Ask Us Anything: Anniversary Mailbag Edition

Zero to Well-Read

Zero to Well-Read celebrates its first anniversary with a special mailbag episode featuring listener questions and reflections on the show's

Key takeaways

• The show has reached nearly 50 books read and over 1.1 million downloads in its first year.

Main topics

• Celebrating the podcast's first anniversary
• Top-performing episodes and books from the show's history

Notable quotes

"We've been waiting for the moment to announce our next Zero to Well-Read guided read-along, and friends, the time has come."

Conclusion

The hosts reflect on the podcast's first year with gratitude, highligh

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) This episode of Zero to Well-Read is sponsored by thriftbooks.com. We've got an anniversary mailbag answering all kinds of listener questions today, which means we're not talking about a specific book. So I can tell you, thriftbooks.com, over 19 million new and used titles. Every book we've talked about is available new and used on thriftbooks.com and in so many variations. Always fun to go and browse and see what we've got there. Each order of over $15 gets you free shipping in the U.S. and each purchase gets you closer to redeeming a free book as part of Thrift Books Reading Rewards program. Go get your books at thriftbooks.com. Time for the show. Speaker 3 (0:41) We've been waiting for the moment to announce our next Zero to Well-Read guided read-along, and friends, the time has come. I'm so excited to share with you that we're going to be reading John Steinbeck's magisterial novel, East of Eden, in anticipation of the Netflix miniseries that's coming out on October 1st. Guided read-alongs are available exclusively to members of our Office Hours Patreon, and they include a pre-reading guide, an exclusive bonus episode to help you get into the reading, and a private chat space for talking with participants and us as you move through the novel. Head over to patreon.com slash zero to well read to join, and you'll get two months free with an annual membership. That's patreon.com slash zero to well read. You can also find the link in the show notes. We are so excited to read this one with you. Thanks as always for listening and rocking. with Zero to Well-Read. Speaker 2 (1:33) Welcome to Zero to Well-Read, a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you read. I am Jeff O'Neill. And Speaker 3 (1:39) I'm Rebecca Shinsky. Today, we are celebrating Zero to Well-Read's first anniversary. We have some great questions from the listener mailbag, and we've got Book Riot's managing editor, Vanessa Diaz, back to help us. Vanessa, thanks as always. I do love being an emcee. It's fun. You're just, you know, our number one draft pick for MC. Before I throw it to you, I do just want to share a couple quick stats with the audience. These are not in our agenda, so I'm surprising y'all. But we have read almost 50 books for this show in the last year. We're closing in on 50. We have gotten 1.1 million downloads. Thank you all for all those listening hours. That is so much time with us. And does anybody want to guess about top episodes? Speaker 2 (2:26) Well, when we got recommended by Apple in the early days, the Twilight did a big spike. And then a spike continued for a little while as we were at the top of the new trending kind of shows. And I think Secret History hit around the same time and that did really well. So I think, and Secret History does well as backlist. So that's my guess, Secret History. I don't know, Vanessa, if anything that we've done. Mine was Speaker 5 (2:48) going to be Secret History. And there's another one that I should know because, you know, staff chats. But I'm going to let Rebecca fill us in. Oh, okay. Speaker 3 (2:55) The most popular episode was our New Year's episode this year called How to Read More and Better in 2026. But that was also due to a big feature in the Apple Podcasts app. We had, I think, like a week of special spotlight, maybe more there. We gained a ton of new listeners. So if that's how you found us and you're still here, thank you. The number one book is The Great Gatsby. That's the one we started with our debut episode. And there's a fun pattern when people discover the show each week. We do get a little lift. Speaker 2 (3:24) Oh, yeah. In Great Speaker 3 (3:25) Gatsby, from people going back to the very beginning, I think a lot of completionists and a lot of nerds in this audience. The Secret History by Donna Tartt is number two. So congratulations to both of you. Followed by To Kill a Mockingbird and then Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Oh, that's great. Stoked to see that one be so popular. Then Hamlet and then Never Let Me Go by our house fave Kazuo Ishiguro. Speaker 5 (3:51) I was not going to guess the reading one. That's really cool. I did think maybe the feet. Anyway, that's great. That's cool to hear. Speaker 3 (3:56) Yeah. And those are all older episodes. They're from the very first season. So they've had longer to accumulate their listens. I think, you know, I was kind of surprised like Little Women, which we did at the start of this year, hasn't popped quite that high, but it's in the top 10 or 15. And it'll be fun to see over time really how the stats settle. Speaker 2 (4:14) And we know from those listening patterns that people are listening all over the place at all the times, which is part of why we're doing the mailbag the way we do it, which is you can email us at any time, zero to wellread at bookriot.com. If you're listening to the Great Gatsby episode now and you've got takes, blast them off to the email. We'll respond to them. We'll see them. And maybe they'll show up in... a mailbag episode in the future. You can also click the link in the show notes, become a member for access to guided read-alongs, early ad-free episodes, and other bonus content, patreon.com slash zero to well-read. Rebecca and I were just brainstorming some, mixing it up on the bonus content, maybe later this fall or into the new year, some other things we're going to try. If you've got ideas, shoot us an email, zero to well-read at bookriot.com. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I'm going to do a verbal sponsor break because I forget during mailbags to stop for sponsors because I get so wrapped up in it. So let's do that now. And then, Vanessa, I'm going to turn it over to you. Speaker 4 (5:10) Great. Speaker 4 (5:13) Today's episode is brought to you by New York Times bestselling author Travis Deverell and Ethan Vault. The best in lit RPG, fantasy, sci-fi and horror. So Jason Asano is just getting used to his new life as an interdimensional wizard, as one does, when a terrifying old enemy comes after Jason and friends in the second installment of the witty and magic fueled He Who Fights With Monsters series. The path from retail middle management to interdimensional wizard adventurer wasn't easy, as you might imagine, but Jason is settling into his new life. Now a competition for a grand prize draws young elites to the city. Jason must gather a band of companions if he stands a chance of winning. At the same time, city leaders deal with betrayals and the revelation of a terrible enemy Jason has crossed. before. So book two adventurer of He Who Fights With Monsters series is on sale now, as is the best selling book one, Outworlder. Make sure to pick up He Who Fights With Monsters book two adventurer by Travis Deverell, writing as Shirtaloon. And thanks again to Travis Deverell and Ethan Vault for sponsoring this episode. Speaker 4 (6:35) Today's episode is brought to you by Mira and HTP Books, publisher of The Pumpkin Bride by Fiona Buttercup. If you want warm apple cider in book form, this is for you. Let's get into it. It's like Shrek meets The Princess Bride. It's cozy, low stakes fantasy romance and author Laurie Gilmore calls it, quote, the perfect fall read. So there's a jealous prince and a spiteful autumn sprite who curse legendary knight Sir Bram Duncan into a hulking orc named Jask, bound to Grimroot Farm. For three lonely years, he's hidden his identity and the heartbreak of losing his true love, Princess Marigold. Then Miss Marigold, Princess Marigold, fleeing an arranged marriage, seeks refuge on his enchanted pumpkin farm and old sparks rekindle. As Jask's curse unravels, they must choose between the lies that keep them safe and risking everything for love. Make sure to pick up The Pumpkin Bride by Fiona Buttercup for all the autumnal fall feels. And thanks again to Mira and HTP Books for sponsoring this episode. Speaker 4 (7:51) Today's episode is brought to you by You're No Better by Andrew Joseph White, on sale October 27th, wherever books are sold, published by Peachtree Teen. Speaker 1 (8:01) Now, Speaker 4 (8:02) if you didn't know, Andrew Joseph White has been doing the doggone thing when it comes to queer YA horror these past few years. I'm talking transformative, I'm talking bestselling, I'm talking all the things. And I know this latest is going to be just as great. So we have Morgan Slaughter. A 17 year old trans boy with autism who put his serial killer father in prison years ago. We're already starting off strong. All right. Despite that, though, everyone thinks Morgan will grow up to be just like his dad, including his volatile mother, the documentary crew following their family, and maybe himself if we're keeping in a book, right? Forced to confront his violent past, Morgan's ugly but carefully controlled world unravels and his true relationship with his father. threatens to come to light. Ooh, get into it. Thanks again to You're No Better by Andrew Joseph White, published by Peachtree Teen for sponsoring this episode. Speaker 2 (8:59) All right. Here we go, Vanessa. Guide us through what the listeners have asked of us. Speaker 5 (9:04) All right. I've got us kind of chunked up into some categories here. We've got general, some reading habits stuff, some personal questions, and some fun. So any particular, anybody want to start anywhere? Should we just start at the top and go down? We can give Jeff a Speaker 3 (9:17) panic attack and start with personal. No, I'm just kidding. Speaker 5 (9:20) And the personal is actually not as intense. Speaker 4 (9:22) It was Speaker 5 (9:23) more like, this has Speaker 4 (9:24) not to do with books. So let's just start with general. Speaker 5 (9:26) Yeah, because you just gave us some kind of ground setting work about most popular episodes and so we're in the demographics place. Megan did ask about the demographics of the pod. Specifically wanted to know if we have any information about how those demographics differ between the Book Riot podcast and Zero to Well Read. And this is from a reader who found our Twilight episode after participating in a couple of those like Twilight read along podcasts. So she's Speaker 4 (9:48) a Speaker 5 (9:48) big listener of like Austin and Bronte and wanted to say that the show has like helped them move past their, you know, like kind of scared, like being scared. tackling classics and just was interested to know about demo. So yeah. Speaker 2 (10:01) Rebecca, I think people have a lot of entry points. I think that's Speaker 3 (10:05) what Speaker 2 (10:05) we've found. I think there's the inverse of Megan's question here where people come for Ishiguro. I know someone found Ishiguro and then they listen to the Twilight episode because like, oh, I like the format. And that's one thing about pods that we know both as makers and consumers is people will come for the topic, but they stay for the hang, right? And so if they like one. Usually they're going to try most of the others. Now, if there's something you really don't want to listen to, you may pick and choose, especially as now we have a catalog. Someone coming today is different than someone coming four weeks in where you could listen to all four and sort of be all the way caught up. The longer we go, I would guess the lower the complete catalog matriculation rate we're going to see. But I don't really sense from people, Rebecca, that it's all one or the other or even that they're. you know, skewed one way or the other, but I'm curious to see what your sense is. I Speaker 3 (10:58) mean, maybe a meta point here is that podcast. demographic data is kind of a black box. It's really challenging. The different technologies, the different apps all collect data, but most of those apps don't feed the data fully transparently back to us. So we know which countries people are listening in. And of course, since we're English speaking, it's predominantly the US, Canada, the UK. We get some hits in Australia, New Zealand, India. But most Most of it is front loaded to the US and Canada, the UK, and then you get like 1 % each in a whole bunch of, you know, other countries. I think it's pretty similar just in terms of like the types of people. that listen to these shows and, you know, Book Riot podcast and Zero to Well-Read. But I think we have a few different types of Zero to Well-Read listeners. One is the person who comes in looking for a specific thing. People will be searching for information about like the old man in the sea and they find their way to us. Then there's somebody who like gets a recommendation from a friend who knows that they like this kind of saying. Then there are people who do just go looking for books, podcasts, and they, you know, they see us across the bar and they like our vibe and they come on in. But that's kind of about as far as we can get. I know we have listeners. A lot of them are in the Patreon who want to know what we're reading in advance so that they can read and be prepped for the show. And then there's an equal, I think maybe even bigger group who wait to see. They listen to the episode. And then if the book sounds like it will resonate with them, they go and read it as a follow up. But I wish that we could know more. If you want to tell us about your idiosyncratic discovery of the show, you can email us anytime. But in terms of like the official data that's collected, we really don't know much. And it's really tough even using the same software for both shows to have a sense of what the overlap is. The general, I think the number of people who have hit like the follow button on a podcast app for Zero to Well-Read is bigger than the Book Riot audience by an order of magnitude or so. But that's about all we can really know for sure. Speaker 2 (13:08) Yeah, I think that's right. All right, Vanessa, what do we have next? Speaker 5 (13:13) There's a lot of people here. This one's a hopefully fun maybe one. I don't know. But what book did you go into with low expectations and ended up being blown away by? Or if there's a different shape of that question you would like to answer, that is okay, too. Speaker 3 (13:26) I don't know. Well, this is I don't know if this is specific to the zero to well-read books or just in general. And my answer is if I have low expectations of a book, I generally don't read it. Speaker 2 (13:39) Well, how about this, Rebecca? Because I took it as what have we done for the show so far that outkicked its coverage? I think I have read, I think I'd read everything but Twilight that we have done so far. So I'll go about it this way, which is which, no, I don't think I'd read Forever by Judy Blume. Speaker 3 (13:57) You had not. I remember. I had Speaker 2 (13:58) not Speaker 3 (13:58) that. Speaker 2 (13:59) But something that outkicked its coverage in terms of how much we got out of it, I will say. I was looking forward to Old Man and the Sea because I wanted to do a Hemingway, but I found there was a lot more there than I remembered for such a slight book. It'd been a while since I'd read any Hemingway. It'd been a good long while. I don't think I've read Hemingway since before BR. So even my sense of his style had calcified. And the internet version of people does creep back in. And one thing I've found over and over again is these writers and books that last, that have lasted. are stranger and more interesting than the memefied, whatever index note card people have about them. And I think the shock of remembering that was greatest with Hemingway because it'd been a while. I don't count Old Man and the Sea among my favorite Hemingways that, you know, Sun Also Rises or For Whom the Bell Tolls or A Farewell to Arms and then some of the other short stories among that. I would say sort of second, maybe even third tier of Hemingway for me. But I loved talking. I mean, all the books are about you guys and Rebecca, but I just the whole experience was better than I thought it was going to be. So that would be my pick there. Speaker 3 (15:09) I had a version of that with Little Women because I hadn't read it since I was a kid and I didn't have that real attachment to it from childhood. I think I read it too young to really like glom onto it. And I was really delighted by how rich and complex and alive it still felt. Also, The Road, which is coming out in a couple of weeks. We've already recorded it. But that was I just read The Road for the first time. Are Speaker 2 (15:34) you Speaker 3 (15:34) recovered Speaker 2 (15:35) yet? Are you how are you? Are you back to are you 91 % Rebecca? Speaker 3 (15:39) We did Jonathan Franzen and Cormac McCarthy back to back. And I just like existentially needed to put myself back together. But that conversation about The Road, that reading experience, and then the conversation that we've had, I'm so excited for listeners to hear that in a few weeks. But that one really knocked my socks off. Speaker 5 (15:56) So from an outsider-ish perspective, I can say that there's, you know, I listened to all the episodes to do some prep work for other products. And there are times that I've gone in there and been like, well, fine. And the conversation ends up being so rich because of all the enthusiasm y'all just described. So yeah, it all comes around. This one is kind of in a different, it's still a general question and it's kind of parlaying our book tastes into other kinds of media. So this is a person, Brooke, who would like to know. They're wanting to learn to appreciate film specifically in the same way they appreciate literature, but they don't. They get like analysis paralysis on where to begin. So they're wondering if you have any advice on how to determine your movie tastes. Like, is there a lit fic equivalent in films? I love this question. Speaker 3 (16:35) I mean, Jeff and I both love the films of Richard Linklater. And I think if we have talked about those before Sunrise, before Sunset. as being about as close to the equivalent of literary fiction as a movie can get because it's just people talking