, right? And there were a few times during this process where people kind of like, you're starting to get pushy, right? So I kept making jokes about, can I just walk by in the background? Can I just be like the Alfred Hitchcock thing, right? Like, can I walk a dog by in the background? Or something like that. And eventually I kind of got to the point where I was like, okay, I get it. It can't happen. There are some sort of rules and regulations. I think they usually call them background actors, but a lot of people would know them as extras. There's rules governing that there might be a union. There's politics involved. And so once that was kind of, like, implied, I kind of went, okay, maybe not. But then Jeremiah, the director, came over, and he kind of chucked me on the arm and said, I got you in. And so they basically, if there's a shot in the it's in the pilot. It's repeated later in a later episode. I don't remember where, but it's in the pilot. And I think it's even in one of the teasers where Maurice and Reginald are outside the Slushy shack, which is Reginald's place of business. And they're talking it's after he's been turned. And the shot includes them and the window of the slushy shack. And there's some dude in a black fleece who's sitting there drinking a slushy, and you can't see who he's talking to, but there was somebody else there. She just never made it on camera. And that's me. I'm, like this big in the background, but we'll see. Maybe I'll push for season two.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:41:46]:
You've beat me out, man. There's a shot of my arm and shoulder in Tin Cup.
Johnny B. Truant [00:41:53]:
In Tin Cup? Yeah, I saw Tin Cup.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:41:56]:
Yeah, they were filming kind of in my area, and I got to be an extra. But the only shot of me in the entire movie was my hand going up, cheering for his.
Johnny B. Truant [00:42:07]:
Well, hey, you got an arm and a hand.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:42:09]:
I got it. All right, well, we're at the end. We're going to have to wrap up, which is unfortunate. There were actually a couple of questions left, but I don't think well, I.
Johnny B. Truant [00:42:18]:
Mean, don't stop on my account. If you have more time. I certainly have time. Or I could come back. I don't care if people have people have questions, I want to answer them. You guys can send me questions, too. Like, by the way, flagrant plug. I made that post and opened up the comments so that people would ask me questions.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:42:37]:
Okay.
Johnny B. Truant [00:42:38]:
Just saying it's at Johnnybtruant.com and you'll see it. It's one of the top posts. I got fat Vampire, Reginald vampire ask questions in the comments. I'm happy to answer them.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:42:47]:
We have dropped that on screen, so if you're on YouTube, you can find that. And it is Johnny with the letter B, not B E. But Johnnybetruant.com, always great to talk to you, man. It's been a while, and we need to not let that happen again.
Johnny B. Truant [00:43:06]:
Yeah, I think we need to have that lunch that we do need in.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:09]:
Especially since we're in the same town now.
Johnny B. Truant [00:43:12]:
It's kind of circle up.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:13]:
It is absurd, but for everybody else, you can have lunch with me, too, if you want. Everybody, you just say the word. But we're going to go ahead and wrap up. I'm going to play a quick little ad spot just to wrap us up. But before I go, Johnny, thank you for being a part of the show. We really appreciate it.
Johnny B. Truant [00:43:32]:
Yeah, always man. Drafted digital has been good to me.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:35]:
We love it. I'm glad to hear that. Everyone else, make sure you, like, comment and subscribe. So that's the best way to show support for the show. Make sure you bookmark Dddlive.com, because that's where you get a countdown for interviews like this. Every Thursday we have an interview and a podcast release, so make sure you bookmark that and drop by. And as promised, here's a little look at DDD print for you, and we'll see you all next time. Ebooks are great, but there's just something about having your words in print. Something you can hold in your hands, put on a shelf sign for a reader. That's why we created D to D Print, a print on demand service that was built for you. We have free, beautiful templates to give your book a pro look. And we can even convert your ebook cover into a full wraparound cover for print. So many options for you and your books. And you can get started right now@travtodigital.com.