Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books

More About Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books

The show description is, Zibby Owens author, podcaster, publisher, and mother of four conducts warm, inquisitive interviews with authors on this award-winning widely heralded literary podcast.

The length of each episode is around 30 minutes, and it is kid ear friendly most of the time. The series is ongoing with new episodes available daily. 

FPG Partner Bookshop.org

Bookshop.org is a great way for you to buy books online, but also support local bookstores. You can find a specific local bookstore that you would like to support, and they will receive the full profit off of your order. Or your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookstores.

You can see some of my favorite books for me and for my kiddos by going to my affiliate link at bookshop.org/shop/fpg. 

Introduction to Zibby & Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books

My name is Zibby Owens and I am the creator and host of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. I also co-host Sex Tok, SexTok with Zibby and Tracy and I have a podcast network with other shows that I’ve helped launch as well.

How Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books Got Started

It started when I was writing a bunch of parenting essays and my husband said, You know, you should really take all these essays and make them into a book. And I said, Ugh, Moms now a days don’t have time to read books. Then I was like, Oh, that’s so funny. That’ll be the name of my book, but, I heard from agents that publishers wouldn’t find that funny. And another girlfriend suggested that I should build my platform anyway if I wanted to sell a book. And she said, You should really start a podcast. And I said, Well what’s a podcast cuz I was living under a rock with my four kids and like barely looking up.

And this was in early 2018. And I went home and figured out Podcasting and Googled what’s the easiest way to start a podcast from your home? And recorded the first episode from my bedroom, and now I’ve been doing it for four years. And then once I interviewed my first author, I realized, That, that is what I wanted to do.

I loved it. I love books. I’ve been a huge book lover. I’m a writer myself, and once I got another author, I used to do them all in person sitting next to me and learning about them. It was intoxicating, just loved it. And so I started with one a week, and when the pandemic hit in 2020, I had been up to about two a week, and then I went to seven. So I’ve been doing seven a week since March of 2020 nonstop.

What to Expect from Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books

First of all, just to remember that moms are really smart, interesting human beings, and not just moms. Even though you become a mom, you’d, there’s this tendency to kind of lose our identities and forget, And also I think in the content world, there is a tendency to pigeonhole moms like, Okay, you’re a mom now, here you go, Here’s, here are the mom clothes and here are the mom books, and here are the parenting books.

And it’s like, Well, I’m still. I’m still interested in all the other stuff. I just don’t have as much time to consume it. But I like being intellectually challenged. I like reading, I love falling into other people’s lives and characters and all of that. So my show is designed to increase excitement about reading and by introducing listeners to really amazing people Who are authors who’ve written books, and it brings a whole new meaning to the books once you hear from the author, I think as most people think. But yeah, I mean the conversations are, are conversations less than interviews. It’s a very personal show. It’s like two friends chatting. We kinda skip the small talk and go right to like, well, tell me about that family trauma, you know.

I, I just ask all the questions that I’m curious about and that I wanna know, and I’m not like a trained journalist. I’m just a very curious book lover and author worshiper. So I think there’s a lot of excitement and I think a lot of women can see themselves in me because, You know, I’m, I’m like them. I’ve been, I was a stay at home mom for 11 years and just went back to work four years ago. And now I have this whole big thing that I’ve created and it’s all based on this podcast, which I, I, again, I adore it. I love doing it every day. 

The Vibe of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books

It is like two friends talking in that it’s very personal, it’s intimate, it’s real in the way that. When girlfriends get together, they share, and I don’t mean to be any gender bias, it doesn’t have to just be girlfriends, but two close friends getting together and sharing thoughts and feelings and experiences.

It’s like that. It’s like  and it, and it also covers what’s in the book too. So you’re always learning about something. Sometimes it’s more about the craft. It depends on what the book is, right? I’m doing a poetry one coming up, so I’m gonna talk to it. Like, why poetry? I don’t usually do poetry, but I’ll do a cookbook show and we’ll talk all, I’ll be like, What? Well, what do you, what did you have for breakfast? Do you know what I mean? I wanna know about the person.And you know, not that I’m so hilarious, but you know, I joke around and I try to keep it light and I try to meet the guest where they are. You know, if they’re very, in a very soulful kind of deep mood, I can do that. And if they’re more like reserved, I can try to draw ’em out a little bit, make ’em laugh. And if they’re, you know, stressed, I can calm them down and, you know, bestselling author or celebrity, I don’t know. I’m just like very comfortable I think around everybody cuz I’ve. I don’t know. There’s something we can all relate to about each other and my job is to find it. 

Zibby’s Favorite Episodes

I interviewed my dad when he had a book come out. That was one of my favorites. That was great. I. I interviewed the first lady, Jill Biden before she was the First Lady, and it was such a nice, intimate conversation.

She ended up inviting me for Thanksgiving dinner, so that was really fun. Let’s see. I really enjoyed talking to Seth Meyers recently about his children’s book. I had a children’s book just come out as well from the same publisher, same editor. Mine’s called Princess Charming. I just did one this morning with an author named Lauren Lane who wrote a book called Maiden Manhattan, which is sort of rom-comy, New York based fantasy. Book, which I don’t normally read, but I was so interested in how she had written something like 40 books already and wow. We had a great conversation about book marketing and what it takes to have your book break out and how to get all the writing in and how to balance the writing and the business of book writing.