Episode 090 - Bringing a Creative Endeavor to an End with Michael La Ronn
July 27, 2021
Michael La Ronn talks about his decision end his podcast THE WRITER’S JOURNEY. He discusses his original impetus for starting the podcast, the adjustments he made to it over time, and the personal and professional considerations that made him decide to bring that creative endeavor to an end. He discusses the benefits he gave up and the benefits he gained—and where he plans to redirect his creative energies.
Michael La Ronn is the author of over forty science fiction & fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel, Author Level Up, where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US Ambassador and he co-hosts the AskAlli Member Q&A Podcast where he answers new writers’ most burning questions about self-publishing.
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
Matty: Hello, welcome to The Indy Author Podcast, today my guest is Michael La Ronn. Hey, Michael, how are you doing?
Michael: Hey, Matty. How are you?
Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you.
[00:00:11] Michael La Ronn is the author of over 40 science fiction and fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel AUTHOR LEVEL UP where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a U.S. Ambassador, and he co-hosts the Ask ALLi member Q and A podcast where he answers new writers' most burning questions about self-publishing.
[00:00:34] And we'll be talking today about bringing a creative endeavor to an end. So I'm let that suspense hang for a moment because in order to provide the context for this conversation, Michael, I'm wondering if you can describe what you were doing, what was on your plate if you look back like a year from today?
[00:00:54] Michael: Yeah, a year from today, my plate was so full, I probably needed two plates. So I was working a full-time job, very stressful demanding full-time job in the insurance industry. And you can fill in the blanks on what that might look like. And I was raising a family. Six-year-old daughter, beautiful wife, puppy, pet rabbit, two chickens.
[00:01:19] Matty: I didn't know about the chickens.
[00:01:20] Michael: Yep. Yep. I need to put them in my bio.
[00:01:22] Matty: You do.
[00:01:24] Michael: I was doing that. I was also teaching insurance classes on the side. So once or twice a month, I would travel across the country. I couldn't do it with the pandemic, but typically I would teach insurance classes and that required a lot of preparation.
[00:01:37] I was in law school. So I was into the final semesters of law school. I was also writing, so writing the books and that's the reason I'm here. I was running my YouTube channel. So weekly videos every week. I was running three podcasts. So I had a podcast called THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, had a podcast called the WRITING TIP OF THE DAY. And then I did the ALLi podcast, which is with the Alliance of Independent Authors. And on top of all of that, I was doing all the other responsibilities of being a husband, a father, son, all of that. And I'm pretty darn sure I missed something, but that's what my plate looked like a year ago.
[00:02:17] Matty: Was there a moment when you had the realization that perhaps one plate was enough? ...
Michael: Hey, Matty. How are you?
Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you.
[00:00:11] Michael La Ronn is the author of over 40 science fiction and fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel AUTHOR LEVEL UP where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a U.S. Ambassador, and he co-hosts the Ask ALLi member Q and A podcast where he answers new writers' most burning questions about self-publishing.
[00:00:34] And we'll be talking today about bringing a creative endeavor to an end. So I'm let that suspense hang for a moment because in order to provide the context for this conversation, Michael, I'm wondering if you can describe what you were doing, what was on your plate if you look back like a year from today?
[00:00:54] Michael: Yeah, a year from today, my plate was so full, I probably needed two plates. So I was working a full-time job, very stressful demanding full-time job in the insurance industry. And you can fill in the blanks on what that might look like. And I was raising a family. Six-year-old daughter, beautiful wife, puppy, pet rabbit, two chickens.
[00:01:19] Matty: I didn't know about the chickens.
[00:01:20] Michael: Yep. Yep. I need to put them in my bio.
[00:01:22] Matty: You do.
[00:01:24] Michael: I was doing that. I was also teaching insurance classes on the side. So once or twice a month, I would travel across the country. I couldn't do it with the pandemic, but typically I would teach insurance classes and that required a lot of preparation.
[00:01:37] I was in law school. So I was into the final semesters of law school. I was also writing, so writing the books and that's the reason I'm here. I was running my YouTube channel. So weekly videos every week. I was running three podcasts. So I had a podcast called THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, had a podcast called the WRITING TIP OF THE DAY. And then I did the ALLi podcast, which is with the Alliance of Independent Authors. And on top of all of that, I was doing all the other responsibilities of being a husband, a father, son, all of that. And I'm pretty darn sure I missed something, but that's what my plate looked like a year ago.
[00:02:17] Matty: Was there a moment when you had the realization that perhaps one plate was enough? ...
click here to read more
[00:02:24] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. I've known it for a while. I've always been a very high-octane personality. So I do a lot. I always take on more. That's just in my nature. And I knew, okay, I got to do something a little bit different because, here's the thing, I was doing everything really well. I'm one of those people that can do a lot of things and I can do them on a pretty decent level. But I knew in the back of my head that I would have to start winding things down. I just wasn't sure what the impetus for that would be, if that makes sense.
[00:02:57] Matty: So how did you look across everything that was out there and decide what you wanted to wind down?
[00:03:03] Michael: Yeah, I had this weird emotion around, okay, I know one day that I'm drop a plate, you're spinning that many plates. There's be a plate that's drop. And I thought, okay, I just don't know what it's going to be. Like, I don't know what I'm going to end because I really love doing my podcast. I really love doing my YouTube. I can't stop writing. I love teaching. And so I just kept kicking the can down the road.
[00:03:29] I'd say, I would say, oh, I'll decide when the moment comes. And I kept kicking the can down the road and kicking the can down the road and kicking the can down the road. And several different events happened around the same time that made the answer very clear for me, but it wasn't a, okay, in two years, I'm end this show. it was in two years, I don't know where I'll be, but I'm continue doing it. And then I'll know when it happens.
[00:03:54] Matty: Talk a little bit about the podcast and what made you start it to begin with, THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast?
[00:04:01] Michael: Yes. So THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast, I wanted to do something different than blogging. We often hear in the community, you should have a blog or you should have something that you do on a regular basis that readers can connect with you on. And I just didn't want to blog. It just wasn't that interesting to me. I've done it in the past and I was never really that good at it. And so I like to do things I'm good at, or at least that I think I can win and blogging just wasn't appealing to me. And I had my YouTube channel and that was great, but that wasn't really something that was geared toward my readers. It was geared toward writers.
[00:04:34] And so I thought I'm writing all this fiction. Why don't I give my readers a way to connect with me on a more personal level. And so I came up with this idea in the shower one day of what if I did a podcast once a week that was at the beginning five to 10 minutes, maybe 15, and it was about behind the scenes of what it's like to be a working writer.
[00:04:55] And it would be a glimpse into the stories that I wrote and what inspired them and what was going through my mind. What it's like, and that would be something that I could give to my readers. They could subscribe and every week they would get a glimpse into the mind of an author that they like a lot.
[00:05:13] And so that's how it started. And I started off scripting the story. I would write scripts every week and then I would read them, and it would be kind of like an NPR style. I would put sound effects and I would do it to music. And I had all these different things I talked about.
[00:05:27] I used to talk about what it was like to live in Iowa when I was in college and what it was like to go back down memory lane and people in my life that were very influential. There was a bus driver in eighth grade. That was very inspiring to me as a person. And I told a dramatic story with sound effects about an incident in the life of that bus driver.
[00:05:49] And it was very NPR style, and in many respects, it was very stilted. But that's how it started. And I didn't think in a million years anyone would be interested. It was just kind of a fun project for me. But lo and behold, people started listening and they really liked it.
[00:06:03] Matty: Mainly your readers, the people who are strictly readers, not your fellow authors?
[00:06:07] Michael: It was a mixture of both, but it was primarily people who bought my books, my fiction books, and that was a really interesting, it was interesting, it was like, okay, this is uncharted territory. I don't know anyone who's done this before. So I'm just going to keep going with it. And we'll see where it goes.
[00:06:23] Matty: So that sounds very different than THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcasts that I discovered. So what changed over time?
[00:06:31] Michael: Well, here's what changed. I got to the point where I did enough cheesy segments, I was like, okay, I'm out of cheesy ideas. So I used to have a segment on the show where I would have a Q and A, and I was naive enough in the very beginning to ask people to send me questions. Well, of course, no one would send me questions because there were very few listeners. And so I was like, okay if you're not ask me questions, I'm come up with a character that's ask me questions. And so it was a segment where I would record myself as Oswald the Robot. And I would ask these stupid questions and I would answer them, and people would enjoy them. It'd be kind of funny.
[00:07:08] And I kind of ran out of Oswald segments one day. And I thought, okay, I don't know what I'm talk about. So I'm just turn on the microphone and I'm talk about what's on my mind. And lo and behold doing that and skipping the scripts and skipping the pre-prepared stuff, that actually turned out to be a huge success because then people were like, oh, I really liked you talking about just what's on your mind. So I would talk about challenges that I was dealing with. I would talk about how I had a recent bout of writer's block. I would talk about my thoughts on writing apps and what the future of those would hold.
[00:07:42] And lo and behold, that actually did more to grow the readership than the original format of the show. So I actually stumbled upon the format that you ultimately discovered it in, which was where I just turn on the microphone every week and talk. And that actually saved me a lot of time too, because I didn't have to spend as much time preparing. I only had to do a few notes every week to figure out what I was talk about. And I have the gift of gab, so I can talk for a long time. And so, it just happened.
[00:08:09] Matty: Did your listenership change along with those or did it remain pretty constant in terms of the division between your reader followers and your fellow author followers?
[00:08:18] Michael: It remained pretty constant. I will say that more writers tuned in, because I was talking more about writing topics when I got into that. So naturally folks on my YouTube channel were more interested than they were in the past. But yeah, I was surprised at how many people who listened to the show read my fiction.
[00:08:36] Matty: And when you look back now, you had said, it almost sounds like it started a little bit as a lark. You had this idea that you wanted to reach out to readers. Was that because, did you have a sales motivation behind that or a community building motivation? What was the underlying desire there?
[00:08:56] Michael: It was just an interesting idea. I had the idea in the shower once and I thought I could get better at public speaking. And so that would be a win. If I can connect with readers and deepen that relationship. I really had no expectation of sales.
[00:09:10] Podcasts are extremely opaque in terms of monetizing them. It's not like YouTube where I know exactly who's watching the show and I know how much money I'm making per video. You just don't know that with podcasts. You just send it out to the world, and you hope people are listening. And so I had no expectation.
[00:09:28] One thing you'll learn about me is I just do stuff. If something sounds like a good idea. I just do it and see what happens. Like my show WRITING TIP OF THE DAY, which was the sister show to THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. I stumbled across a video of someone who was talking about Amazon Alexa apps. I don't want to trigger anybody's devices, but they were talking about that. And they were talking about the flash briefings, which were like mini podcasts on the platform. And I was like, oh, that's a really interesting idea. Maybe Amazon's do something with that. And so I created like a short form show. It was like two minutes long, one crisp writing tip. I just did it, and that show blew up too.
[00:10:06] So I just do stuff and most of the stuff I do fails, and I just learn from it and actually what I get the most out of it is the information and the knowledge. And I take that to the next endeavor, and I just experiment and fail my way to success.
[00:10:24] Matty: So I wouldn't no sense called THE WRITER'S JOURNEY a failure, but you must've learned things from it. So if you look back, what are the lessons that you that you took from it while you were still actively working on it?
[00:10:36] Michael: Yeah. THE WRITER'S JOURNEY was one of those things where I didn't expect anything of it, and it turned into something that I never dreamed of. And the main thing I learned was that people never underestimate how much people want to hear behind the scenes stuff. Like I would get questions from people or comments from people that say, I just love the fact that you're just talking about what's on your mind. Like no filter, just straight up, raw and honest. I really appreciated that. And there'll be people that say, would say, you say stuff that I've never heard anybody say, and I underestimated how much that helped to connect with them.
[00:11:12] And I would get emails from people all over the world who would tell me what they're doing when they're listening to the show. Like one person is I live on the beach and I listened to you while I take walks on the beach. Or I live in the Netherlands and I'm on my bicycle driving or riding through traffic and I'm listening to your show and people working in the office environments and listening to me on their lunch breaks.
[00:11:30] And that's that was just very humbling to me because it was really about me. I was just documenting my journey. And if people listened, that was great. And if I did some shows where people didn't listen at all, because the topic wasn't interesting, but that was okay because I still did the show. I spoke about what was on my mind and cleared the decks and come back next week.
[00:11:52] Matty: It's interesting that you found so much success in providing that sort of behind the scenes, look at an author's life, because this is a perspective you hardly ever hear anyone talk about. And this was probably a couple of years ago on THE CAREER AUTHOR PODCAST. And I think it was the show where J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon were talking about Zach's year of digital minimalism experiment. And in fact, Zach was on the show. I'll put a link in the show notes talking about his experiment with digital minimalism.
[00:12:21] And one of the things that came up in one of those conversations is this idea that, of course, we've all gotten used to finding out what our favorite author, where they're vacationing or what they had for breakfast or what they're reading or whatever. And they were floating that idea that maybe it takes some of the mystique away. Maybe people don't really want to know that much about it, but it sounds like your experience with your reader followers was not that. Did you ever get any negative feedback about what you were sharing?
[00:12:54] Michael: No, not in that regard. There'd be people that would quibble with some of my opinions, and I welcome that. But no, I think people were just, it was just interesting, and I don't talk about like my vacations or anything like that. I talk about what I'm working on and the challenges I'm struggling with. Like last year, I was trying to figure out a way to streamline my sales so that I could download my sales reports and figure out how much money I made. Cause it's amazing how difficult that is. And so I was experimenting with databases. Excel and all that stuff, and I was talking about it. Those are some of my most popular episodes of talking about nitty gritty, like super minutia stuff. And that was a lesson I learned.
[00:13:35] Another lesson I learned was that every once in a while, I'd get pretty vulnerable. And I'd talk about some true challenges that I was dealing with. I did an episode on talking about how I went to therapy and how I think that was something that really helped me as a writer, was to wrestle with some of the issues I've dealt with my biological father, growing up and the absence of him in my life, and how I finally decided to go and get therapy. And I just shared that because I thought it would be helpful. And I couldn't believe how many people reached out and said that was really helpful. It was something that I needed to hear. And so that sort of thing, it was therapeutic for me, but it was interesting how that was therapeutic for other people too.
[00:14:16] And that is another thing that I've tried to do is not so much talk about the work part of it too, but also talk about the emotional side of it, because that's the side that is the hard part. Because anyone can learn how to write a book and you can learn where to publish it and you can learn the business side, but if you can't fight the war with yourself, and I think some people appreciated listening to that too.
[00:14:38] Matty: So you were getting all these benefits, both for yourself and obviously the people who are listening or appreciating what you were sharing. So then what, because we don't have THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast anymore.
[00:14:50] Michael: Yes, and it was an interesting decision because THE WRITER'S JOURNEY and WRITING TIP OF THE DAY those were really good marketing vehicles for me. If I could talk about another lesson I learned, then I'll talk about what did it. But when I had a new book, I would talk about it on THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. And I would talk about it on WRITING TIP OF THE DAY and people would buy it because it was in their inbox or on their phone where they downloaded and listen to podcasts. It was an easy, cheap, and free way to market my work. So combine that with a mailing list, combine that with my podcast, I had a huge reach. And it was awesome. Yeah, so that was another thing I learned. It was a great marketing tip for me.
[00:15:27] But I got to the point where I had finished law school and I was just about done with it. And I got a lot more time in my day back and I was thinking to myself, okay, this is great. I'm get some more time back. What else in my life can I start peeling back?
[00:15:43] And so right around this time, I actually ended up getting a new job and that job was pretty intense and there was a lot to it. And so I thought, okay, I need to maybe scale back some things, and I woke up one morning and it was time for me to record THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast. And my mind was completely blank. And that had never happened before in the two and a half years that I had done the show.
[00:16:06] And slightly before that, I read a book and it was called THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS. It's by Bertrand Russell. It's a fantastic book. He wrote this book in 1936, but it feels like it was written today. And he was talking about what it means to live a happy life. And one of the tenets of the book is to diminish preoccupation with yourself. If you want to be happy, diminish preoccupation with yourself and focus externally on other people.
[00:16:37] And THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, it was weird because I built this show based on me. It was really about me. Like I was the star of the show, and I was thinking to myself, I always felt a little weird, that was a show that was all about me. And I thought, can I do something else with the show?
[00:16:54] And I just didn't think I could, and I was documenting my journey and that was great. But as someone who wants to help the community, I thought, okay, I need to do other things. And so I read that book and that really changed the way that I thought about myself and how I saw the world and how I saw happiness.
[00:17:12] And I realized that the show was really, I didn't realize it at the time when I started it, but it was a way for me to talk out my problems and it was talk therapy in a sense, and I realized that the show helped me figure out what I needed to figure out. And that was how can I change my mindset and my life so that I can be a better father, better husband, better writer.
[00:17:36] And the show did that for me. And it helped me develop relationships with amazing people all over the world. It led to opportunities that helped me grow my income, sell more books. I could not ask for a bigger success, but I woke up that morning and I had nothing on my mind to talk about. And so I thought, okay, it's time to end it, because I want to end on a high note. I don't want to be one of those shows that just goes out and just phones in every episode. And so I went downstairs, and I recorded the final episode, and I told people what was on my mind and why I was thinking about that. And I ended it.
[00:18:14] Matty: What response did you get then?
[00:18:17] Michael: I got a lot of people saying thank you. And I gave people a link on where to find me. You know that I was still doing YouTube and that I would still be writing books and that I didn't want to be one of those podcasters that just drops off the earth, you know?
[00:18:29] Because what happens when people podcast typically, because I'm a big podcast junkie, is they stopped doing an episode and they fall off the face of the earth. And I didn't want to do that. So I just explained, hey, here's, what's going on. Here is why I'm thinking this. Here is why I'm doing it.
[00:18:45] These decisions are never easy, right? Because I had people all over the world and it was hard to walk away from that and walk away from that money too and walk away from the exposure. Every week I got opportunities from someone who heard my show and wanted to work with me or do something. I walked away from that.
[00:19:02] And it was weird at first, but the great thing is that I have a good community and the hardcore fans, they stuck with me. And I think there's something to be said about being honest about what you're doing and being upfront about it. And I think people understand. My listeners all knew all the stuff I was doing all the time, and I got people who emailed me and asked, hey, when are you scale back? I'm worried about your health.
[00:19:27] Matty: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Michael: I get people. I get people across the pond and say you Americans, man, you're crazy. I love watching this, but this is crazy.
[00:19:33] And so I think some of my readers breathed a sigh of relief because you do a show and you're in someone's earbuds every week and you start to feel like you know them. And so I had a lot of people that wished me well, and it was a good send-off.
[00:19:47] Matty: I think it's very interesting that you made that decision at a time when your schedule was freeing up, I'll put that in air quotes for people who aren't watching the video, because you were wrapping up your stint in law school. And I think it would be very easy to step back and say, oh, now I've recovered however many hours, that I previously spent on law school activities, and I'm spread them across all my remaining activities. So what deterred you from following that path?
[00:20:15] Michael: Yeah. Over the last few years I've done more than I've done ever. And I know that I have to start scaling back. You know, you just can't, you can't burn the candle at both ends forever. And I knew that I had to do something. I just didn't know what. And so I've always thought about my career in terms of like a glacier, how ice, it kind of shrinks and it expands. And I've always kind of thought about it like that.
[00:20:41] There's some seasons of my life where I'm expanding and I'm expanding, expanding, expanding. And at some point, things start to crack. And then there's been some periods of my life where I've shrank, and you retreat. And I realized that point in my life was a time to start retreating and shrinking so that I could prepare myself for the next opportunities.
[00:21:02] Because the problem I think I had was that I was stretched out so thin that I had to turn a lot of stuff down. I had to turn a lot of really interesting opportunities down because I knew I had too much on my plate and I wanted to make space for whatever that next opportunity is. And I want that next opportunity to be something that is be focused on my community and helping them and taking the things that I've done and helping them achieve their best. And so I don't know what that's going to be, but I'm looking forward to that.
[00:21:31] Matty: When you mentioned the iceberg, the direction I thought you were go is you only see the upper 10% of the iceberg or whatever, which instantly made sense to me because you can say, I do a podcast and people think of the two minutes or half an hour, hour, whatever it is that they hear, but they don't see the 90% of activity that's going on under the water.
[00:21:55] And so if I look at my own, what I'm doing now in my writing and publishing career. I'm doing the podcast. I'm writing one fiction novel at a time and periodically I'm putting out a nonfiction book and I feel totally booked up. I can't even imagine. This is circling back to when you went through your whole list of things you were doing. And I was one of those people that was just, oh my God, stop while you still can. And so, I don't know how it would be possible to answer this, but how do you even do that much stuff?
[00:22:30] Michael: Yeah. I look back on it and it was like, wow, that was crazy. So my days start very early. like right now I'm an executive at an insurance company. So that's a pretty busy job. So my day starts at 5:30 in the morning and I'm usually exercising, maybe checking some emails. I may get some writing sessions in. And waking up at 5:30 in the morning allows me to get a lot of work done before my family starts to wake up. So my wife and daughter are asleep, and the house is quiet. And I can get a lot of stuff done.
[00:23:01] And so I can get more done before breakfast than some people can get done in an entire day because I've got the time and I'm uninterrupted. And so then I go to work and when I'm at work, I'm at work. But when I'm off of work and not with family, one of the things that I've learned to do is write on my phone. So, I actually write novels, I've learned to write novels on my phone. And that was an interesting experience. But now 40% of my work counts come from right from my phone.
[00:23:31] And so you do the math on that and that, that adds up really quickly. And so I can write on my phone while I'm standing in the line at the grocery store, waiting to move forward.
[00:23:41] I can write on my phone when I'm in the backseat of an Uber car. I can write on my phone when I'm at the doctor and they're taking forever and you're waiting for the nurse to come in. And I can get a lot done that way and I can get a lot done on my phone in general.
[00:23:53] I've cut a lot of things out of my life that are not writing. So I've made a lot of sacrifices. So I used to be a musician. I sold all the instruments I own to publish my first book. I used to play video games. I don't play video games anymore. I don't do anything other than work and write.
[00:24:09] And that is an intense thing, that probably I don't recommend everyone do, because literally that's what I'm doing all the time. And I've made those sacrifices, but that's how I can get so much done is because my focus is so narrow, even though last year, I was doing a lot of stuff, it was still within that very narrow focus. And so, I could go a lot further faster because I knew what my priority was.
[00:24:32] Matty: Do you ever feel as if you're missing out on the perspective that something totally outside that would give you? So let's say somebody asks you if you want to go roller skating one day. And so you say, yeah, I'm spend an hour. I'm set aside whatever I plan to do for that hour and go roller skating. And you might have some epiphany about how people interact with each other or people in a crowded environment or whatever it is it. Do you weigh that, what you might be missing by not just being out there doing things that are not in that arena?
[00:25:06] Michael: That's a really insightful question. And the answer is, yeah, it's a delicate balance. So I spend most of my time with my family and I've got a few friends and I do make time for them and spend a lot of time with them when I can, and we try to do stuff that's outside of our comfort zone.
[00:25:21] And yeah, sure. I probably could be experiencing the world a lot more and doing things that kind of broaden my experience. I try to do that as much as I can. But I also recognize that I'm born to write this is what I'm, this is what I was put on this earth to do. And when I'm doing that, that's when I'm the happiest. And so I have to be true to that too. And so I've always just tried to try to do what makes me happy and do what expands my learning and my consciousness within what I feel is the best way forward.
[00:25:51] And sometimes things come out of the blue and I tend to be a pretty shrewd observer of people. And so I'm always writing down notes and things that I see. And so I actually keep, actually keep an Evernote notebook and I've got thousands and thousands of notes of observations that eventually end up in novels. So yeah, it's definitely your point as well taken.
[00:26:12] Matty: I'm going to go from the very philosophical to the very tactical. And you had mentioned earlier that you had to give up, you knew you were giving up some income as a result of closing down the podcast. And you would also talk earlier about some of the very tactical assessments you've done on understanding your finances as an indy author. Without asking you to name numbers, can you describe the mindset that you brought that weighted the benefits that you anticipated getting from not doing the podcast anymore with what you thought you would be giving up?
[00:26:44] Michael: Yeah. My big thing is I don't make decisions for the most part motivated by money. That's how I built my author business. One of the first series I wrote was a book about a group of terrorist vegetables attempting to take down an empire of processed foods. You don't write a book like that if you care about money. And I also, I try to write the books that are in my heart. And I knew I've always known that in 2014, when I published my first book, I'm going to have a tough row to hoe because when you write the books that are on your heart, that doesn't always mean that people want to buy them.
[00:27:21] Or sometimes the books you write are ahead of their time, and everything is cyclical. But I've always been of the opinion that I would prefer not to do things that are going to be commercially successful, but that make me personally miserable. I would much rather write the books that I want to write, do the things that I want to do that make me excited and passionate. And if I'm successful doing those things, then I did it my way. I believe in the Frank Sinatra way. Because then if you get to this level of success that you want, doing the things that you want and that you're passionate about, you're more likely to stay there.
[00:27:56] And when I was thinking about the podcast, I thought, okay, yeah, I'm going to have to give up some things, but this is open up other opportunities for me to learn. It's also ensured that I can do additional projects. And yeah, I knew I was taking a hit and that is what it is. But at the end of the day, I'm staying true to myself, which means I'm staying true to my audience because that's what my audience expects me to do.
[00:28:20] And I try to be very careful about being one of those people that start something and then stop something and then start something and then stop something. I try to always commit to something for at least two years when I start it. So that way I don't give that impression.
[00:28:34] But yeah, when you think about tactical considerations yeah, I knew I was going to lose some money and it is what it is. But that's from a business perspective. That's why I always try to be as prudent as I can. Because income in this industry, it's cyclical. It's up and down, some months you make a lot, some months you don't make anything. And when you're making a lot, you save that money and you do what you can, you bank it and you make investments in things like technology and things that make your life easier so that you don't have to worry as much about dips in income.
[00:29:07] And you diversify your income so that if you lose income from one place, it's not going to hurt you as much. So I've built a career being a wide author. So my podcasts weren't the only thing I relied on for money. So it didn't really hurt me as much.
[00:29:23] Matty: Right.
[00:29:25] Do you think that your decision about THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast would have been different if you had been doing it as an interview show? Because I cannot imagine doing a show by myself. And it just happened that a whole bunch of podcasts that I loved that were solo or duo shows stopped. So there was THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. There was THE CAREER AUTHOR PODCAST with J. and Zach. There was Paul Teague's podcast, which unfortunately I discovered like two from the end, I was like, oh, that's a great podcast. He was like, yeah, thanks. I'm shutting it down. And they were all ones where the person themself with being responsible for creating the content. Do you think it would have been different if you had formatted it as an interview show?
[00:30:08] Michael: It wouldn't have lasted. I'm just so busy during the day that I just can't, I can't spare the time for an interview show. I've always wanted to do one. I'm a little bit of an awkward interviewer like that just self-consciously, I at least I think I am an awkward interviewer. I feel like I would like to talk to people about stuff. I've had an idea to do like a show that looks forward that talks about how can we move toward becoming the writer of the future? And there's all sorts of people I think that would be great interviewees for that. But I wouldn't have had the time. And so I probably would have done three interviews and then it would have died. But I think it would have been interesting and interesting to see if I could sustain it, where that would have been ended up.
[00:30:49] Matty: Yeah, I figure I'm always going to have a question I want to ask about the writing craft or the publishing voyage, and as long as I can get someone who will talk to me about my question, and I'm set for the next thousand episodes.
[00:30:58] Michael: Exactly.
[00:30:59] Matty: So what were the benefits that you did end up getting and how did they match or differ from the benefits you expected to get out of it when you made the decision to stop the podcast?
[00:31:10] Michael: Yeah, the big benefit was, you would think that I would say that I had more time. It didn't feel like I had more time. It was one of the things where I was doing so much, I didn't realize how much I was doing. And so I stopped doing that, but I really didn't get a huge time benefit back. It took me a few months to realize that. But the biggest benefit that I got is that I was able to do some more speaking. So I was able to speak at a few extra events that I didn't speak at, and that helped grow my platform too. So when I do public speaking that always attracted people to my platform. And so that created some interesting opportunities, some interesting publication opportunities as well. And so that was the big thing I think that helped, was just being able to do that.
[00:31:53] And then having a little bit more freedom to choose what projects I wanted to work on. So like right now, I don't know when this is going live, but I'm actually creating a tool, and it's a free tool for writers. And it's called the Writing App Database. And it's for people that want to figure out what that perfect writing app is going to be. So I hired a developer, and we created a database on my website where people can type in the name of an app, or they can filter it. And then they can start to look at some of my opinions about different writing apps.
[00:32:25] And that's a really interesting, fun project that I never would have been able to work on, if I was doing the podcast because I was always focused on what's the next show going to be. And because I didn't have to do that. I could say, okay. Huh? I don't have anything to do today. What's next?
[00:32:43] Matty: It's hard to imagine.
[00:32:44] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. So that'll launch in August on my website. But that's an example of an opportunity that I was able to pursue that I never would've been able to do.
[00:32:55] Matty: Is this service something that is more of a one-fer that someone would go and do their research and then they would get their answer and leave? Or is it the kind of thing that the people who are using it would be coming back repetitively to use that?
[00:33:08] Michael: It's probably a mixture. I think it would be helpful for anyone anywhere in their career. Because if you feel like sometimes the writing app, you're using isn't the one, sometimes it's going to take you a couple of times to find it. And I think one of the big issues that we have right now is that everybody generally knows what most of the writing apps are, but there's some that kind of fly under the radar. And there's some people that have systems like Linux, for example, and maybe they need something. And so I just want it to be like a Consumer Reports where you go and it helps you make a decision and then you go on your merry way. And if you like it, then maybe you can stick around and watch some of my videos.
[00:33:47] Matty: That's a really interesting endeavor keeping in mind your two-year plan that you stick with anything for two years, because it's not just putting it together, it's maintenance, right? Cause if your Consumer Reports, then you can't just keep pointing people to the ten-year-old vacuum cleaner review, you have to be refreshing it. So was that all factored into your business plan for adding that to your plate?
[00:34:10] Michael: Yep. Absolutely. And the nice thing about writing apps as they don't get updated that often. So you know, you're thinking about an app like Scrivener, seven years to get to jump from Scrivener 2 and Scrivener 3.
[00:34:21] Matty: It's not like Facebook ads or something like that, where the poor people who are trying to keep up with Facebook ads, rules, and UIs and everything, it's just hopeless.
[00:34:30] Michael: Yeah. The filters are based on features that are pretty much going to be true forever. And so the maintenance shouldn't be that bad, which is nice. Yeah. But if I need to, I've always got virtual assistants that I can hire to help me with that too.
[00:34:44] Matty: So might THE WRITER'S JOURNEY or a similar podcast under some other name, is that something that you would consider returning to, and if you would, what would happen that would make you think that was an appealing course?
[00:34:56] Michael: I'm not sure yet, I'm not sure. One of the things that I did when I ended the show is I basically kept hosting it. I'm going to keep continuing to host it for at least the foreseeable future, just in case something happens.
[00:35:07] Matty: And by hosting, you mean technically hosting?
[00:35:09] Michael: Yeah, technically hosting it, meaning you can still go and search for THE WRITER'S JOURNEY right now and you can still download it. You can subscribe, but nothing's happening. Yeah. And I decided to keep doing that for a while, just to see what happens.
[00:35:21] I don't know what it would take for me to come back to it. What I know is that it would not come back in the same format. It would be different. How it would be different, I'm not sure. One of the things that I did when I ended the show was I actually, just before I stopped doing the show, I'd started a book series and I called it THE WRITER'S JOURNEY book series. It's called INDIE AUTHOR CONFIDENTIAL. And it's secrets no one will tell you about being a writer. And I write this series quarterly, right now. Soon it'll go to like annually, but I wrote it quarterly. So every quarter I wrote a book that kind of summarized a lot of the stuff that I talked about on THE WRITER'S JOURNEY.
[00:35:57] And so that series lives on. The show lives on in the spirit of that series. I'm not sure what it would take, it would definitely have to take, I would probably have to be, I don't know, maybe a full-time writer at that point, so that I could do the production at the level that I want to do it.
[00:36:11] I think the future of writing really excites me and emerging technology and a lot of things that I think writers should be thinking about as we move into the future, like data analytics, artificial intelligence, I think all of that is leading to something really, really interesting. I don't know what it is yet. But yeah, there'd have to be some pretty big changes in my life to free up more time for me to do it.
[00:36:34] Matty: I know a podcast that would love to host a conversation like that. So the next time you get an invitation from me, it's going to be about that very topic because that would be fascinating.
[00:36:43] Michael: Yeah. I could talk about that stuff all day. It's fun.
[00:36:47] Matty: Well, Michael, thank you so much. This was both very impressive and also very illuminating and thank you for being so open about your whole experience about making that decision to close down a creative endeavor and move on to some other things.
[00:36:59] So please let listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your many different kinds of work online.
[00:37:06] Michael: My home base is authorlevelup.com. That's where you can find all of my writing books. You can find my YouTube channel. You can still find links to the show if you're interested in listening to those podcasts, and everything else I'm doing out there on the interwebs. And so I'd love to meet you and let me know you heard me on Matty's show.
[00:37:23] Thank you, Michael. That was really great.
[00:37:25] Michael: Thanks, Matty.
[00:02:57] Matty: So how did you look across everything that was out there and decide what you wanted to wind down?
[00:03:03] Michael: Yeah, I had this weird emotion around, okay, I know one day that I'm drop a plate, you're spinning that many plates. There's be a plate that's drop. And I thought, okay, I just don't know what it's going to be. Like, I don't know what I'm going to end because I really love doing my podcast. I really love doing my YouTube. I can't stop writing. I love teaching. And so I just kept kicking the can down the road.
[00:03:29] I'd say, I would say, oh, I'll decide when the moment comes. And I kept kicking the can down the road and kicking the can down the road and kicking the can down the road. And several different events happened around the same time that made the answer very clear for me, but it wasn't a, okay, in two years, I'm end this show. it was in two years, I don't know where I'll be, but I'm continue doing it. And then I'll know when it happens.
[00:03:54] Matty: Talk a little bit about the podcast and what made you start it to begin with, THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast?
[00:04:01] Michael: Yes. So THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast, I wanted to do something different than blogging. We often hear in the community, you should have a blog or you should have something that you do on a regular basis that readers can connect with you on. And I just didn't want to blog. It just wasn't that interesting to me. I've done it in the past and I was never really that good at it. And so I like to do things I'm good at, or at least that I think I can win and blogging just wasn't appealing to me. And I had my YouTube channel and that was great, but that wasn't really something that was geared toward my readers. It was geared toward writers.
[00:04:34] And so I thought I'm writing all this fiction. Why don't I give my readers a way to connect with me on a more personal level. And so I came up with this idea in the shower one day of what if I did a podcast once a week that was at the beginning five to 10 minutes, maybe 15, and it was about behind the scenes of what it's like to be a working writer.
[00:04:55] And it would be a glimpse into the stories that I wrote and what inspired them and what was going through my mind. What it's like, and that would be something that I could give to my readers. They could subscribe and every week they would get a glimpse into the mind of an author that they like a lot.
[00:05:13] And so that's how it started. And I started off scripting the story. I would write scripts every week and then I would read them, and it would be kind of like an NPR style. I would put sound effects and I would do it to music. And I had all these different things I talked about.
[00:05:27] I used to talk about what it was like to live in Iowa when I was in college and what it was like to go back down memory lane and people in my life that were very influential. There was a bus driver in eighth grade. That was very inspiring to me as a person. And I told a dramatic story with sound effects about an incident in the life of that bus driver.
[00:05:49] And it was very NPR style, and in many respects, it was very stilted. But that's how it started. And I didn't think in a million years anyone would be interested. It was just kind of a fun project for me. But lo and behold, people started listening and they really liked it.
[00:06:03] Matty: Mainly your readers, the people who are strictly readers, not your fellow authors?
[00:06:07] Michael: It was a mixture of both, but it was primarily people who bought my books, my fiction books, and that was a really interesting, it was interesting, it was like, okay, this is uncharted territory. I don't know anyone who's done this before. So I'm just going to keep going with it. And we'll see where it goes.
[00:06:23] Matty: So that sounds very different than THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcasts that I discovered. So what changed over time?
[00:06:31] Michael: Well, here's what changed. I got to the point where I did enough cheesy segments, I was like, okay, I'm out of cheesy ideas. So I used to have a segment on the show where I would have a Q and A, and I was naive enough in the very beginning to ask people to send me questions. Well, of course, no one would send me questions because there were very few listeners. And so I was like, okay if you're not ask me questions, I'm come up with a character that's ask me questions. And so it was a segment where I would record myself as Oswald the Robot. And I would ask these stupid questions and I would answer them, and people would enjoy them. It'd be kind of funny.
[00:07:08] And I kind of ran out of Oswald segments one day. And I thought, okay, I don't know what I'm talk about. So I'm just turn on the microphone and I'm talk about what's on my mind. And lo and behold doing that and skipping the scripts and skipping the pre-prepared stuff, that actually turned out to be a huge success because then people were like, oh, I really liked you talking about just what's on your mind. So I would talk about challenges that I was dealing with. I would talk about how I had a recent bout of writer's block. I would talk about my thoughts on writing apps and what the future of those would hold.
[00:07:42] And lo and behold, that actually did more to grow the readership than the original format of the show. So I actually stumbled upon the format that you ultimately discovered it in, which was where I just turn on the microphone every week and talk. And that actually saved me a lot of time too, because I didn't have to spend as much time preparing. I only had to do a few notes every week to figure out what I was talk about. And I have the gift of gab, so I can talk for a long time. And so, it just happened.
[00:08:09] Matty: Did your listenership change along with those or did it remain pretty constant in terms of the division between your reader followers and your fellow author followers?
[00:08:18] Michael: It remained pretty constant. I will say that more writers tuned in, because I was talking more about writing topics when I got into that. So naturally folks on my YouTube channel were more interested than they were in the past. But yeah, I was surprised at how many people who listened to the show read my fiction.
[00:08:36] Matty: And when you look back now, you had said, it almost sounds like it started a little bit as a lark. You had this idea that you wanted to reach out to readers. Was that because, did you have a sales motivation behind that or a community building motivation? What was the underlying desire there?
[00:08:56] Michael: It was just an interesting idea. I had the idea in the shower once and I thought I could get better at public speaking. And so that would be a win. If I can connect with readers and deepen that relationship. I really had no expectation of sales.
[00:09:10] Podcasts are extremely opaque in terms of monetizing them. It's not like YouTube where I know exactly who's watching the show and I know how much money I'm making per video. You just don't know that with podcasts. You just send it out to the world, and you hope people are listening. And so I had no expectation.
[00:09:28] One thing you'll learn about me is I just do stuff. If something sounds like a good idea. I just do it and see what happens. Like my show WRITING TIP OF THE DAY, which was the sister show to THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. I stumbled across a video of someone who was talking about Amazon Alexa apps. I don't want to trigger anybody's devices, but they were talking about that. And they were talking about the flash briefings, which were like mini podcasts on the platform. And I was like, oh, that's a really interesting idea. Maybe Amazon's do something with that. And so I created like a short form show. It was like two minutes long, one crisp writing tip. I just did it, and that show blew up too.
[00:10:06] So I just do stuff and most of the stuff I do fails, and I just learn from it and actually what I get the most out of it is the information and the knowledge. And I take that to the next endeavor, and I just experiment and fail my way to success.
[00:10:24] Matty: So I wouldn't no sense called THE WRITER'S JOURNEY a failure, but you must've learned things from it. So if you look back, what are the lessons that you that you took from it while you were still actively working on it?
[00:10:36] Michael: Yeah. THE WRITER'S JOURNEY was one of those things where I didn't expect anything of it, and it turned into something that I never dreamed of. And the main thing I learned was that people never underestimate how much people want to hear behind the scenes stuff. Like I would get questions from people or comments from people that say, I just love the fact that you're just talking about what's on your mind. Like no filter, just straight up, raw and honest. I really appreciated that. And there'll be people that say, would say, you say stuff that I've never heard anybody say, and I underestimated how much that helped to connect with them.
[00:11:12] And I would get emails from people all over the world who would tell me what they're doing when they're listening to the show. Like one person is I live on the beach and I listened to you while I take walks on the beach. Or I live in the Netherlands and I'm on my bicycle driving or riding through traffic and I'm listening to your show and people working in the office environments and listening to me on their lunch breaks.
[00:11:30] And that's that was just very humbling to me because it was really about me. I was just documenting my journey. And if people listened, that was great. And if I did some shows where people didn't listen at all, because the topic wasn't interesting, but that was okay because I still did the show. I spoke about what was on my mind and cleared the decks and come back next week.
[00:11:52] Matty: It's interesting that you found so much success in providing that sort of behind the scenes, look at an author's life, because this is a perspective you hardly ever hear anyone talk about. And this was probably a couple of years ago on THE CAREER AUTHOR PODCAST. And I think it was the show where J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon were talking about Zach's year of digital minimalism experiment. And in fact, Zach was on the show. I'll put a link in the show notes talking about his experiment with digital minimalism.
[00:12:21] And one of the things that came up in one of those conversations is this idea that, of course, we've all gotten used to finding out what our favorite author, where they're vacationing or what they had for breakfast or what they're reading or whatever. And they were floating that idea that maybe it takes some of the mystique away. Maybe people don't really want to know that much about it, but it sounds like your experience with your reader followers was not that. Did you ever get any negative feedback about what you were sharing?
[00:12:54] Michael: No, not in that regard. There'd be people that would quibble with some of my opinions, and I welcome that. But no, I think people were just, it was just interesting, and I don't talk about like my vacations or anything like that. I talk about what I'm working on and the challenges I'm struggling with. Like last year, I was trying to figure out a way to streamline my sales so that I could download my sales reports and figure out how much money I made. Cause it's amazing how difficult that is. And so I was experimenting with databases. Excel and all that stuff, and I was talking about it. Those are some of my most popular episodes of talking about nitty gritty, like super minutia stuff. And that was a lesson I learned.
[00:13:35] Another lesson I learned was that every once in a while, I'd get pretty vulnerable. And I'd talk about some true challenges that I was dealing with. I did an episode on talking about how I went to therapy and how I think that was something that really helped me as a writer, was to wrestle with some of the issues I've dealt with my biological father, growing up and the absence of him in my life, and how I finally decided to go and get therapy. And I just shared that because I thought it would be helpful. And I couldn't believe how many people reached out and said that was really helpful. It was something that I needed to hear. And so that sort of thing, it was therapeutic for me, but it was interesting how that was therapeutic for other people too.
[00:14:16] And that is another thing that I've tried to do is not so much talk about the work part of it too, but also talk about the emotional side of it, because that's the side that is the hard part. Because anyone can learn how to write a book and you can learn where to publish it and you can learn the business side, but if you can't fight the war with yourself, and I think some people appreciated listening to that too.
[00:14:38] Matty: So you were getting all these benefits, both for yourself and obviously the people who are listening or appreciating what you were sharing. So then what, because we don't have THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast anymore.
[00:14:50] Michael: Yes, and it was an interesting decision because THE WRITER'S JOURNEY and WRITING TIP OF THE DAY those were really good marketing vehicles for me. If I could talk about another lesson I learned, then I'll talk about what did it. But when I had a new book, I would talk about it on THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. And I would talk about it on WRITING TIP OF THE DAY and people would buy it because it was in their inbox or on their phone where they downloaded and listen to podcasts. It was an easy, cheap, and free way to market my work. So combine that with a mailing list, combine that with my podcast, I had a huge reach. And it was awesome. Yeah, so that was another thing I learned. It was a great marketing tip for me.
[00:15:27] But I got to the point where I had finished law school and I was just about done with it. And I got a lot more time in my day back and I was thinking to myself, okay, this is great. I'm get some more time back. What else in my life can I start peeling back?
[00:15:43] And so right around this time, I actually ended up getting a new job and that job was pretty intense and there was a lot to it. And so I thought, okay, I need to maybe scale back some things, and I woke up one morning and it was time for me to record THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast. And my mind was completely blank. And that had never happened before in the two and a half years that I had done the show.
[00:16:06] And slightly before that, I read a book and it was called THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS. It's by Bertrand Russell. It's a fantastic book. He wrote this book in 1936, but it feels like it was written today. And he was talking about what it means to live a happy life. And one of the tenets of the book is to diminish preoccupation with yourself. If you want to be happy, diminish preoccupation with yourself and focus externally on other people.
[00:16:37] And THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, it was weird because I built this show based on me. It was really about me. Like I was the star of the show, and I was thinking to myself, I always felt a little weird, that was a show that was all about me. And I thought, can I do something else with the show?
[00:16:54] And I just didn't think I could, and I was documenting my journey and that was great. But as someone who wants to help the community, I thought, okay, I need to do other things. And so I read that book and that really changed the way that I thought about myself and how I saw the world and how I saw happiness.
[00:17:12] And I realized that the show was really, I didn't realize it at the time when I started it, but it was a way for me to talk out my problems and it was talk therapy in a sense, and I realized that the show helped me figure out what I needed to figure out. And that was how can I change my mindset and my life so that I can be a better father, better husband, better writer.
[00:17:36] And the show did that for me. And it helped me develop relationships with amazing people all over the world. It led to opportunities that helped me grow my income, sell more books. I could not ask for a bigger success, but I woke up that morning and I had nothing on my mind to talk about. And so I thought, okay, it's time to end it, because I want to end on a high note. I don't want to be one of those shows that just goes out and just phones in every episode. And so I went downstairs, and I recorded the final episode, and I told people what was on my mind and why I was thinking about that. And I ended it.
[00:18:14] Matty: What response did you get then?
[00:18:17] Michael: I got a lot of people saying thank you. And I gave people a link on where to find me. You know that I was still doing YouTube and that I would still be writing books and that I didn't want to be one of those podcasters that just drops off the earth, you know?
[00:18:29] Because what happens when people podcast typically, because I'm a big podcast junkie, is they stopped doing an episode and they fall off the face of the earth. And I didn't want to do that. So I just explained, hey, here's, what's going on. Here is why I'm thinking this. Here is why I'm doing it.
[00:18:45] These decisions are never easy, right? Because I had people all over the world and it was hard to walk away from that and walk away from that money too and walk away from the exposure. Every week I got opportunities from someone who heard my show and wanted to work with me or do something. I walked away from that.
[00:19:02] And it was weird at first, but the great thing is that I have a good community and the hardcore fans, they stuck with me. And I think there's something to be said about being honest about what you're doing and being upfront about it. And I think people understand. My listeners all knew all the stuff I was doing all the time, and I got people who emailed me and asked, hey, when are you scale back? I'm worried about your health.
[00:19:27] Matty: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Michael: I get people. I get people across the pond and say you Americans, man, you're crazy. I love watching this, but this is crazy.
[00:19:33] And so I think some of my readers breathed a sigh of relief because you do a show and you're in someone's earbuds every week and you start to feel like you know them. And so I had a lot of people that wished me well, and it was a good send-off.
[00:19:47] Matty: I think it's very interesting that you made that decision at a time when your schedule was freeing up, I'll put that in air quotes for people who aren't watching the video, because you were wrapping up your stint in law school. And I think it would be very easy to step back and say, oh, now I've recovered however many hours, that I previously spent on law school activities, and I'm spread them across all my remaining activities. So what deterred you from following that path?
[00:20:15] Michael: Yeah. Over the last few years I've done more than I've done ever. And I know that I have to start scaling back. You know, you just can't, you can't burn the candle at both ends forever. And I knew that I had to do something. I just didn't know what. And so I've always thought about my career in terms of like a glacier, how ice, it kind of shrinks and it expands. And I've always kind of thought about it like that.
[00:20:41] There's some seasons of my life where I'm expanding and I'm expanding, expanding, expanding. And at some point, things start to crack. And then there's been some periods of my life where I've shrank, and you retreat. And I realized that point in my life was a time to start retreating and shrinking so that I could prepare myself for the next opportunities.
[00:21:02] Because the problem I think I had was that I was stretched out so thin that I had to turn a lot of stuff down. I had to turn a lot of really interesting opportunities down because I knew I had too much on my plate and I wanted to make space for whatever that next opportunity is. And I want that next opportunity to be something that is be focused on my community and helping them and taking the things that I've done and helping them achieve their best. And so I don't know what that's going to be, but I'm looking forward to that.
[00:21:31] Matty: When you mentioned the iceberg, the direction I thought you were go is you only see the upper 10% of the iceberg or whatever, which instantly made sense to me because you can say, I do a podcast and people think of the two minutes or half an hour, hour, whatever it is that they hear, but they don't see the 90% of activity that's going on under the water.
[00:21:55] And so if I look at my own, what I'm doing now in my writing and publishing career. I'm doing the podcast. I'm writing one fiction novel at a time and periodically I'm putting out a nonfiction book and I feel totally booked up. I can't even imagine. This is circling back to when you went through your whole list of things you were doing. And I was one of those people that was just, oh my God, stop while you still can. And so, I don't know how it would be possible to answer this, but how do you even do that much stuff?
[00:22:30] Michael: Yeah. I look back on it and it was like, wow, that was crazy. So my days start very early. like right now I'm an executive at an insurance company. So that's a pretty busy job. So my day starts at 5:30 in the morning and I'm usually exercising, maybe checking some emails. I may get some writing sessions in. And waking up at 5:30 in the morning allows me to get a lot of work done before my family starts to wake up. So my wife and daughter are asleep, and the house is quiet. And I can get a lot of stuff done.
[00:23:01] And so I can get more done before breakfast than some people can get done in an entire day because I've got the time and I'm uninterrupted. And so then I go to work and when I'm at work, I'm at work. But when I'm off of work and not with family, one of the things that I've learned to do is write on my phone. So, I actually write novels, I've learned to write novels on my phone. And that was an interesting experience. But now 40% of my work counts come from right from my phone.
[00:23:31] And so you do the math on that and that, that adds up really quickly. And so I can write on my phone while I'm standing in the line at the grocery store, waiting to move forward.
[00:23:41] I can write on my phone when I'm in the backseat of an Uber car. I can write on my phone when I'm at the doctor and they're taking forever and you're waiting for the nurse to come in. And I can get a lot done that way and I can get a lot done on my phone in general.
[00:23:53] I've cut a lot of things out of my life that are not writing. So I've made a lot of sacrifices. So I used to be a musician. I sold all the instruments I own to publish my first book. I used to play video games. I don't play video games anymore. I don't do anything other than work and write.
[00:24:09] And that is an intense thing, that probably I don't recommend everyone do, because literally that's what I'm doing all the time. And I've made those sacrifices, but that's how I can get so much done is because my focus is so narrow, even though last year, I was doing a lot of stuff, it was still within that very narrow focus. And so, I could go a lot further faster because I knew what my priority was.
[00:24:32] Matty: Do you ever feel as if you're missing out on the perspective that something totally outside that would give you? So let's say somebody asks you if you want to go roller skating one day. And so you say, yeah, I'm spend an hour. I'm set aside whatever I plan to do for that hour and go roller skating. And you might have some epiphany about how people interact with each other or people in a crowded environment or whatever it is it. Do you weigh that, what you might be missing by not just being out there doing things that are not in that arena?
[00:25:06] Michael: That's a really insightful question. And the answer is, yeah, it's a delicate balance. So I spend most of my time with my family and I've got a few friends and I do make time for them and spend a lot of time with them when I can, and we try to do stuff that's outside of our comfort zone.
[00:25:21] And yeah, sure. I probably could be experiencing the world a lot more and doing things that kind of broaden my experience. I try to do that as much as I can. But I also recognize that I'm born to write this is what I'm, this is what I was put on this earth to do. And when I'm doing that, that's when I'm the happiest. And so I have to be true to that too. And so I've always just tried to try to do what makes me happy and do what expands my learning and my consciousness within what I feel is the best way forward.
[00:25:51] And sometimes things come out of the blue and I tend to be a pretty shrewd observer of people. And so I'm always writing down notes and things that I see. And so I actually keep, actually keep an Evernote notebook and I've got thousands and thousands of notes of observations that eventually end up in novels. So yeah, it's definitely your point as well taken.
[00:26:12] Matty: I'm going to go from the very philosophical to the very tactical. And you had mentioned earlier that you had to give up, you knew you were giving up some income as a result of closing down the podcast. And you would also talk earlier about some of the very tactical assessments you've done on understanding your finances as an indy author. Without asking you to name numbers, can you describe the mindset that you brought that weighted the benefits that you anticipated getting from not doing the podcast anymore with what you thought you would be giving up?
[00:26:44] Michael: Yeah. My big thing is I don't make decisions for the most part motivated by money. That's how I built my author business. One of the first series I wrote was a book about a group of terrorist vegetables attempting to take down an empire of processed foods. You don't write a book like that if you care about money. And I also, I try to write the books that are in my heart. And I knew I've always known that in 2014, when I published my first book, I'm going to have a tough row to hoe because when you write the books that are on your heart, that doesn't always mean that people want to buy them.
[00:27:21] Or sometimes the books you write are ahead of their time, and everything is cyclical. But I've always been of the opinion that I would prefer not to do things that are going to be commercially successful, but that make me personally miserable. I would much rather write the books that I want to write, do the things that I want to do that make me excited and passionate. And if I'm successful doing those things, then I did it my way. I believe in the Frank Sinatra way. Because then if you get to this level of success that you want, doing the things that you want and that you're passionate about, you're more likely to stay there.
[00:27:56] And when I was thinking about the podcast, I thought, okay, yeah, I'm going to have to give up some things, but this is open up other opportunities for me to learn. It's also ensured that I can do additional projects. And yeah, I knew I was taking a hit and that is what it is. But at the end of the day, I'm staying true to myself, which means I'm staying true to my audience because that's what my audience expects me to do.
[00:28:20] And I try to be very careful about being one of those people that start something and then stop something and then start something and then stop something. I try to always commit to something for at least two years when I start it. So that way I don't give that impression.
[00:28:34] But yeah, when you think about tactical considerations yeah, I knew I was going to lose some money and it is what it is. But that's from a business perspective. That's why I always try to be as prudent as I can. Because income in this industry, it's cyclical. It's up and down, some months you make a lot, some months you don't make anything. And when you're making a lot, you save that money and you do what you can, you bank it and you make investments in things like technology and things that make your life easier so that you don't have to worry as much about dips in income.
[00:29:07] And you diversify your income so that if you lose income from one place, it's not going to hurt you as much. So I've built a career being a wide author. So my podcasts weren't the only thing I relied on for money. So it didn't really hurt me as much.
[00:29:23] Matty: Right.
[00:29:25] Do you think that your decision about THE WRITER'S JOURNEY podcast would have been different if you had been doing it as an interview show? Because I cannot imagine doing a show by myself. And it just happened that a whole bunch of podcasts that I loved that were solo or duo shows stopped. So there was THE WRITER'S JOURNEY. There was THE CAREER AUTHOR PODCAST with J. and Zach. There was Paul Teague's podcast, which unfortunately I discovered like two from the end, I was like, oh, that's a great podcast. He was like, yeah, thanks. I'm shutting it down. And they were all ones where the person themself with being responsible for creating the content. Do you think it would have been different if you had formatted it as an interview show?
[00:30:08] Michael: It wouldn't have lasted. I'm just so busy during the day that I just can't, I can't spare the time for an interview show. I've always wanted to do one. I'm a little bit of an awkward interviewer like that just self-consciously, I at least I think I am an awkward interviewer. I feel like I would like to talk to people about stuff. I've had an idea to do like a show that looks forward that talks about how can we move toward becoming the writer of the future? And there's all sorts of people I think that would be great interviewees for that. But I wouldn't have had the time. And so I probably would have done three interviews and then it would have died. But I think it would have been interesting and interesting to see if I could sustain it, where that would have been ended up.
[00:30:49] Matty: Yeah, I figure I'm always going to have a question I want to ask about the writing craft or the publishing voyage, and as long as I can get someone who will talk to me about my question, and I'm set for the next thousand episodes.
[00:30:58] Michael: Exactly.
[00:30:59] Matty: So what were the benefits that you did end up getting and how did they match or differ from the benefits you expected to get out of it when you made the decision to stop the podcast?
[00:31:10] Michael: Yeah, the big benefit was, you would think that I would say that I had more time. It didn't feel like I had more time. It was one of the things where I was doing so much, I didn't realize how much I was doing. And so I stopped doing that, but I really didn't get a huge time benefit back. It took me a few months to realize that. But the biggest benefit that I got is that I was able to do some more speaking. So I was able to speak at a few extra events that I didn't speak at, and that helped grow my platform too. So when I do public speaking that always attracted people to my platform. And so that created some interesting opportunities, some interesting publication opportunities as well. And so that was the big thing I think that helped, was just being able to do that.
[00:31:53] And then having a little bit more freedom to choose what projects I wanted to work on. So like right now, I don't know when this is going live, but I'm actually creating a tool, and it's a free tool for writers. And it's called the Writing App Database. And it's for people that want to figure out what that perfect writing app is going to be. So I hired a developer, and we created a database on my website where people can type in the name of an app, or they can filter it. And then they can start to look at some of my opinions about different writing apps.
[00:32:25] And that's a really interesting, fun project that I never would have been able to work on, if I was doing the podcast because I was always focused on what's the next show going to be. And because I didn't have to do that. I could say, okay. Huh? I don't have anything to do today. What's next?
[00:32:43] Matty: It's hard to imagine.
[00:32:44] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. So that'll launch in August on my website. But that's an example of an opportunity that I was able to pursue that I never would've been able to do.
[00:32:55] Matty: Is this service something that is more of a one-fer that someone would go and do their research and then they would get their answer and leave? Or is it the kind of thing that the people who are using it would be coming back repetitively to use that?
[00:33:08] Michael: It's probably a mixture. I think it would be helpful for anyone anywhere in their career. Because if you feel like sometimes the writing app, you're using isn't the one, sometimes it's going to take you a couple of times to find it. And I think one of the big issues that we have right now is that everybody generally knows what most of the writing apps are, but there's some that kind of fly under the radar. And there's some people that have systems like Linux, for example, and maybe they need something. And so I just want it to be like a Consumer Reports where you go and it helps you make a decision and then you go on your merry way. And if you like it, then maybe you can stick around and watch some of my videos.
[00:33:47] Matty: That's a really interesting endeavor keeping in mind your two-year plan that you stick with anything for two years, because it's not just putting it together, it's maintenance, right? Cause if your Consumer Reports, then you can't just keep pointing people to the ten-year-old vacuum cleaner review, you have to be refreshing it. So was that all factored into your business plan for adding that to your plate?
[00:34:10] Michael: Yep. Absolutely. And the nice thing about writing apps as they don't get updated that often. So you know, you're thinking about an app like Scrivener, seven years to get to jump from Scrivener 2 and Scrivener 3.
[00:34:21] Matty: It's not like Facebook ads or something like that, where the poor people who are trying to keep up with Facebook ads, rules, and UIs and everything, it's just hopeless.
[00:34:30] Michael: Yeah. The filters are based on features that are pretty much going to be true forever. And so the maintenance shouldn't be that bad, which is nice. Yeah. But if I need to, I've always got virtual assistants that I can hire to help me with that too.
[00:34:44] Matty: So might THE WRITER'S JOURNEY or a similar podcast under some other name, is that something that you would consider returning to, and if you would, what would happen that would make you think that was an appealing course?
[00:34:56] Michael: I'm not sure yet, I'm not sure. One of the things that I did when I ended the show is I basically kept hosting it. I'm going to keep continuing to host it for at least the foreseeable future, just in case something happens.
[00:35:07] Matty: And by hosting, you mean technically hosting?
[00:35:09] Michael: Yeah, technically hosting it, meaning you can still go and search for THE WRITER'S JOURNEY right now and you can still download it. You can subscribe, but nothing's happening. Yeah. And I decided to keep doing that for a while, just to see what happens.
[00:35:21] I don't know what it would take for me to come back to it. What I know is that it would not come back in the same format. It would be different. How it would be different, I'm not sure. One of the things that I did when I ended the show was I actually, just before I stopped doing the show, I'd started a book series and I called it THE WRITER'S JOURNEY book series. It's called INDIE AUTHOR CONFIDENTIAL. And it's secrets no one will tell you about being a writer. And I write this series quarterly, right now. Soon it'll go to like annually, but I wrote it quarterly. So every quarter I wrote a book that kind of summarized a lot of the stuff that I talked about on THE WRITER'S JOURNEY.
[00:35:57] And so that series lives on. The show lives on in the spirit of that series. I'm not sure what it would take, it would definitely have to take, I would probably have to be, I don't know, maybe a full-time writer at that point, so that I could do the production at the level that I want to do it.
[00:36:11] I think the future of writing really excites me and emerging technology and a lot of things that I think writers should be thinking about as we move into the future, like data analytics, artificial intelligence, I think all of that is leading to something really, really interesting. I don't know what it is yet. But yeah, there'd have to be some pretty big changes in my life to free up more time for me to do it.
[00:36:34] Matty: I know a podcast that would love to host a conversation like that. So the next time you get an invitation from me, it's going to be about that very topic because that would be fascinating.
[00:36:43] Michael: Yeah. I could talk about that stuff all day. It's fun.
[00:36:47] Matty: Well, Michael, thank you so much. This was both very impressive and also very illuminating and thank you for being so open about your whole experience about making that decision to close down a creative endeavor and move on to some other things.
[00:36:59] So please let listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all your many different kinds of work online.
[00:37:06] Michael: My home base is authorlevelup.com. That's where you can find all of my writing books. You can find my YouTube channel. You can still find links to the show if you're interested in listening to those podcasts, and everything else I'm doing out there on the interwebs. And so I'd love to meet you and let me know you heard me on Matty's show.
[00:37:23] Thank you, Michael. That was really great.
[00:37:25] Michael: Thanks, Matty.
Links
THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS by Bertrand Russell (Matty's affiliate link)
What did you think of this episode? Leave a comment and let us know!
