The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ember (The Tier One Thrillers, Book 8) by Brian Andrews, Jeffrey Wilson

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Ember (The Tier One Thrillers, Book 8) by Brian Andrews, Jeffrey Wilson https://amzn.to/3zeFVAl From New York Times bestselling authors Andrews & Wilson After surviving the most dangerous mission of his career, John Dempsey is back at Ember. But Ember has changed -- and so has he. Meanwhile, a new adversary sees an opportunity to rise. As Dempsey and Vice President Jarvis soon discover, the world stage is about to get deadlier than ever … To survive the notorious prison IK-2 and assassinate Russian President Vladimir Petrov, John Dempsey had to become rosomakha, the wolverine. Now, back home in America, he’s trying to put the pieces of his life at Ember back together. But which man returned from Russia -- Dempsey, or the wolverine? From the way his teammates look at him, it’s obvious they’re not sure, and neither is he. Meanwhile, Vice President Kelso Jarvis has barely had time to mourn the death of his mentor before a devastating attack reveals a new threat. Because of Dempsey’s mission in Russia, the rules of the game have changed -- only now it’s not clear who the players are. As Dempsey leads Ember on a mission to protect and avenge a shocking attack on America, Jarvis’s oath to his nation is tested in ways he never imagined. Together, they must determine who is behind this rising threat and stop the mastermind before it’s too late. And just as Dempsey begins to feel like himself again, an old ally resurfaces -- someone he thought he’d left for dead long ago …About the author Brian is a US Navy veteran, nuclear engineer, and former submarine officer. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in psychology, holds a Master's in business from Cornell, and is a Park Leadership Fellow. He is a principal contributor at Career Authors, a site dedicated to advancing the careers of aspiring and published writers: www.careerauthors.com. He is half of Andrews & Wilson, the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, & #1 Amazon best-selling co-author team behind multiple series including: - TIER ONE, a military thriller series featuring Navy SEAL, John Dempsey. - SONS OF VALOR, a TIER ONE shared world series from Blackstone Publishing. - THE SHEPHERDS, a faith-based, supernatural thriller series from Tyndale House. - ACT OF DEFIANCE, Jack Ryan #24 in the Tom Clancy universe In addition to their novels, Andrews & Wilson have multiple projects under development for film and television with major motion picture studios including: Tier One, Dark Intercept, 4 Minutes, Portal, Quantum War, Glitch, and The In Between.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here As always the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you But doesn't judge you And gives you that wonderful Chris Voss Show glow As you're wandering around the universe And talking to people

People just go my god there's an aura of glow about you Of wealth, knowledge, power You just It's overcoming That happens to me all the time Whenever I go to starbucks it might be because i haven't bathed for a few days too anyway guys uh we have some amazing authors returning the show but in the meantime you know what we need you to share the show with

your friends and relatives we're like a multi-level marketing but without the things we have to buy stuff so you just have to share it with five and five of your friends family and relative in your downline tell them to go to goodlines.com 4chesschrismas linkedin.com 4chesschrismas chrismas1, the tiktokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. And if you want to buy me a coffee, you can go to

buymeacoffee.com 4chesschrismas and I'm almost out. So please, for the love of God, fill my cup. Anyway, whatever that means. That sounded like a Bible thing or something. Anyway, guys, we have an amazing authors, two authors on the show with us today. They were here recently for their Tom Clancy book, the latest one to come out, and they've got their series books that are out now.

It's called Ember, the Tier 1 Thrillers, Book 8, coming out July 2iams and jeffrey wilson are on the show with us today they're both navy veterans another writing team behind the wall street journal audible and number one best-selling tier one series which has been optioned for television brian is a nuclear engineer and park leadership fellow who served as an officer on a fast attack submarine jeff is a nuclear engineer and park leadership fellow who served as an officer on a fast attack submarine. Jeff is a vascular surgeon and jet pilot who conducted combat operations with their East Coast Navy SEAL team and worked in covert government task forces.

He can't even tell you about him. Otherwise, he'd have to take you to one of those cells in Poland or something. Who's the president? Blacksite. Blacksite, yeah. He put you on the helicopter. That was back when What's-His-Face was running the country. George Bush was the vice president.

Who was the president? I don't want to say Clooney, but Cheney? Dick Cheney was the president, back when Dick Cheney was the president, for Halliburton. So their other works include The Sons of Valor, and I always use that joke, Looney, but Cheney? Dick Cheney was the president back when Dick Cheney was the president for Halliburton. So, there are other works including Sons of Valor, and I always use that joke, and Shepard series, and the 24th

installment of Tom Clancy, Jack Ryan series, Active Defiance, which they were on the show for. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. How are you? Great to be back. I tell you, the only reason I keep coming on the show is because of that intro. It's like... There you go. Well, you've been only on twice, so what the hell.

I just can't get enough. I do it every day. It's all about the brain bleed. Give us your guys' dot coms and any little bio tidbits you want to throw out on top of what I threw out for you guys. Are you going to make it with music or something?

If you want. What kind of music or something? If you want. What kind of music do you want? Do you want some wonky porn music? I think the brain bleed theme is what you should use. The problem is it's got vocals, so we don't have the music on play.

We'll just say it. It's andrews-wilson.com. Very easy. Andrews-Wilson. That's our website. Everything's there. A list of all of our books, what order you should read them, what's coming out next, if we have any events. And you can sign up for our newsletter. We only send a couple a year with

up-to-date news about our latest releases and cool stuff we've got going on. So check it out. There you go. Jeff? Yeah, that's, you know, it's Andrew's dash Wilson. I'm the other half of that.

So yeah, it's just the one. We're just one person. Now we share a brain, um, from a thousand miles apart. So there's no, no place where I end and he begins anymore.

It's sad, but that's my life now. So how do your wives feel about that? Yeah, that's uncomfortable for everyone. There's no, it's that? Yeah, they're uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for everyone. There's no question. It's got to be weird in the bedroom. Anyway, guys, so thank you very much for coming to the show.

Give us a 30,000 overview of this new book and what's inside, and I'll let you each take a turn in it because I'm kind that way. Very generous of you. Jeff, you want to go first? Yeah, so we're excited about Ember because Tier 1 is the 10-pole series for Andrews and Wilson. We've got 27 books, but this is the series that started it. This was the first book series that we did together as co-authors. So this is the eighth book in the series.

Those of you that have been following along in the series, there's a lot of stuff in Dempsey Book seven, where there's some questions left unanswered. And this book definitely gets you on track to know what's going on with the rest of the team. It's almost, it's almost like a class reunion, isn't it, Brian? Like we get, we get a little bit more backstory of people that you've known and loved for a while. So John Dempsey is back and Team Ember is back in the trenches doing what they do. Those of you who have not read the series, I will say

all of our books are written so that they can be a standalone. So if you don't have to go read seven books to get yourself ready for this book, if you don't want to, you're welcome to just jump in. You'll enjoy it just as much. There might be a few Easter eggs that go over your head, but you'll still enjoy the ride, I suspect.

There you go. And so when you catch up, you'll probably learn what those Easter eggs are. You'll be like, ah, I remember what those are. Now I get it. Yeah. So you guys write several different series of books. Is that correct? We do.

We write Tier 1 was our first big series. So that one is continuing. It's partway into the tier one series. We introduced a character named Chunk Redman. He's a seal who he sort of started almost as comic relief. He was like to balance out Dempsey's sort of brooding aggression and Dempsey-ness. And everybody really liked this guy. So we're getting all these emails about Chunk. So we decided to spin off a series called Sons of Valor.

And so that has three books out in the series. It's our most highly rated series. I mean, people really, really love Chunk and that series. So we're writing book four, Sons of Valor 4 right now. It's going to come out next summer. We have the Shepard series series which is kind of cool it's a faith-based uh military thriller i think we could maybe take credit for inventing that genre jeff is that an overstep yeah i don't i don't think that's an overstep there's no amish women on the back of wagons in the entire uh canon of books so uh we've definitely reinvented,

reinvented Christian fiction, I think in this series. And there's no Amish women with automatic weapons in the right. Right. Not that we weren't tempted. That would have been, I mean, that's a Nate.

We'll save that for another series. Cause then now that you've said it out loud, Brian. Yeah. We could have automatic different demo. We could play around with Brian. Yeah. We could. Can Amish women have automatic weapons? Well, it might be a different demo. We could play around with that. Yeah, play around with the demographic.

But that fourth book is coming out. That's already written. That's coming out next spring. What else do we have? Four minutes. Book one is out. And there are plans for the next book in that series, although no date. And then, of course, now we are the uh authors writing jack ryan uh for the clancy

estate uh act of defiance came out and uh we now have the next book in that series it's called defense protocol comes out in december so um our wives don't like us because we are doing too much and we're never never giving them any attention anymore but our characters get a lot of our attention so they're happy they're very happy there you go well it's good to keep someone happy i mean most of the wives are probably down at uh birkenstock or birkenbag or whatever the hell that is and target every day so i'm sure they're appreciating the uh credit card action there you guys are generating with these book sales and all the reviews you get. So tell us a little story about both of you guys and how you guys grew up, what influenced you, you guys both did military service, what made you want to get into that, and then what

made you start writing, or when did you start writing? When did you know you had a knack for it? Yeah, so I guess I'll start. Mine's kind of boring and uninteresting uh so yeah no mine is tune out for five minutes yeah my uh my bio reads like fiction i'm when when we first started writing together brian said dude you gotta you gotta change this bio man it's like it sounds like you're making it up because i my mom says i can't keep a job i have attention deficit disorder or something so i've done a lot of things, as you said in the intro.

I've been a surgeon. I've been a pilot. I worked in the Navy. I was with the special warfare teams at the JSOC level for a while. And I've done other things in addition to that. But for me, storytelling was always part of it. So that's where our stories are very different. I started writing stories when I was like my daughter's age,

eight or nine years old. Published my first short story when I was 14. So I've just, you know, telling stories, even though I've done a lot of other things in my life, being a storyteller has always been a part of it at every stage of my life. So for me, making the transition from the military to being a full-time writer felt pretty natural. I mean, obviously, on the financial side, my wife would say that seems very unnatural to take that risk. But it worked out pretty well. It's just something I've always done. So my story is a little different than yours, right, Brian?

Yeah, I think, you know, I never anticipated going into the military like in high school. I didn't have any military service in my family. And but when it was a time to apply for college, I was looking at the cost of college and ROTC looked like a really good option for helping me pay for school. So I got a Navy ROTC scholarship and ended up on the submarine community. And, you know, in the submarine community, especially when you're deployed, there's long periods where there's not a whole lot going on, at least in the back of the boat, which is the engine room, right? So you're rigged for quiet, you're sneaking around, and you've got long watches. And so, you know, one of the ways when I was a junior officer, I would sort of pass the time is I would collect stories and I'd save them up. So if I go into port, I'd ask people for funny things that happened. I'd save all these stories.

When we were underway, I'd tell stories sort of in the old tradition of like verbal storytelling, like campfire, but instead of sitting around the campfire, we're sitting around the nuclear reactor. Yeah. Like a griot, like a griot story collector. Yeah. Yeah.

And that, that was sort of the genesis of my interest in storytelling because, um, you know, it's, it's, it's rewarding, you know,

and it's rewarding to read a really good story too. And, and that's the other half of the equation. You know, when you're underway or read a really good story, too. And that's the other half of the equation. You know, when you're underway or you're in the military, you're reading military thrillers or spy thrillers. And so, you know, I remember reading Hunt for Red October on the submarine underway. I remember watching the movie in the water. We probably watched a dozen times, you know. So these types of characters are inspired by the real men and women that are doing the work.

And what's funny is the real men and women that are doing the work are reading about the characters that the military thriller authors are writing. So it is a community of storytelling and action and storytelling, beginning storytelling. And so that's kind of cool that we're both in the business now of telling stories about the people that we serve with, the people that we once were, the people that maybe will become our nation's warriors, you know, in the next 10 to 15 years. There you go. There you go. So you guys have interwoven a lot of your military experience into the books. Is that correct? Oh, 100%. I mean, this is, with Act of Defiance,

it was our first time to really get into submarine community, submarine warfare. There was a little bit. But between the two of us, we've served in a variety of communities. But to be honest, I think what we really channel from our military background, more than technology or how a sub works or how a stop mod m4 works or whatever is more the ethos and sort of the characters and the and the sacrifice the commitment i think that that team and mission before self kind of lifestyle that is bred into you it's something to be proud

of it's something that a civilian uh community could probably benefit from focusing on more than some do. So that, I think, is what we bring more than anything. You know, it's not, our stuff tends not to be, you know, the superhero, invincible bullets bouncing off of them as they whack all the bad guys. We tend to write them a little more realistically and show the sacrifice and the teamwork and the brotherhood that comes as a result. No question that comes from our background. There you go.

A lot of my military friends, they always talk about the brotherhood. You know, I remember I had one friend who was, I think he was a Marine. He was a sniper, but he wanted to go do a fourth tour of duty in Iraq. And he was just lost over here. Like he couldn't, he would just sit and play video games all day and say to himself and i was like you're really gonna do fourth tour of duty in iraq and he goes chris over there i have my purpose i have my brotherhood bad people have my back here i'm on my own it's kind of sad but it's it's a real thing chris i gotta tell you there's another element too and it's that you know it's not like we're gonna liberate paris and then take down hitler and it's that you know it's not like we're going to liberate paris and then take down hitler

and it's over it's this war on terror globally has been non-stop for 25 years and so there's this there's this emotion that you have this feeling that your place is with your teammates and so unless the whole team the whole unit comes back and we all get out of the military together, there's always that feeling of, who am I to be sitting by the pool with my wife while my brothers are downrange doing this thing? God, how am I going to feel if something bad happens?

It's not that you really believe you're the key to the whole thing. They'd be fine if I was there. Exactly. It's not that. It's just the idea that you're not there with your brother. They're being part of the team, part of the tribe. Yeah, and I think that's been really hard. And I think the other thing you see, and probably your Marine sniper friend will tell you the same thing.

You know, all those experiences that catch up to you and cause problems for veterans down the road, they don't catch up to you while you're still doing it. When you're still doing it, it's like, I'll never forget when I left after I got out of the joint task force world, which was, I guess, 2012 or 13, something like that. All of a sudden, I'm having all these thoughts and dreams and stuff, nightmares about stuff that had happened in 2006. It's not like I never thought about that stuff that had happened in 2006. It's not like I never thought about that stuff. I thought about it.

I was like, yeah, that sucked. But I'm fine. It's all good. And then all of a sudden it comes crashing in on you. So we really do in our books, I will tell you that it's important to us to reflect some of that stuff, not in a whiny way, but in a way that makes people appreciate the sacrifice and service. And the other thing is the sacrifice of the families. My wife would never say this, but I honestly believe the sacrifice that the spouses that stay back, that's a bigger sacrifice. When I'm downrange, I know I'm okay.

When Brian's whatever spooky port he's in, sitting on bottom spying on people he knows he's okay yeah his wife doesn't and my wife doesn't and i think that is a way harder sacrifice to be the one wringing their hands at home and worrying and so we do try to show some of that in these books as well that's good that's good do you find a lot of veterans uh you are appealed find your books appealing i think a lot of veterans do because it sort of goes back to what you just said to open this conversation that you're recapturing that sense of community. So even if you are home, you get to feel like, oh, yeah, this is a world that I understand.

This is a world that I miss. And so you feel that sense of community. It's amazing how many people will email us and say that they're on their second or third read through of the tier one series. And we even had one, you know, I saw on social media today, a guy was saying, like, I'm going to finish up my fifth read through of tier one in preparation. Remember, why would somebody do that? You know, why would you go back to stories you already knew what's going to happen? It's not because it's just the story. It's because the characters give you this sense of community or sense of, you know, friendship.

They feel like real people. And so something about the community of characters that we've invented, you know, resonates with people. And so, you know, I also think that this community of writers represents, too. There's Don Bentley and Josh Hood and Jack Stewart and Brad Taylor. And these are all veterans who, you know, are writers in the community that we feel like we have the same sort of brotherhood with now as storytellers. So that's kind of cool, too, that there's that component. There you go. Well, that's awesome.

I mean, community is good. Can you tell us about some of the characters in the book? Maybe just kind of a quick rundown on them. Yeah, I mean, the lead character is John Dempsey. He's sort of the tentpole of the series. And you hear that term tentpole, but what does it really mean? It means in this series, it means that he's kind of the guy that's holding up all the weight of the organization. And that's important because anybody who's been deployed or been in a unit knows that the burden of leadership is quite high and how individual people manage their stress and manage situations, difficult situations, what sort of moral compass they have and how they treat others really impacts the success then the emotional and mental health of the people

performing in the unit. So John Dempsey is that technical. He is that guy who's willing to say, you know, he'll stick his hand up and say, you know, I'll lead. I'll carry more in my pack than everybody else. I'll deal with, you know, if you need help, I'll take on your burden. I'll take on your burden. I'll take on your burden.

And so everything builds around John and then sort of the rest of the team. I'm not saying that they don't matter. They're incredibly important. And I think maybe I'll kick it over to Jeff to answer, sort of round out the rest of the team. But John and his moral compass and his devotion to duty is the hallmark of the Ember book and the tier one series 100 that and i think what's fun about dempsey is the evolution you know this is a guy that was a

door-kicking you know jsoc seal which is a very high level of function but it's still a very black and white world things are right things are wrong the mission is the mission and as he transitions into this spookier world of task force operations, he has to evolve as a human being into something different to be able to survive there. And, and just like in the steel teams, he can't do that without an entire team around him, whether it's the intelligence people like this, this quirky genius, Ian Baldwin and his, and his, uh, guys that work for him, Chip and Dale, Kelso Jarvis, who once ran the team and by now has evolved into,

he was the DNI and then eventually other things. And then his intimate team members. We have a sniper, Elizabeth Grimes, who starts out in book one. To be honest, writing her, we didn't even care for her that much. And the readers found her her a little bit abrasive but as she evolved and began to understand the mentality of these operators she became something better than she once was and now i think she's a lot of people's favorite character dan munn we actually got to uh i got to spend a dinner last night with the real

life dan munn because there is one one that we named that character after. But Dan Munn in our series is a former SEAL who becomes a surgeon that works with the task force. And when the entire task force is wiped out, the original JSOC SEAL team, he then goes back into covert operations as an operator. So he brings some really strange dynamic to the team because he's a surgeon, but also a shooter. And so it's a really fun cast of characters and there's no,

there's no red shirts. You know what I mean? There's no, there's no, the Star Trek disposable characters. We have characters die. But when our characters die, we literally are dripping tears onto our keyboard

because they're all real and they're all well developed so throughout the series there's been people come and go but there's no red shirts everybody matters everybody is part of the team so that was kind of fun about this that's funny i didn't register that first the red shirt the red shirts is a russian what does he mean? And then, yeah, that's funny. You never want to be the guy with the red shirt. Oh, he's not on Star Trek, dude. Star Trek, yeah. Hey, here's your costume.

Yeah, you're like, I'm wearing the red shirt. I know how that works. I'm the one who gets eaten by the aliens or dead. It's always them. Never mind. Anyway, so it sounds like a lot of fun a great read people love your guys's work how many books you guys have now total i think we're coming up on two dozen books between us we've co-authored most of those um i

think jeff has four solo projects i have three and then we've done you know we've done at least 20 together so nice a lot nice yeah and you guys are pumping it quite the express rate um of getting the books out you know we've got what the other tom clancy in december i think you said on december the fourth shepherd's book comes out next spring wow yeah we're gonna have you guys on hopefully back a lot. How do you guys work together? How do you manage a working relationship? Is it hard? Did it was a hard at first?

Did it take a while to gel or did you guys just kind of like right away? You just became a great working team. I think it, I think it always worked from the beginning. And, and I will say this, one of the risks of this partnership was we were friends first. So we were both writing, we met at a conference, we didn't know

each other in the military, but we connected because we shared that heritage, I think, and also similar family values, kids the same age. We just became like best friends. And it was a couple years after our friendship that we decided to write together. It was actually Brian's idea. And I do think that I went into that thinking, yeah, there's a risk. This is either going to be a friendship that's forged forever or the guy won't take my calls in about five months. So it was going to be one or the other was my guess. But I don't think we ever have struggled with the relational side of this mostly because from the very beginning we we were smart enough to sit down and say let's make sure we're on the same page not just

creatively but on the business side of it like what are we talking about what's our goal what's our one-year plan what's our three-year plan um and being on that same page i think helped but i think the biggest thing is that we're military veterans and that we served in the Navy, not together. But that mission before self is just part of who you are. Like Brian likes to say, one dude doesn't drive an $8 billion submarine. And in real life, sometimes on TV, but in real life, one superhero seal doesn't kick in a door and take down all the bad guys, right? It takes a team. And so we just brought that to this.

We were like, look, everything, there's no ego involved. There's no your stuff, my stuff. It's all our stuff. The mission is to make the best book and egos have to be put aside. And I think that's why it works.

There you go. Is that true? Jeff or Brian? Is he Brian? Is that true? I mean, I think when this started, I was just, and I guess

this is just sort of me generally as a person. I'm maybe wildly naive about it. I just always assume that people will come to a partnership with integrity and honesty and we're all working for the

same thing. In the case of Jeff, it was right. I've been wrong with other times, but with Jeff, it was right. So there's an implicit level of trust there, and I don't think I ever really thought about that maybe we would fail or maybe our friendship would implode or maybe i don't i don't like to think about those negative like off ramps especially when you're getting started because you know i don't know i guess if you put that out there maybe maybe you're more likely to i don't know but we just started from the beginning with this optimistic view that,

you know, this is going to work, you know, we're each going to contribute. We're each going to come up with cool ideas and we're going to have fun writing it. And that's exactly what happened. So when we started writing that book, I think, you know, the book, you know, it took me like eight years to write Calypso Directed, my first book. And then we powered through tier one in like four months. I think, you know, the book, you know, it took me like eight years to write Calypso Directed, my first book. And then we powered through Tier 1 in like four months.

I mean, that was incredible. I never thought I could finish a book in four months. And now, you know, we've repeated that model. That's about what we do, a book every three to four months. And we've been doing it ever since. So it's fun. How do you guys, if you don't mind me asking i don't know if you want to this proprietary but how do you guys write like does one of you

write certain characters or chapters or no we both we both write simultaneously and i think it wouldn't be as fun if we didn't right and we also get to write all the different characters. So we're writing at the same time. We write third-person, multi-point-of-view characters. So, you know, Jeff might be writing Dempsey's POV and I'm writing the villains, and then we'll do that for a couple chapters and maybe it'll swap to I'll do a couple Dempsey chapters. He's doing Grimes and the villain,

and then one of us will do Jarvis this chapter, next chapter. And so what that does, it really, I think, accomplishes two things. Number one, I think it keeps it intellectually interesting for both of us. You know, it doesn't become stale. Well, I have to write this person every time you get to write that person. So there's none of that. We both get to write all the characters so that's fun and two because we're both writing all the characters our little our individual perceptions of what those characters are come out in the chapters we write and so then between the whole book you get once we go through the editing process uh you know both of our brains and our emotions and our thoughts inform the personality of those of those all the characters.

It's kind of interesting guys are able to write tandem in the same voices of the characters, too. I think part of that is not that we probably at this point, this many books, then we probably even the first version of every chapter has a similar voice. But one of the things that makes this work and also is highly efficient is we are editing as we go. And what I mean by that is every few chapters, if Brian is writing, you know, he's written three chapters and I've written three, we swap them. And I rewrite his chapters and he rewrites mine. And so every single chapter that goes into the master file in the rough draft, we've both written that chapter. Either we wrote the first time and the other guy rewrote it or vice versa.

And so that gives you a little editing advantage, but mostly what it does is what you're talking about, Chris. It brings that one voice because we've both touched every single word of every single chapter. There you go. That's the hardest thing to do, especially when you're writing a book, I found, is when it goes to editing, you've got to have somebody who can write in your voice or can edit in your voice. And so it sounds like you guys kind of edit yourselves a little bit, each other. Yeah. We do.

That's the cornerstone of our process and wow and i think you know if jeff had jeff mentioned earlier when you were asking when we get started about the ego component for us identifying that this is a business it's not about it's not about pride of ownership from a prose perspective we don't try to be like oh i wrote this really cool sentence like let me read it to you the sentence is amazing how smart am i you know like we don't do that what we do is we have pride of ownership of the finished product of the characters and so you know we want when somebody picks up sons of valor and they're like they read it like damn that was a good book like that's what we're going

for it's not about oh jeff wrote chapter 17 and brian wrote 18 which chapter do you like better it doesn't work that way because we've both worked on every damn chapter in the book so we're just proud of the book itself and i don't know if a lot of writers could divorce their egos i think that's why you don't see so many um co-author pairs that work like us because you really have to be like oh yeah he can he really can change this yeah that's fine you know so that's the reason a lot of bands break up and everything else you know the egos and and uh you know well i i did that part and you did that part i remember when i think one of my favorite bands rush there was three of them.

And they finally just got tired of having that conversation of who wrote what. Because everybody kind of contributed. They're like, we'll just put all three. We're all writers on that. That's real, Chris, because I will tell you that we are now at the point. This sounds insane. This sounds like I'm making this. Now it sounds like I'm making it up.

But we're at the point now where that system is working so well, my wife will read a book and she'll go, oh, chapter 11. That was you, right? And I swear to you, I can't tell her. I mean, there are some that I remember writing, but it's not unusual for me to say I can't tell you. I'm struggling to remember. I don't know if I wrote it first or he wrote it first.

I don't know. I just don't know. So when we put Andrews and Wilson, it really is, just like you're talking about with Rush. To do it any other way would be absurd because it just wouldn't be true. Well, combined, you guys make great books and people love them. Give us your final thoughts as we go out and all that good stuff. Tell people where they can buy the book.

My final thought is that between the two of us, we make almost one good author. And my final thought is books are amazing. You can read them in different formats. So if you like a physical book, go to your local bookstore, help support independent booksellers. If you're into digital, we do have Kindle and Nook versions, but also, we have amazing voice actors that perform our books. So, Ray Porter

reads the Tier 1 series. He's incredible. If you've never listened to an audiobook, I highly encourage you to check out Audible and download Ember. You can listen to it in your car or your way to work. There you go. Well, thank you very much, guys.

Give us your dot coms, too, as we go out. Andrews-Wilson.com is your one-stop shop. Everything else is linked there. Like he said, there's a newsletter, but there's a page where you can find out everything we've got going on in TV and film, which maybe we can talk about next time. We've got a lot of stuff going on there. Everything about every

book. We even have a lot of stuff going on there. Everything about every book. We even have a fan page where our fans, what's really cool is our fans interact with each other now. It's like this really cool community. I think what we were hoping it would be, but didn't believe it could become with the website. So it's a very, no one's going to sell you anything. There's no spam.

Just come by, say hi. You can email us there. It's the one-stop shop, andrews-wilson.com there you go uh so thank you very much guys for coming to the show we'd love to have you back on the show did jeff do we get your dot coms i need the same one same one same one there you go uh this he's getting to me uh so guys we really appreciate you guys coming to the show please come back for your future books we'd love to have you continue on, we really appreciate you guys coming on the show. Please come back for your future books. We'd love to have you. Continue on the successful stuff that you guys are doing. Thank you very much. Thanks, Chris.

Thanks. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, Chris Voss, one of the TikTok, any of those crazy places on the internet. If you want to buy me a coffee, go to buymeacoffee.com forward slash Chris Voss. As always, be good to each other. Stay safe.com forward slash Chris Voss. As always, be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should...