Episode 021 - Building Communities in Podcasts and In Person with J. Thorn
April 7, 2020
Author and podcaster J. Thorn shares some great advice for anyone thinking of starting a podcast, great recommendations for writers looking for a podcast to listen to, and valuable insights into building relationships with others in the writing and publishing worlds by approaching them with an offer rather than an ask.
J. Thorn ranks in the Top 100 Most Popular Authors on Amazon in Horror, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, and Fantasy. He has published two million words and has sold more than 185,000 books worldwide. In March of 2014, Thorn held the #5 position in Horror alongside his childhood idols Dean Koontz and Stephen King. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association, and the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers. J. also hosts the podcasts The Career Author Podcast; Writers, Ink; The Writer’s Well; and The Author Life Podcast.
Matty: Hello and welcome to the Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is J. Thorn! Hi J., how are you doing?
[00:00:07] J: Hey Matty, how are you?
[00:00:09] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, J. Thorn ranks in the top 100 most popular authors on Amazon in horror, science fiction, action, and adventure and fantasy. He's published 2 million words and has sold more than 185,000 books worldwide. In March of 2014, Thorn held the number five position in horror alongside his childhood idols, Dean Koontz and Stephen King. He's a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association, and the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers.
[00:00:43] Thorn earned a BA in American history from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA from Duquesne University. He's a full-time writer, part-time professor at John Carroll University, co-owner of Molten Universe Media, FM radio DJ, musician, and a certified Story Grid nerd. So, J., you'll want to listen to episode 18 where I talked with Anne Hawley of the Story Grid Editors Roundtable about the importance of studying masterworks.
[00:01:10] J: Oh, yeah, Anne!
[00:01:11] Matty: Yeah, that was super fun. And apropos for our conversation today. J. is also podcaster extraordinaire, with a whole bunch of current and past podcasts. J., I was doing some research about the podcasts and I think I found them all, but I'm not sure, so I wanted to ask you to be the one to share a little bit about your podcasting background because that's one of the topics we want to talk about today.
[00:01:33] J: Yeah, I don't go as far back as my good friend Joanna Penn does. I think she takes the title with The Creative Penn, but I've started lots of podcasts and some are still going and some aren't. I think that the first one was around 2014, which was the Horror Writers Podcast. I did that for a while by myself, and then I had Richard Brown on, and then Zach Bohannon was on with me.
[00:02:01] That's one that I don't do anymore. I did one called The Intronaut, which was a podcast for introverts. I did a hundred episodes of that. There've been a number of other podcasts and this went back to my days in education where I was having students create podcasts in the early 2000s, when you had to listen to them on a computer.
[00:02:19] So I had this long history with podcasting, even from a consumer standpoint. But right now, I have four current podcasts that are running, all for writers. Three of those are weekly. The one that isn't is called The Author Life, and that's a monthly podcast that I do, an audio version of a long form blog post that I write on a monthly basis.
[00:02:39] The other three, The Career Author, I do that one with Zach Bohannon. I do The Writer's Well with Rachael Herron. And then the newest one I started in December of 2019 is the Writers, Ink Podcast with J D Barker.
[00:00:07] J: Hey Matty, how are you?
[00:00:09] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, J. Thorn ranks in the top 100 most popular authors on Amazon in horror, science fiction, action, and adventure and fantasy. He's published 2 million words and has sold more than 185,000 books worldwide. In March of 2014, Thorn held the number five position in horror alongside his childhood idols, Dean Koontz and Stephen King. He's a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association, and the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers.
[00:00:43] Thorn earned a BA in American history from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA from Duquesne University. He's a full-time writer, part-time professor at John Carroll University, co-owner of Molten Universe Media, FM radio DJ, musician, and a certified Story Grid nerd. So, J., you'll want to listen to episode 18 where I talked with Anne Hawley of the Story Grid Editors Roundtable about the importance of studying masterworks.
[00:01:10] J: Oh, yeah, Anne!
[00:01:11] Matty: Yeah, that was super fun. And apropos for our conversation today. J. is also podcaster extraordinaire, with a whole bunch of current and past podcasts. J., I was doing some research about the podcasts and I think I found them all, but I'm not sure, so I wanted to ask you to be the one to share a little bit about your podcasting background because that's one of the topics we want to talk about today.
[00:01:33] J: Yeah, I don't go as far back as my good friend Joanna Penn does. I think she takes the title with The Creative Penn, but I've started lots of podcasts and some are still going and some aren't. I think that the first one was around 2014, which was the Horror Writers Podcast. I did that for a while by myself, and then I had Richard Brown on, and then Zach Bohannon was on with me.
[00:02:01] That's one that I don't do anymore. I did one called The Intronaut, which was a podcast for introverts. I did a hundred episodes of that. There've been a number of other podcasts and this went back to my days in education where I was having students create podcasts in the early 2000s, when you had to listen to them on a computer.
[00:02:19] So I had this long history with podcasting, even from a consumer standpoint. But right now, I have four current podcasts that are running, all for writers. Three of those are weekly. The one that isn't is called The Author Life, and that's a monthly podcast that I do, an audio version of a long form blog post that I write on a monthly basis.
[00:02:39] The other three, The Career Author, I do that one with Zach Bohannon. I do The Writer's Well with Rachael Herron. And then the newest one I started in December of 2019 is the Writers, Ink Podcast with J D Barker.
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[00:02:54] Matty: Yes. I myself have listened to Writers, Ink, which is great.
[00:02:58] The Career Author I just love, I discovered that fairly recently and was sorry I hadn't discovered it earlier, so I'm going to be binge listening to those, but those are both great resources for any author. I especially enjoyed the recent one about a year of digital minimalism.
[00:03:13] That was a great podcast for anyone, not just authors. I have to say that I was spreading the word about that via social media, so it was a little bit ironic, but a really great conversation that you guys have.
[00:03:26] So one of the things I'd like to talk about, which has been sort of a theme for me over the last few episodes, is community building. And I'd specifically like to talk with you about if community building was a goal for you for podcasts. I'll start out with that question.
[00:03:42] J: It was not. On the Myers Briggs. I'm an I N T J. If people are not familiar with what those letters are it basically means I enjoy spending time alone.
[00:03:52] I'm very introspective, reflective. This is going to seem odd as a podcaster, but I'm not good verbally on my feet. That's why I'm a writer. I like to process and think about thoughts and I move words around on the screen. So quite honestly, community was not in the cards for me.
[00:04:08] In fact, the reason I started my first podcast was because my friend Jim Kukral, who also lives here in Cleveland. He was the cohost of the Sell More Books Show for many years. We were having lunch one time and he said, "You need to be the horror guy, you need to be synonymous with horror and why don't you start a podcast?"
[00:04:25] And I was like, "About what? What am I going to say? What I know?" And he said, "Just tell people what you're doing." And it sounds so simple, but it's really great advice. Even today, I think for people who were thinking, wow, there's so many podcasts, what could I possibly bring? You bring yourself, you bring what you do and how you do it.
[00:04:41] So when I started the Horror Writers Podcast, it was more like a video diary. I was just talking about, here's what I'm trying, here's what I'm doing, here's what I'm seeing in the industry. And then the community kind of grew as other people were like, "Oh, I'm curious, it's similar to what I'm doing."
[00:04:56] And you know, in podcasting, it's a long tail game. So it takes time to build up an audience and to have people listen. But over time I started getting emails and comments, and that's when I started to realize that the communities were important and that I had maybe been neglecting that from the beginning and it sort of was a turning point for me.
[00:05:15] Matty: I'm assuming that based on the titles of your podcasts, they're all aimed more or less at writers, less so than the readers of horror, for example.
[00:05:25] J: Yeah, it is true. Now, the Horror Writers Podcast, Zach and I tried to pivot that more towards readers and we just didn't really get much traction.
[00:05:33] We were doing book reviews and interviews of authors and movie makers, but we were talking about it from a reader's perspective and it just wasn't there. Typically, it's harder for fiction writers to get traction with a podcast when they're aiming it at readers.
[00:05:47] And part of me wonders if it's just the nature of the medium. Even if it's an audio book, reading a book is different than listening to a podcast, and maybe there's not a lot of crossover there.
[00:05:56] I had been a teacher for 24 years before I started doing writing full time. And I realized that teaching is something that I really enjoy, and it didn't just mean in a classroom full of kids in some building somewhere, that I could teach in other ways. So that's when the writing podcast for me really took hold.
[00:06:12] The Writer's Well is a little play on words. Rachel and I get together every week and we ask each other a question and it has something to do with the writing life. We don't know what the question is ahead of time, and we do that back and forth every week.
[00:06:24] The Career Author is just what it says. It's a podcast for writers and creators who have aspirations to making it a career, making it full time, whatever that means for you.
[00:06:34] The Author Life is about what it means to live a creative life and what it means to make money from words.
[00:06:40] And then Writers, Ink, the one with JD that's also a play on words--it's I N K-- but it's this idea of writing as a business and how do you approach something creative and also commercially.
[00:06:52] So, yeah, all the podcasts I'm doing now are really directed towards writers and I've really sort of tabled any of the reader ones for now.
[00:06:59] Matty: How did you end up getting together with the people that you cohost the podcasts with?
[00:07:05] J: Most of the time I asked, I know that that sounds silly.
[00:07:11] I listened to you and Mark <Lefebvre>, didn't you reach out to Mark about The Short Tack idea?
[00:07:17] Matty: Yes. I was listening to the Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing Podcast, which is what Mark Lefebvre does, and he had just mentioned short fiction in passing. I was in a place where I was trying to figure out what to do with my short stories. and I sent him a note as a patron of the podcast, and I said, "I would love it if you would do a whole podcast episode on short fiction." And he very graciously said he would. I think it's titled "10 Things You Can Do with Short Fiction," but because he always overdelivers, it was 13 and then I got back in touch with him and I said, "I think there's the basis for a book here. Would you be interested in coauthoring a book with me?" So, yeah, it was another case of the power of asking.
[00:07:56] J: Yeah. Yeah. That can't be underestimated. I will put a little caveat on that though, I started, self-publishing in 2009 so I had my 10-year anniversary last year, and I've been in this for a while and seen a lot of crazy stuff.
[00:08:10] One of the things that I've seen consistently in regards to the community--the author community, or peers, or networking--is there's much better karma and, it's going to sound a little woo woo, but it's much better karma if you go to someone with an offer versus an ask. So I'll give an example.
[00:08:29] The most recent podcast: I knew J D Barker for a long time, admired him for a long time. He's a fantastic writer. He wrote the prequel to Dracula with Dacre Stoker. I mean, the guy is co-writing with James Patterson. He's very prolific. I saw him at ThrillerFest and I had heard him on Mark Dawson's podcast, and I've heard him talk before.
[00:08:50] And I thought, "Wow, this guy is like wicked smart. And it would be great to hear more of him." But he didn't have his own podcast. And when I met him, I realized he didn't necessarily have the skillset or the bandwidth to do that even though he wanted to. And I said, "Listen, man, why don't we do a podcast together? I'll do all the work. I'll do all the writing, the publishing, the scheduling, and you just show up at a certain time, talk into a microphone, and I'll do everything else?" Now he said no at first, but, I eventually convinced him, and I think part of that was because I gave him the opportunity to develop a new skill.
[00:09:26] But as the asker, I came with an offer. I'm like, "I will do all the work for you." As opposed to me going to him and saying, "Hey, why don't we start a podcast together? You figure it out and I'll show up."
[00:09:36] So I think as a general approach, whether it's a podcast or a co-writing project or any type of collaboration, people are much more receptive and willing to work with you if you are offering something of value to them altruistically. Not like, "I'm going to keep track of this and then I'm going to call this chip in some day." But you genuinely show a generosity. I think people can feel that.
[00:09:58] Matty: That's a great point and really goes to the whole concept of you're building a community. You're not just taking advantage of people to tap their brains. Although I have to say, when I started The Indy Author Podcast, there was definitely an aspect of that that was networking. There were people I wanted to talk to about, you know, how to capitalize on my short stories, and even early on when I had basically no subscribers to my podcast, I could still say, "I'm going to interview you and when we're done, if nothing else, you're going to have a nicely made audio and video that you can point your followers to." And it gave me a chance to talk with them for half an hour about something and then pay them back.
[00:10:36] Are there any other tips that you would give people who are thinking about launching into podcasting themselves? Because it seems like a booming area now, everybody's coming up with their podcast.
[00:10:45] J: It is, it is definitely. Joanna would say it's the second golden age of podcasting because the mid-2000s was the first. But I do think that the advent of the smartphone has really tipped it to the point where from this point on, audio in general is going to become really important.
[00:11:02] And what's interesting about audio is that some people think, if audio is this big, won't video be next? I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. Podcasting and audio books are things people can consume while they're doing other things. So, yes, video is very important, and video will continue to be important, but I'm not watching YouTube when I'm walking the dog or doing the laundry or doing the dishes.
[00:11:28] So I think podcasting, and audio in general, has a very unique space in our lives that can't really be filled by anything else because I can't really read on a book or in paper that way either when I'm doing those things. So what I tell people is, there are more podcasts now than there ever been, but you shouldn't find that discouraging because what's happened now is there's a podcast niche for everything.
[00:11:54] I think the more specific you can be, the more likelihood you will find an audience. So, for example, my advice would not be to start a general writing podcast. My advice would be to find something within writing and do a podcast solely on that. So for J D and I, we're focusing on the business aspect of writing.
[00:12:14] That doesn't mean we don't talk craft with our guests, of course we do, and we talk about it with each other. But that's sort of the approach we're taking. Maybe you're a graphic designer, so maybe you start a podcast that, instead of just writing, it is the design elements of a good book cover, and that is your podcast.
[00:12:32] So I think that's what you have to be looking for.
[00:12:34] Matty: My attitude toward podcasting changed a lot in the last year or so as more and more podcasts came up and I was having these thoughts about, "Oh, is this worth it?" And then I realized it's becoming more like if you were going to write a book about the business of writing, then you wouldn't look up on Amazon and say, "Oh, I see there are two or three books already, so I'm not going to bother." You would try to come up with your own spin on it, but just because there's an entry or two in that space doesn't mean that a new entry isn't valid as long as you're bringing value and you're maybe giving it a little bit of a different spin.
[00:13:10] So it's more like reading articles in a way than watching a TV series, was the mindset that I would have brought to it a year or so ago.
[00:13:19] J: Yeah. The flip side--and this is not to be pessimistic, this is realistic--the flip side is that most podcasts don't make it past seven episodes because the creator creates those first couple and they're so excited and they check the analytics and nobody's listened.
[00:13:34] Maybe their mom or their uncle. But every single podcast I've ever started has started with zero listeners. And it is a slow, steady build. And just like in blogging and just like in being an author or writing in general, you're rewarded with high quality consistency. And that means whatever you, whatever it is, if it's a weekly podcast and you show up and you do it every week and you publish it on the same day every week, if it's monthly, you do it on the same day.
[00:14:02] I think where a lot of new podcasters run into trouble is, they feel this frustration "Well, I've already put up four episodes and no one's listening." Yeah, you might go four months or four years before you start to get a listenership, and, and that's just the nature of it. So I think if you're looking for really short term rewards from podcasting, it's probably not right for you.
[00:14:22] Matty: I know when I think about subscribing to a podcast, certainly I'll always check to see how many episodes are out there because I think if I love it and then there are only four, I'm going to be disappointed, but if I see there are dozens or hundreds, then I know that if I really love it, I can binge listen through all the previous ones.
[00:14:41] J: Yeah. I'm also not a fan of pod fade. So sometimes I'll see a new podcast and it looks really great and I subscribe, and then it just fades away. They just quit doing it. And I find that really frustrating. So from a listener standpoint, too, I think it's important to have consistency.
[00:14:57] Matty: It's interesting that you started out, I think you used the term video or audio diary, and that if you as the podcaster can find value in it, independent of whether anybody ever listens to it or not, while still maintaining a level of professionalism that will accommodate it when many people find it, that that's a nice balance because that gives you an incentive to keep moving forward even while you're building your community.
[00:15:23] J: Yeah, and in a real practical sense, if you do either a cohosted podcast or an interview format podcast, you're much more likely to continue. I've done several podcasts by myself and it's sort of like if you've never worked out and you work out a regimen and you're all alone, it's really easy for you to sleep in or hit the snooze alarm or not go.
[00:15:45] But if someone else is counting on you, whether that's an interview or a cohost, you're more likely to stick with it. And to your point, I'm saying this tongue in cheek, I don't know how professional Rachel and I are on The Writer's Well, but like we have said a number of times, these are the conversations we would be having anyways.
[00:16:02] If her and I got together once a week to talk writing, this is what we'd be saying. We just happened to be inviting everyone else into the conversation. I think you can design a podcast in that way. Now. The Career Author's a little different. In The Career Author, Zack and I have segments, we have teaching components to it. We're looking more to educate. Whereas, The Writer's Well is just more of an invitation to come sit around the coffee table. So I think as a podcaster, you have to figure out also, not only what the topic or what the theme of your podcast is going to be, but what's going to be the medium? How are you going to deliver it? Is it going to be solo, is it going to be a partnership? Is it going to be an interview? Is it going to be a roundtable? There are so many ways you can do it.
[00:16:41] Matty: Do you find that there are intrinsic differences in the communities you've built up in those two scenarios? One where it's more inviting them into a conversation versus more of an educational, formal scenario?
[00:16:53] J: Yeah, I think so. What's odd is I feel like it's the same pool of people I'm appealing to. I think anyone who is a fan of The Career Author is probably listening to my other three podcasts, and that works. It's the same group of people, but the behaviors are different based on the expectations. The Career Author, we have Patreon involved with that, as I do with The Writer's Well. And for The Career Author, I reply to every single comment that shows up on the podcast.
[00:17:18] I think that's critically important. That's the number one cardinal sin. If you don't engage on your own show, that's a problem. I engage every single comment on The Career Author, but I think because of the nature of it and the expectations, people see more of that as information and the listeners don't contribute as much. Whereas on The Writers Well, we get, 30 40 50 60 comments a week, which for us is a lot, and it's the same people and you get to know each other, and people are responding to each other's comments. I think the format of the podcast changes the expectations, even though it's the same people who are listening to them.
[00:17:53] Matty: One thing that I really appreciated was after I signed up as a patron for The Career Author, I got a personalized video from you, which was super fun. Can you just describe the process you used to do that?
[00:18:07] J: Yeah, absolutely. It's a service called Bonjoro. I won't get into the technical details of it, but what you can essentially do is you can tie Bonjoro into any sort of user behaviors. So whenever a new patron signs up, I get a notification that says, so-and-so signed up. Bonjoro is an app, so I can pop open the app on my phone, I record a little video message, and I hit send and it takes me about 20 seconds, 30 seconds. But the first time I experienced it, I was blown away because, first of all, I didn't expect it. I think a lot of times we think that podcasters or bloggers or authors are often this ivory tower somewhere and you won't have any access to them and they're not real people. And the first time I got a Bonjoro or a video response, I was just like, wow, this is so personable, and I love that touch, building community, engagement. This is another example, if you want to start a podcast but you're not willing to engage with people in some way, don't do it. I'm willing to engage in multiple ways. For me, it's kind of fun. It's a little treat for someone who's not expecting it, as you experienced, and it really doesn't take much to make someone's day.
[00:19:16] I can't predict the future, but I'm guessing that, most of the people who get that message are probably a little more inclined to stick around for longer. They feel maybe more of a personal connection to me than if they had just gotten an email response.
[00:19:28] Matty: Absolutely. I want it change tacks a little bit in a way that will seem disconnected, but I think we'll be able to pull it together. And that is that for someone who actually had a podcast at one point specifically targeted at introverts, and you being an introvert yourself, as you said before, you've also talked very effectively about the importance of seeing people, not just on the air, not just via apps, but in person.
[00:19:55] Can you talk a little bit about how that plays into how you've interacted with the communities you've built?
[00:20:01] J: Yeah. It's been a strange trip. As I said, I didn't set out to build community when I started. On the other hand, I've always been a facilitator. Even in the classroom and in every school I've been in, I've been the organizer, the facilitator, and over the past 10 or 15 years, I've become increasingly disenchanted with the way technology has evolved, specifically social media. I mean, there's a lot of good that can be used from technology and connecting us, but I think we're paying a price. It's a bit challenging, but I do think that the most meaningful interactions that we can ever have are when we're sitting across from someone face to face and looking in their eyes and not necessarily through a screen. And I know that there are situations and times and circumstances where that has to be the case, and I don't begrudge that. I'm not a Luddite. I've been a tech fan for a long time.
[00:20:55] I use Zoom for more hours in the day than I care to admit. but I really feel strongly, especially after Zach and I started doing so many of the writers' retreats and really focusing on the world-building weekend events that we do, where it's 12 to 15 people, that's it, we get together in a room, we go to a fantastic city. Like we did a Rock Apoc here in Cleveland. We rented out a room at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We built a post-apoc world at one of the VIP rooms. Mark was at that event. And everyone got to interact. We built the world together and then people go off and write their own short stories. And that's an experience people will never forget, and I think it's really meaningful. There have been connections that have come out of that. There are multiple writer partnerships that have come out of our world building events.
[00:21:39] So I don't have anything against the big online events. I certainly don't have anything against the big conferences of six or seven or 800 people. But for me, that's not where the meaning is. For me, the meaning is in very small groups of people. The largest event Zach and I do is 125 people. We do that once a year, and we're not even sure how long we're going to do that because we really prefer the really small 12 to 15 person events.
[00:22:02] The other thing that that's taught me is that a lot of times we lean too heavily on our labels. For years I said, well, I'm an introvert, I'm an I N T J. I don't do that. I don't mix with people. I don't small talk, I don't socialize. And that's really self-limiting.
[00:22:16] I had to come to the realization that, yeah, being in social situations can drain me, but it's not impossible and it's not as bad as I've made it out to be. And I'm now to the point where I really enjoy those social interactions. Now I'm going to go home and I'm going to sleep for a day, and I'm going to rest and tell my family not to talk to me for 12 hours.
[00:22:33] But while I'm at the event, I'm having fun, and so I think I had to get past some of my own limitations and get over myself, too.
[00:22:40] Matty: It's easy to caricature the whole introvert / extrovert thing because I know very few people who are actually just energized with no downside by huge group events. And I don't know anyone who doesn't sometimes want to just go home and be by themselves. It's tapping into the appropriate side at the appropriate time.
[00:23:02] J: Yes. Yes.
[00:23:04] Matty: I was impressed in your podcast, I think you actually used the word "energized," that you had left one of those in person events where you had spent a concentrated amount of time with a concentrated amount of people energized. And that was really fun to hear.
[00:23:16] J: Yeah. That was the Authors on the Train that we did in January of this year, 2020. We rode the Amtrak Starlight Coastal from LA to San Francisco or Oakland with all the authors. And then we rented a big mansion in Oakland, and we spent three days there together in a writer's retreat. And I left and I was on a high, I mean, it was fantastic. And that's something that 10 years ago probably would have made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
[00:23:41] Matty: Well, it does sound fabulous. Anything combining a train trip and a mansion. You can't go too wrong there.
[00:23:47] J: Yeah, we had a great time. We really did.
[00:23:49] Matty: What was the first event you did like that and what was the impetus for putting it on?
[00:23:55] J: It started as a tweet. At least this is how the story goes now.
[00:23:58] I can't remember if this is exactly what happened, but I had traveled across the country on Amtrak a number of times and I put out a tweet, I might've been on a train at the time, and Lindsay Buroker replied and said, "Oh, wow, that would be really cool to ride on a train." And I was like, "Let's do it. Let's get on a train." And she was like, "What? Really?" And like, "Yeah." So I emailed her privately and I'm like, "Are you serious? Do you want to try it?" And she's like, "Yeah, why not?" I'm like, "Okay, well, let's get a few more people together and then we'll all go together and we'll do something."
[00:24:29] I reached out to Joanna Penn who said yeah, she'd be interested, and her and I had been friends for a number of years at that point. And Zach, who I'd been friends with, and this was in the spring of 2017, I guess, and we decided we were going to take an Amtrak train from Chicago to New Orleans, and we were going to write a novella together.
[00:24:46] And that's what we did. It was sort of based on the train travel. We spent a week in New Orleans hanging out, laughing, drinking, eating, writing. it was fantastic. And towards the end of the week, Zach and I were sitting at a bar in the French Quarter, and we were sipping a drink and just talking about how great it was.
[00:25:03] And I think I said something like, "Man, wouldn't this be great if we could do this for other people? If we could take people on this experience the way we had it." And Lindsay and Joanna were both like, "We're not interested. You guys can do that." And so that was the beginning of it. That started Authors on a Train.
[00:25:21] We subsequently have done two of the Chicago to New Orleans trips. And we recently changed it up and did a California Dreaming, LA to Oakland. And we'll probably get to do that again in 2021 and then maybe change it up after that. But we really liked the Authors on a Train-- the brand, the vibe-- and it's been a wonderful experience. But it all started at that table in New Orleans, just thinking "Yeah, what if we did this for other people?"
[00:25:47] Matty: That's a great illustration of going from the very, very tight community of just the four of you, to expanding. You've really covered every scope of community from that very tight knit community to larger events, to the podcast environment.
[00:26:04] I want to thank you for joining The Indy Author Podcast to share that. Let our listeners know where they can find out about you and your work, and also whether events like the train journeys are things that are open to people. And if it is, if they can find out more about those specifically.
[00:26:20] J: Yeah. The easiest thing to do is to go to theauthorlife.com and from there there's links out to all the podcasts, all the events. There's a free book on how to self-publish. If you're looking for some tips or you're not really sure how to self-publish, there's a free download there. But that's easiest thing to do is just go to theauthorlife.com and you can get to everything else from there.
[00:26:40] Matty: Great. Well, thank you so much, J., this was so much fun.
[00:26:43] J: Oh, my pleasure, Matty. Thanks for having me on.
[00:02:58] The Career Author I just love, I discovered that fairly recently and was sorry I hadn't discovered it earlier, so I'm going to be binge listening to those, but those are both great resources for any author. I especially enjoyed the recent one about a year of digital minimalism.
[00:03:13] That was a great podcast for anyone, not just authors. I have to say that I was spreading the word about that via social media, so it was a little bit ironic, but a really great conversation that you guys have.
[00:03:26] So one of the things I'd like to talk about, which has been sort of a theme for me over the last few episodes, is community building. And I'd specifically like to talk with you about if community building was a goal for you for podcasts. I'll start out with that question.
[00:03:42] J: It was not. On the Myers Briggs. I'm an I N T J. If people are not familiar with what those letters are it basically means I enjoy spending time alone.
[00:03:52] I'm very introspective, reflective. This is going to seem odd as a podcaster, but I'm not good verbally on my feet. That's why I'm a writer. I like to process and think about thoughts and I move words around on the screen. So quite honestly, community was not in the cards for me.
[00:04:08] In fact, the reason I started my first podcast was because my friend Jim Kukral, who also lives here in Cleveland. He was the cohost of the Sell More Books Show for many years. We were having lunch one time and he said, "You need to be the horror guy, you need to be synonymous with horror and why don't you start a podcast?"
[00:04:25] And I was like, "About what? What am I going to say? What I know?" And he said, "Just tell people what you're doing." And it sounds so simple, but it's really great advice. Even today, I think for people who were thinking, wow, there's so many podcasts, what could I possibly bring? You bring yourself, you bring what you do and how you do it.
[00:04:41] So when I started the Horror Writers Podcast, it was more like a video diary. I was just talking about, here's what I'm trying, here's what I'm doing, here's what I'm seeing in the industry. And then the community kind of grew as other people were like, "Oh, I'm curious, it's similar to what I'm doing."
[00:04:56] And you know, in podcasting, it's a long tail game. So it takes time to build up an audience and to have people listen. But over time I started getting emails and comments, and that's when I started to realize that the communities were important and that I had maybe been neglecting that from the beginning and it sort of was a turning point for me.
[00:05:15] Matty: I'm assuming that based on the titles of your podcasts, they're all aimed more or less at writers, less so than the readers of horror, for example.
[00:05:25] J: Yeah, it is true. Now, the Horror Writers Podcast, Zach and I tried to pivot that more towards readers and we just didn't really get much traction.
[00:05:33] We were doing book reviews and interviews of authors and movie makers, but we were talking about it from a reader's perspective and it just wasn't there. Typically, it's harder for fiction writers to get traction with a podcast when they're aiming it at readers.
[00:05:47] And part of me wonders if it's just the nature of the medium. Even if it's an audio book, reading a book is different than listening to a podcast, and maybe there's not a lot of crossover there.
[00:05:56] I had been a teacher for 24 years before I started doing writing full time. And I realized that teaching is something that I really enjoy, and it didn't just mean in a classroom full of kids in some building somewhere, that I could teach in other ways. So that's when the writing podcast for me really took hold.
[00:06:12] The Writer's Well is a little play on words. Rachel and I get together every week and we ask each other a question and it has something to do with the writing life. We don't know what the question is ahead of time, and we do that back and forth every week.
[00:06:24] The Career Author is just what it says. It's a podcast for writers and creators who have aspirations to making it a career, making it full time, whatever that means for you.
[00:06:34] The Author Life is about what it means to live a creative life and what it means to make money from words.
[00:06:40] And then Writers, Ink, the one with JD that's also a play on words--it's I N K-- but it's this idea of writing as a business and how do you approach something creative and also commercially.
[00:06:52] So, yeah, all the podcasts I'm doing now are really directed towards writers and I've really sort of tabled any of the reader ones for now.
[00:06:59] Matty: How did you end up getting together with the people that you cohost the podcasts with?
[00:07:05] J: Most of the time I asked, I know that that sounds silly.
[00:07:11] I listened to you and Mark <Lefebvre>, didn't you reach out to Mark about The Short Tack idea?
[00:07:17] Matty: Yes. I was listening to the Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing Podcast, which is what Mark Lefebvre does, and he had just mentioned short fiction in passing. I was in a place where I was trying to figure out what to do with my short stories. and I sent him a note as a patron of the podcast, and I said, "I would love it if you would do a whole podcast episode on short fiction." And he very graciously said he would. I think it's titled "10 Things You Can Do with Short Fiction," but because he always overdelivers, it was 13 and then I got back in touch with him and I said, "I think there's the basis for a book here. Would you be interested in coauthoring a book with me?" So, yeah, it was another case of the power of asking.
[00:07:56] J: Yeah. Yeah. That can't be underestimated. I will put a little caveat on that though, I started, self-publishing in 2009 so I had my 10-year anniversary last year, and I've been in this for a while and seen a lot of crazy stuff.
[00:08:10] One of the things that I've seen consistently in regards to the community--the author community, or peers, or networking--is there's much better karma and, it's going to sound a little woo woo, but it's much better karma if you go to someone with an offer versus an ask. So I'll give an example.
[00:08:29] The most recent podcast: I knew J D Barker for a long time, admired him for a long time. He's a fantastic writer. He wrote the prequel to Dracula with Dacre Stoker. I mean, the guy is co-writing with James Patterson. He's very prolific. I saw him at ThrillerFest and I had heard him on Mark Dawson's podcast, and I've heard him talk before.
[00:08:50] And I thought, "Wow, this guy is like wicked smart. And it would be great to hear more of him." But he didn't have his own podcast. And when I met him, I realized he didn't necessarily have the skillset or the bandwidth to do that even though he wanted to. And I said, "Listen, man, why don't we do a podcast together? I'll do all the work. I'll do all the writing, the publishing, the scheduling, and you just show up at a certain time, talk into a microphone, and I'll do everything else?" Now he said no at first, but, I eventually convinced him, and I think part of that was because I gave him the opportunity to develop a new skill.
[00:09:26] But as the asker, I came with an offer. I'm like, "I will do all the work for you." As opposed to me going to him and saying, "Hey, why don't we start a podcast together? You figure it out and I'll show up."
[00:09:36] So I think as a general approach, whether it's a podcast or a co-writing project or any type of collaboration, people are much more receptive and willing to work with you if you are offering something of value to them altruistically. Not like, "I'm going to keep track of this and then I'm going to call this chip in some day." But you genuinely show a generosity. I think people can feel that.
[00:09:58] Matty: That's a great point and really goes to the whole concept of you're building a community. You're not just taking advantage of people to tap their brains. Although I have to say, when I started The Indy Author Podcast, there was definitely an aspect of that that was networking. There were people I wanted to talk to about, you know, how to capitalize on my short stories, and even early on when I had basically no subscribers to my podcast, I could still say, "I'm going to interview you and when we're done, if nothing else, you're going to have a nicely made audio and video that you can point your followers to." And it gave me a chance to talk with them for half an hour about something and then pay them back.
[00:10:36] Are there any other tips that you would give people who are thinking about launching into podcasting themselves? Because it seems like a booming area now, everybody's coming up with their podcast.
[00:10:45] J: It is, it is definitely. Joanna would say it's the second golden age of podcasting because the mid-2000s was the first. But I do think that the advent of the smartphone has really tipped it to the point where from this point on, audio in general is going to become really important.
[00:11:02] And what's interesting about audio is that some people think, if audio is this big, won't video be next? I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. Podcasting and audio books are things people can consume while they're doing other things. So, yes, video is very important, and video will continue to be important, but I'm not watching YouTube when I'm walking the dog or doing the laundry or doing the dishes.
[00:11:28] So I think podcasting, and audio in general, has a very unique space in our lives that can't really be filled by anything else because I can't really read on a book or in paper that way either when I'm doing those things. So what I tell people is, there are more podcasts now than there ever been, but you shouldn't find that discouraging because what's happened now is there's a podcast niche for everything.
[00:11:54] I think the more specific you can be, the more likelihood you will find an audience. So, for example, my advice would not be to start a general writing podcast. My advice would be to find something within writing and do a podcast solely on that. So for J D and I, we're focusing on the business aspect of writing.
[00:12:14] That doesn't mean we don't talk craft with our guests, of course we do, and we talk about it with each other. But that's sort of the approach we're taking. Maybe you're a graphic designer, so maybe you start a podcast that, instead of just writing, it is the design elements of a good book cover, and that is your podcast.
[00:12:32] So I think that's what you have to be looking for.
[00:12:34] Matty: My attitude toward podcasting changed a lot in the last year or so as more and more podcasts came up and I was having these thoughts about, "Oh, is this worth it?" And then I realized it's becoming more like if you were going to write a book about the business of writing, then you wouldn't look up on Amazon and say, "Oh, I see there are two or three books already, so I'm not going to bother." You would try to come up with your own spin on it, but just because there's an entry or two in that space doesn't mean that a new entry isn't valid as long as you're bringing value and you're maybe giving it a little bit of a different spin.
[00:13:10] So it's more like reading articles in a way than watching a TV series, was the mindset that I would have brought to it a year or so ago.
[00:13:19] J: Yeah. The flip side--and this is not to be pessimistic, this is realistic--the flip side is that most podcasts don't make it past seven episodes because the creator creates those first couple and they're so excited and they check the analytics and nobody's listened.
[00:13:34] Maybe their mom or their uncle. But every single podcast I've ever started has started with zero listeners. And it is a slow, steady build. And just like in blogging and just like in being an author or writing in general, you're rewarded with high quality consistency. And that means whatever you, whatever it is, if it's a weekly podcast and you show up and you do it every week and you publish it on the same day every week, if it's monthly, you do it on the same day.
[00:14:02] I think where a lot of new podcasters run into trouble is, they feel this frustration "Well, I've already put up four episodes and no one's listening." Yeah, you might go four months or four years before you start to get a listenership, and, and that's just the nature of it. So I think if you're looking for really short term rewards from podcasting, it's probably not right for you.
[00:14:22] Matty: I know when I think about subscribing to a podcast, certainly I'll always check to see how many episodes are out there because I think if I love it and then there are only four, I'm going to be disappointed, but if I see there are dozens or hundreds, then I know that if I really love it, I can binge listen through all the previous ones.
[00:14:41] J: Yeah. I'm also not a fan of pod fade. So sometimes I'll see a new podcast and it looks really great and I subscribe, and then it just fades away. They just quit doing it. And I find that really frustrating. So from a listener standpoint, too, I think it's important to have consistency.
[00:14:57] Matty: It's interesting that you started out, I think you used the term video or audio diary, and that if you as the podcaster can find value in it, independent of whether anybody ever listens to it or not, while still maintaining a level of professionalism that will accommodate it when many people find it, that that's a nice balance because that gives you an incentive to keep moving forward even while you're building your community.
[00:15:23] J: Yeah, and in a real practical sense, if you do either a cohosted podcast or an interview format podcast, you're much more likely to continue. I've done several podcasts by myself and it's sort of like if you've never worked out and you work out a regimen and you're all alone, it's really easy for you to sleep in or hit the snooze alarm or not go.
[00:15:45] But if someone else is counting on you, whether that's an interview or a cohost, you're more likely to stick with it. And to your point, I'm saying this tongue in cheek, I don't know how professional Rachel and I are on The Writer's Well, but like we have said a number of times, these are the conversations we would be having anyways.
[00:16:02] If her and I got together once a week to talk writing, this is what we'd be saying. We just happened to be inviting everyone else into the conversation. I think you can design a podcast in that way. Now. The Career Author's a little different. In The Career Author, Zack and I have segments, we have teaching components to it. We're looking more to educate. Whereas, The Writer's Well is just more of an invitation to come sit around the coffee table. So I think as a podcaster, you have to figure out also, not only what the topic or what the theme of your podcast is going to be, but what's going to be the medium? How are you going to deliver it? Is it going to be solo, is it going to be a partnership? Is it going to be an interview? Is it going to be a roundtable? There are so many ways you can do it.
[00:16:41] Matty: Do you find that there are intrinsic differences in the communities you've built up in those two scenarios? One where it's more inviting them into a conversation versus more of an educational, formal scenario?
[00:16:53] J: Yeah, I think so. What's odd is I feel like it's the same pool of people I'm appealing to. I think anyone who is a fan of The Career Author is probably listening to my other three podcasts, and that works. It's the same group of people, but the behaviors are different based on the expectations. The Career Author, we have Patreon involved with that, as I do with The Writer's Well. And for The Career Author, I reply to every single comment that shows up on the podcast.
[00:17:18] I think that's critically important. That's the number one cardinal sin. If you don't engage on your own show, that's a problem. I engage every single comment on The Career Author, but I think because of the nature of it and the expectations, people see more of that as information and the listeners don't contribute as much. Whereas on The Writers Well, we get, 30 40 50 60 comments a week, which for us is a lot, and it's the same people and you get to know each other, and people are responding to each other's comments. I think the format of the podcast changes the expectations, even though it's the same people who are listening to them.
[00:17:53] Matty: One thing that I really appreciated was after I signed up as a patron for The Career Author, I got a personalized video from you, which was super fun. Can you just describe the process you used to do that?
[00:18:07] J: Yeah, absolutely. It's a service called Bonjoro. I won't get into the technical details of it, but what you can essentially do is you can tie Bonjoro into any sort of user behaviors. So whenever a new patron signs up, I get a notification that says, so-and-so signed up. Bonjoro is an app, so I can pop open the app on my phone, I record a little video message, and I hit send and it takes me about 20 seconds, 30 seconds. But the first time I experienced it, I was blown away because, first of all, I didn't expect it. I think a lot of times we think that podcasters or bloggers or authors are often this ivory tower somewhere and you won't have any access to them and they're not real people. And the first time I got a Bonjoro or a video response, I was just like, wow, this is so personable, and I love that touch, building community, engagement. This is another example, if you want to start a podcast but you're not willing to engage with people in some way, don't do it. I'm willing to engage in multiple ways. For me, it's kind of fun. It's a little treat for someone who's not expecting it, as you experienced, and it really doesn't take much to make someone's day.
[00:19:16] I can't predict the future, but I'm guessing that, most of the people who get that message are probably a little more inclined to stick around for longer. They feel maybe more of a personal connection to me than if they had just gotten an email response.
[00:19:28] Matty: Absolutely. I want it change tacks a little bit in a way that will seem disconnected, but I think we'll be able to pull it together. And that is that for someone who actually had a podcast at one point specifically targeted at introverts, and you being an introvert yourself, as you said before, you've also talked very effectively about the importance of seeing people, not just on the air, not just via apps, but in person.
[00:19:55] Can you talk a little bit about how that plays into how you've interacted with the communities you've built?
[00:20:01] J: Yeah. It's been a strange trip. As I said, I didn't set out to build community when I started. On the other hand, I've always been a facilitator. Even in the classroom and in every school I've been in, I've been the organizer, the facilitator, and over the past 10 or 15 years, I've become increasingly disenchanted with the way technology has evolved, specifically social media. I mean, there's a lot of good that can be used from technology and connecting us, but I think we're paying a price. It's a bit challenging, but I do think that the most meaningful interactions that we can ever have are when we're sitting across from someone face to face and looking in their eyes and not necessarily through a screen. And I know that there are situations and times and circumstances where that has to be the case, and I don't begrudge that. I'm not a Luddite. I've been a tech fan for a long time.
[00:20:55] I use Zoom for more hours in the day than I care to admit. but I really feel strongly, especially after Zach and I started doing so many of the writers' retreats and really focusing on the world-building weekend events that we do, where it's 12 to 15 people, that's it, we get together in a room, we go to a fantastic city. Like we did a Rock Apoc here in Cleveland. We rented out a room at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We built a post-apoc world at one of the VIP rooms. Mark was at that event. And everyone got to interact. We built the world together and then people go off and write their own short stories. And that's an experience people will never forget, and I think it's really meaningful. There have been connections that have come out of that. There are multiple writer partnerships that have come out of our world building events.
[00:21:39] So I don't have anything against the big online events. I certainly don't have anything against the big conferences of six or seven or 800 people. But for me, that's not where the meaning is. For me, the meaning is in very small groups of people. The largest event Zach and I do is 125 people. We do that once a year, and we're not even sure how long we're going to do that because we really prefer the really small 12 to 15 person events.
[00:22:02] The other thing that that's taught me is that a lot of times we lean too heavily on our labels. For years I said, well, I'm an introvert, I'm an I N T J. I don't do that. I don't mix with people. I don't small talk, I don't socialize. And that's really self-limiting.
[00:22:16] I had to come to the realization that, yeah, being in social situations can drain me, but it's not impossible and it's not as bad as I've made it out to be. And I'm now to the point where I really enjoy those social interactions. Now I'm going to go home and I'm going to sleep for a day, and I'm going to rest and tell my family not to talk to me for 12 hours.
[00:22:33] But while I'm at the event, I'm having fun, and so I think I had to get past some of my own limitations and get over myself, too.
[00:22:40] Matty: It's easy to caricature the whole introvert / extrovert thing because I know very few people who are actually just energized with no downside by huge group events. And I don't know anyone who doesn't sometimes want to just go home and be by themselves. It's tapping into the appropriate side at the appropriate time.
[00:23:02] J: Yes. Yes.
[00:23:04] Matty: I was impressed in your podcast, I think you actually used the word "energized," that you had left one of those in person events where you had spent a concentrated amount of time with a concentrated amount of people energized. And that was really fun to hear.
[00:23:16] J: Yeah. That was the Authors on the Train that we did in January of this year, 2020. We rode the Amtrak Starlight Coastal from LA to San Francisco or Oakland with all the authors. And then we rented a big mansion in Oakland, and we spent three days there together in a writer's retreat. And I left and I was on a high, I mean, it was fantastic. And that's something that 10 years ago probably would have made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
[00:23:41] Matty: Well, it does sound fabulous. Anything combining a train trip and a mansion. You can't go too wrong there.
[00:23:47] J: Yeah, we had a great time. We really did.
[00:23:49] Matty: What was the first event you did like that and what was the impetus for putting it on?
[00:23:55] J: It started as a tweet. At least this is how the story goes now.
[00:23:58] I can't remember if this is exactly what happened, but I had traveled across the country on Amtrak a number of times and I put out a tweet, I might've been on a train at the time, and Lindsay Buroker replied and said, "Oh, wow, that would be really cool to ride on a train." And I was like, "Let's do it. Let's get on a train." And she was like, "What? Really?" And like, "Yeah." So I emailed her privately and I'm like, "Are you serious? Do you want to try it?" And she's like, "Yeah, why not?" I'm like, "Okay, well, let's get a few more people together and then we'll all go together and we'll do something."
[00:24:29] I reached out to Joanna Penn who said yeah, she'd be interested, and her and I had been friends for a number of years at that point. And Zach, who I'd been friends with, and this was in the spring of 2017, I guess, and we decided we were going to take an Amtrak train from Chicago to New Orleans, and we were going to write a novella together.
[00:24:46] And that's what we did. It was sort of based on the train travel. We spent a week in New Orleans hanging out, laughing, drinking, eating, writing. it was fantastic. And towards the end of the week, Zach and I were sitting at a bar in the French Quarter, and we were sipping a drink and just talking about how great it was.
[00:25:03] And I think I said something like, "Man, wouldn't this be great if we could do this for other people? If we could take people on this experience the way we had it." And Lindsay and Joanna were both like, "We're not interested. You guys can do that." And so that was the beginning of it. That started Authors on a Train.
[00:25:21] We subsequently have done two of the Chicago to New Orleans trips. And we recently changed it up and did a California Dreaming, LA to Oakland. And we'll probably get to do that again in 2021 and then maybe change it up after that. But we really liked the Authors on a Train-- the brand, the vibe-- and it's been a wonderful experience. But it all started at that table in New Orleans, just thinking "Yeah, what if we did this for other people?"
[00:25:47] Matty: That's a great illustration of going from the very, very tight community of just the four of you, to expanding. You've really covered every scope of community from that very tight knit community to larger events, to the podcast environment.
[00:26:04] I want to thank you for joining The Indy Author Podcast to share that. Let our listeners know where they can find out about you and your work, and also whether events like the train journeys are things that are open to people. And if it is, if they can find out more about those specifically.
[00:26:20] J: Yeah. The easiest thing to do is to go to theauthorlife.com and from there there's links out to all the podcasts, all the events. There's a free book on how to self-publish. If you're looking for some tips or you're not really sure how to self-publish, there's a free download there. But that's easiest thing to do is just go to theauthorlife.com and you can get to everything else from there.
[00:26:40] Matty: Great. Well, thank you so much, J., this was so much fun.
[00:26:43] J: Oh, my pleasure, Matty. Thanks for having me on.
Links
https://theauthorlife.com/podcasts/ - Writers, Ink.; The Author Life Podcast; The Career Author Podcast; The Writer's Well
Stark Reflections on Writing & Publishing Podcast with Mark Lefebvre - Episode 97 – 10 Tips for Marketing and Making Money Off Your Short Fiction
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