Inbetweenisode 116 - Creating Community, Content, and Creative Energy with Jeff Elkins
January 21,2022
In this inbetweenisode of The Indy Author Podcast, I posed a question to fellow podcaster Jeff Elkins about what he's getting from The Dialogue Doctor podcast, both for himself and in terms of his goals related to helping other authors, that's different after over 70 episodes than he expected when he did his first episode. As is often the case when I speak with Jeff, he took that question in a truly wonderful direction. He talked about the importance to him of building community, and how that differs from podcasters like me whose primary goal is to provide content (and he illustrated the difference with examples of several other podcasters whose names you’ll recognize).
He talked about factoring in where your energy comes from in a way that’s much more useful than the usual introvert / extrovert model, and about how we can change the story we tell ourselves to achieve the results we are aiming for. And he offered some great insights about serving one’s community while also enlisting the support of that community in keeping a creative endeavor going. In fact, I was inspired by my conversation with Jeff to update The Indy Author patronage program.
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"What makes you feel like you're wearing a medal? As opposed to like where your energy comes from, I'd encourage you to think about like, where are you going to feel most successful?" —Jeff Elkins, The Dialogue Doctor
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Hello, fellow creative voyagers and welcome to an inbetweenisode of The Indy Author Podcast. In Episode 111, I spoke with Jeff Elkins, The Dialogue Doctor, about USING ENGINES, ANCHORS, AND HAZARDS TO DEFINE CHARACTER VOICE … but after we wrapped up that conversation, Jeff was kind enough to keep recording to answer a question I love to ask fellow podcasters: What was he getting from his podcast, both for himself and in terms of his goals related to helping other authors, that was different after over 70 episodes than he expected when he did episode one.
As is often the case when I speak with Jeff, he took that question in a truly wonderful direction. He talked about the importance to him of building community, and how that differs from podcasters, like me, whose primary goal is to provide content. And he illustrated the difference with examples of several other podcasters whose names you’ll recognize.
He talked about factoring in where your energy comes from in a way that’s much more useful than the usual introvert / extrovert model, and about how we can change the story we tell ourselves to achieve the results we are aiming for.
And he offered some great insights about serving one’s community while also enlisting the support of that community in keeping a creative endeavor going.
This was such timely advice for me, because I had been agonizing for months over changes I wanted to make to my patronage program for The Indy Author … and I’ll talk more about how I’m acting on Jeff’s insights after the interview.
But now, let’s dive into this inbetweenisode conversation with Jeff Elkins, the Dialogue Doctor.
click here for the interview transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: I always like to take advantage of speaking with another podcaster to talk about podcasting for authors. And so, what episode are you up to on The Dialogue Doctor now?
[00:00:10] Jeff: Today I did 70.
[00:00:12] Matty: And over how long, a time? That's like a year and a half or something like that?
[00:00:16] Jeff: 70 weeks. 70 weeks.
[00:00:19] Matty: So I'm just curious as to what are you getting from the podcast, both for yourself and your goals related to helping other people, that is different at episode 70 than you thought it would be when you did episode one.
[00:00:32] Jeff: So, man, that's a great question. I think there's three things podcasting for authors has given me. You know, I think when I started podcasting, I thought I was going to be teaching people things, or at least curating things like, you know, my job is to take these ideas and curate what's good and what's bad, or what's helpful, not helpful is probably a better way to say that. Or like my job is to come up with ideas and teach them. What I'm learning is that because podcasting is such an intimate connection with people that what I'm actually doing is building a community that is going on a journey of learning together.
[00:01:13] So it's not actually my job to teach or to educate. It's my job to be authentic and real with what I'm learning and where I'm going, and then allowing other people to come on that journey with me. So that to say, what I've gotten out of podcasting for authors is I have a community of authors that I didn't have before. There’re people that are on this journey with me. It's in the Slack group that we have going.
[00:01:39] But it's also people like you, people that I bring on all the time, then I'm like, oh, we're watching your writing mature together. There are clients that I work with repeatedly where I'm like, okay, we're actually growing as writers together. I'm growing as an editor and a writer. You're growing as a writer. We're moving through this together. So I get that community.
[00:02:02] And then that personal growth of me also learning and growing as a writer. I'm currently rewriting the first novel I wrote because it's really special to me. And I'm realizing like, oh, after the 70 weeks of learning in this cohort that I facilitate through the podcast, I'm a radically different writer than when I wrote that book seven years ago. I write dialogue differently. I think about characters differently. I just see characters differently. So the book is very different because of this cohort that I facilitate through the podcast.
[00:02:39] Matty: So I have to ask for selfish purposes, I've tried to create that kind of community through a Facebook group, not, I have to say two huge successes so far. So do you think that the Slack platform lends itself more to community building? Or do you think that there's something independent of the technology that you feel is being successful to you in terms of building community?
[00:03:02] Jeff: Yes and yes. So at the moment, I think Slack lends more community building. Slack and Discord seem to be the things of community building.
What they're doing well is it is an isolated place that allows for instant communication. So the instant communication is important because I've been in groups that tried to build around like message board style, and those become more venting places where somebody vents and then doesn't ever return to like actually have a conversation. We, in our text message world, our expectation is immediate communication. So Slack and Discord have that down.
[00:03:45] Facebook does too, by the way, immediate communication on Facebook happens as well. What Slack and Discord have over Facebook right now is that there is no algorithm behind Slack and Discord mediating what you see. Because you opt into the group, so when you opt into the group, you're just kind of in a room with all of these people. Whereas Facebook, you get community members in your group for Facebook, but Facebook is acting as a third party, deciding when those community manners are actually, if at all, notified about what's happening in your group. And so that's why I've actually left. I started on Facebook, and I realized like, oh, Facebook for me is really good for advertising. If I want to run an ad to people who may not know about me, Facebook is good for that. Facebook is bad for true relationship building.
[00:04:44] That being said, the relationship building that has really worked well for me is not just gathering people into a space to talk but providing those people ways to connect. So I do at the Dialogue Doctor masterclasses, which are like, if you're in the Slack cohort, you get a discount on it because I want to encourage those people to be there. Those are like four and a half hours that we have together in a Zoom room. Those are really important for relationship building.
[00:05:13] For this Slack group, I do a once a month Zoom call where like we get on a Zoom call with a short story, and we diagnose it together. And most of the time that's just me being like, so how did y'all feel about it? And that hourly interaction once a month, usually those go about two hours, that two hours of interaction once a month is actually what builds the relationship.
[00:05:36] Another person doing this really well is J. Thorn has the Author Success Mastermind, which has a Slack group to it. It has a really strong connection between the group members there. And he does a monthly town hall where they come on and they literally just talk about what's happening in their lives. And sometimes they tackle a question. The key though is to see yourself as a facilitator of that cohort and then provide ways for the cohort to connect with one another. And that's how the community has built for me is being like, okay, I need to find something for us to connect around.
[00:06:11] So for J.'s it's questions about publishing questions about indy life, questions about writing. It's a more general connection. Mine is very specifically craft. Like we get on, we're talking about craft questions. I try to find interesting things for them to do. Like I put out a writing prompt every Tuesday and everybody posts their work, and we'd comment on the work together. Part of that is me facilitating opportunities for us to be on this learning journey together.
[00:06:40] Matty: That's very interesting. And I think one thing that's it's making me think of is that I've tried different approaches to my Patreon set up. And for a while, I was encouraged by the guidance that Patreon provides to have different tiers of membership with different stuff. And I finally thought, earlier this year I offered two levels, but I said, basically it's all the same stuff because I kind of don't like the idea of withholding some information artificially.
[00:07:11] So for a while, what I was doing is I was providing, members at a certain membership level with either outtakes or extra material from the recording. But it always felt creepy to me to withhold that, which was good information, from some of the listeners. And so I finally just said, look, if you support me, you get the same thing. It's just, you know, make the decision based on the value you're getting and what you can afford and all that.
[00:07:35] And, I didn't see any down tick and people signing up, but I didn't see any uptick either. But one of the things I'm thinking of is that something like access to a group I think it's a legitimate thing that you can use as an offering to people who support you at a higher level. It's feeling different to me somehow, I guess because it's something that by its definition is more valuable the more restricted it is. So a Slack group with let's say a hundred people is I think a more interesting place to be than a Slack channel with a thousand people because the group becomes more intimate. So I feel better about restricting that to a certain level of community than I did before.
[00:08:19] Jeff: You know, when we talk about Patreon and the tier level and that kind of stuff. I think you have to make a choice between, are you a content provider or a community builder, because there are two different things, right? Like I'm part of Joanna Penn's Patreon. Joanna interacts with the Patreon, but she is a content provider at the highest level, right? Like that's not a downplay. That's like she is providing futurist thought. She's providing news and resources. She's providing this amazing content that helps me be a better writer. I don't have an expectation from her that she is going to build a community.
[00:09:03] Now I'm part of her "community," but it's not an interactive thing where I expect her to hang out with me. I come from a community organizing background I worked in nonprofits for 15 years. So for me, the group is the point. That is the point. Building the community is the point. So for me, Patreon is just a vehicle to provide a gate for people to get into the community. But I'm thinking about the community.
[00:09:35] The difference between the two is if you're thinking from a content provider direction, where you're like, I'm going to set up my content provider for tiers, Patreon is right. Set up tiers, make sure all three tiers are super easy for you to provide. Like you can almost knock out all three tiers at once and then offer a low, medium, and high because people are unlikely to grab the high. If they see a medium, they'll get the medium. So you actually want them to buy the medium, right? Like, so that's why Patreon's like you need tiers because people are going to look at it and they're going to be like, oh, well, I don't want to just do the low level. But that top one that's really expensive. I'll get the one below it. Like it's just gaming how people think about prices.
[00:10:21] So if you're a content provider, understanding that you're not withholding things from people. What you offer is worth it in itself and got them to come to your Patreon in the first place. And these bonuses you're offering is about them choosing their level of engagement with the content you're providing. So I wouldn't think of it as like you're withholding anything from anybody. They're making choices as to how active they want to be with the content you're providing. And that's the content provider side.
[00:10:48] For me, though, on the community builders side, it costs a dollar a month to get into my community. That's it. Because I want as many people in that community as possible, because I know as a business, Slack people don't listen to this, as a business, I know that Dialogue Doctor's going to be funded and run by the people in the community. Because I'm building a community, people that love this community and want this community to continue. So they are going to fund the Dialogue Doctor to continue.
[00:11:18] Like I came from church building world. That's how you build a church. You get a bunch of people in the room. You're like, hey, we're all in this together. Don't you love it. Awesome. We have to tithe to keep this going. That's what the Dialogue Doctor community is. We're not a church, we're an organization of people obsessed about craft. We're all obsessed about craft. We want to keep working on craft and you got to know that you're going to have to pay a little bit to keep this community going. So people accept that kind of club mentality. Because it's something that we're used to.
[00:11:49] Matty: Can I ask you a question about that before you go on? And that is that I'm starting to think a little bit about the way you just described the Dialogue Doctor community. It sounds a little bit like Story Grid. Did you follow the Story Grid Podcast? And so it started out with basically Shawn Coyne, who is the originator of Story Grid, and Tim Grahl, you know, the two of them talking, and now it's like an industry.
[00:12:12] Jeff: So when they started their certification process, they started building a community. They're like, if you're a Story Grid editor, you're part of this elite community of people. And we're going to bring you on to talk about things and we're going to include you in, and you get benefits as a Story Grid editor being part of now, I would say the difference between what I'm doing is that my gate is very easy to get through. Their gate is very difficult and selective.
[00:12:40] And that is an example of people who are doing community over content. They're not cranking out a thousand new Story Grid books. They're not content providers. They're a community having a conversation around a piece of content. So that’s a good observation. And I would say for podcasters who are like deciding again, like take my words with a grain of salt because I've been in this for 70 weeks. It's probably better to talk to like Sacha Black or Joanna Penn about this. They're going forever.
[00:13:08] I would say pick one or the other. You can't do both. I mean, you can do both as your superhuman, but the community takes a lot of work to build and keep going. Generating constant new content that keeps people engaged takes a lot of work. You will have both, if you go content provider, a community will form around it. Like I said, I formed around Joanna Penn, like I listened to all of her stuff. I consider myself part of her community, even though she's not doing the activity of community building, she's providing new content. There is a community that's formed around her.
[00:13:42] Matty: I think that's an excellent distinction. And I can see that I'm definitely building a community as secondary to providing content.
[00:13:50] Jeff: Yeah. It's one of the reasons your Facebook page hasn't taken off, right? Like, Sacha Black is a natural community builder. She draws people into her brand and into her story in a very dramatic way. She provides people to participate like on her Facebook group every Monday, she's very vulnerable and open about like, hey, here are my goals for the week. Here's what I accomplished last week. And here are my goals for this week, and then she says, everybody share your goals. And she's got active questions and things happening. She has a pay for patron Slack group as well. That is the most active Slack group. It's crazy. Now she's also providing content. She's doing both, but man, her community building is on point.
[00:14:34] Matty: And I think it's even interesting that oftentimes for content is driven by what our community is asking for. So I interviewed Sacha, Episode 91 was creating stellar side characters with Sacha Black, which is, you know, when her side character book came out. And I believe that she picked that as the topic because her community voted for that as the topic that they most wanted to hear her perspective on. really been a community formed around dialogue. And I now kind of think of the work of Dialogue Doctor is really the work of the community that has come around because some of the people in the community we've been walking and learning together now for a year and a half since Dialogue Doctor started. So, we have a Slack group together and we're on Zoom calls once a month. And I'm always talking about new ideas with them and they're evaluating and sharing their thoughts on those new ideas.
[00:15:21] Jeff: And that's part of where the concept that we're going to talk about today of vehicles, engines, anchors, and hazards came from was having conversations with them and working on their work with them and looking at their stuff. Like, oh, this is a problem we're having that we kind of need to solve with characterization and dialogue and how characters operate within a narrative. So, yeah, that's why I use the we, cause it started to, I feel like the Dialogue Doctor, is it just me on a podcast anymore. There's actually like a group of us that are kind of putting it together.
[00:15:49] Matty: You have a whole practice now. It's not a single doctor. It's a practice.
[00:15:54] Jeff: I have, I called them a cohort. I have a cohort, the Dialogue Cohort that are we're all on this journey together.
[00:16:01] Matty: It's sort of back to the whole the definition of introvert and extrovert is extroverts get their energy from interacting with people, introverts get their energy by not interacting with people. I'm not expressing that very well, but the whole idea of community of that kind of community interaction to build that community sounds as exhausting to me, which is why I think I'm more of a content person.
[00:16:22] Jeff: I am an introvert. Like if you get me in a room of people, I have about an hour before I'm like, I need space. But I also love people. So I think part of it is like, what makes you feel like you're wearing a medal. As opposed to where your energy comes from, I'd encourage you to think about like, where are you going to feel most successful? So an hour Zoom call with my community super drains me, and I have to go straight to bed after I'm done. At the same time, I feel amazing hanging out with those people. And so, there is that balance of is it going to drain you, but also like, you know, my dog does certain behaviors because I give him treats for doing those behaviors, and I'm the same way. I keep holding Zoom calls and keep showing up to my community because it feels great to be with those people. And so I get that little treat when I do it. I want to do it again.
[00:17:13] If you get a treat out of putting amazing content into the world, putting content in the world stresses me out. Like when I put the Dialogue Daisy out and people love that piece of content, but man, I agonized over that for a month before I told anybody about it because I was so stressed that I was wrong. Or the tools that I build, I sit there and stress out about them forever because I'm so afraid that no, this is just Jeff being weird in his own head.
[00:17:39] So I couldn't be a content provider. And I do provide a lot of content. I put a lot of content into the world, but that's not my focus. My focus is building the community because building the community makes me feel good. Whereas building the content stresses me out. So that's how I made the decision is like what, when I got accomplished something, what makes me feel good?
[00:17:58] The Dialogue Daisy felt great to me after people started using it and they were like, this is helpful. That was like, oh, awesome. That makes me feel good. But just putting it into the world. I was like, oh my gosh, this is super stressful. I don't ever want to put anything out again. It's one of the reasons I've struggled to write a book, because well, one, I couldn't figure out what the book was about, but now that I know what the book is about, I really have to focus on I'm putting a book out because people want it and have asked for it. Because for me, the treat comes from helping other people, not putting the content in the world. I don't care about the content. Like for me, it's like, oh, this is going to help you then yes, I want to do this thing. So I think part of it is about figuring out, like what's triggering that treat.
[00:18:42] Matty: Yeah. And for me, when I put content out, I'm like, this is so cool. And then when I start getting responses, it's like, oh, there's an extra I didn't even think about. Yeah. It is very interesting, those differences, and then how it plays out in terms of community building as you're saying.
[00:18:56] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's all, sometimes, I feel like we're just rearranging words to justify, to trick ourselves into doing things, right? Like that's all we're doing. We're just rearranging the story we tell ourselves in order to get the desired result we want. And so the question is like, what's the best story to tell yourself to motivate what you needed to do. I have to tell myself that this is helping people in order to actually do it. But if you have to tell yourself that you're adding to the wealth of knowledge in the world, then tell yourself that story. Whatever story is going to motivate you to work. Yeah. Tell yourself that story.
[00:19:37] Matty: And I guess if you have to talk yourself into either one of those, maybe that's the wrong path, but there's probably one of those that immediately resonates with you, and one where you go, huh.
[00:19:48] Jeff: Yeah. If you're having to tell the story really hard and you're like, I don't care. Seriously.
[00:19:55] Matty: Yeah. Well, when we started out, you said there were three things that you had learned that were different. Have we covered three of them in that conversation or did we only cover one?
[00:20:03] Jeff: Okay. I'm learning things. Community-building is critically important. The third other one kind of goes into that community building there, which we have covered, which is understanding that I'm motivated by helping others. So just knowing that. That really determines what I put on the podcast and what I don't put on the podcast. I get a lot of requests for interviews. I mean, we all do, but I think once you get over like 30 episodes, people start to email you. I get, once a week I get somebody that's like, hey, can I be on your podcast? And part of me is like, I'd really like to help you, but that's not how I'm helping my community. Like my community is, I ask the community all the time. I'll be like, hey, you know, do you guys want me to start doing interviews? They get a lot of requests, and I could really be helping people by interviewing them. Like they want to show off their stuff. I want to help them show off their stuff. But my community has said like, no, if we want interviews, we go listen to Joanna. We don't need to listen to you. It's just like, oh, so this isn't helpful, so this isn't something that I'm going to do. So part of the way I gauge what I do on my podcast is what is my community finding the most helpful? And that's where I'm like, okay, I'll do that thing.
[00:21:10] Matty: Yeah, well, and I, I’ll just be the, what's the opposite of altruistic? I'll be the selfish representative here that almost all my podcast interviews are triggered by me saying, you know, I really want to talk to X more about Y. Like I heard your talk about vehicles, engines, anchors, and hazards at J. and Zach's Career Author Summit, and I was like, oh, I want to talk about that more with him. And as an added extra bonus, other people will be able to hear it too. So, yeah.
[00:21:36] Jeff: Yeah. And again, you're just telling yourself the story like that. You need to tell yourself, right? Like that's the key, is that self-manipulation in order to, yeah.
[00:21:45] Matty: Well self-manipulation, or I'm going to go back to listening to what your natural inclination is and capitalizing on that. And maybe not trying to force yourself. Like I'm realizing not kind of forcing myself into a community building effort that isn't the thing that's giving me energy or making me feel like I'm getting a medal.
[00:22:03] Jeff: Yeah. And that's the question, you know, your original question about Facebook. The question is like, is Facebook the problem? Or is it the community building is a chore.
[00:22:11] Matty: Right. And it also varies between fiction and nonfiction because I also have a private Facebook group that's more for my fiction. I would never move it off anywhere other than Facebook, because it's mainly people posting cute pictures of their pets, I have to say, we're all having a good time with it. Like, that's fine. I'm having fun.
[00:22:30] Jeff: They're having a good time.
[00:22:32] Matty: Yeah. But oh, very interesting. Well, thank you. Thank you. I can see this as being like a whole a little inbetweenisode or something like that.
[00:22:40] Jeff: I'm all for whatever.
[00:22:42] Matty: Well, thank you for indulging me for an effort extra little shot of content there. And I think community building.
[00:22:49] Jeff: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:00:10] Jeff: Today I did 70.
[00:00:12] Matty: And over how long, a time? That's like a year and a half or something like that?
[00:00:16] Jeff: 70 weeks. 70 weeks.
[00:00:19] Matty: So I'm just curious as to what are you getting from the podcast, both for yourself and your goals related to helping other people, that is different at episode 70 than you thought it would be when you did episode one.
[00:00:32] Jeff: So, man, that's a great question. I think there's three things podcasting for authors has given me. You know, I think when I started podcasting, I thought I was going to be teaching people things, or at least curating things like, you know, my job is to take these ideas and curate what's good and what's bad, or what's helpful, not helpful is probably a better way to say that. Or like my job is to come up with ideas and teach them. What I'm learning is that because podcasting is such an intimate connection with people that what I'm actually doing is building a community that is going on a journey of learning together.
[00:01:13] So it's not actually my job to teach or to educate. It's my job to be authentic and real with what I'm learning and where I'm going, and then allowing other people to come on that journey with me. So that to say, what I've gotten out of podcasting for authors is I have a community of authors that I didn't have before. There’re people that are on this journey with me. It's in the Slack group that we have going.
[00:01:39] But it's also people like you, people that I bring on all the time, then I'm like, oh, we're watching your writing mature together. There are clients that I work with repeatedly where I'm like, okay, we're actually growing as writers together. I'm growing as an editor and a writer. You're growing as a writer. We're moving through this together. So I get that community.
[00:02:02] And then that personal growth of me also learning and growing as a writer. I'm currently rewriting the first novel I wrote because it's really special to me. And I'm realizing like, oh, after the 70 weeks of learning in this cohort that I facilitate through the podcast, I'm a radically different writer than when I wrote that book seven years ago. I write dialogue differently. I think about characters differently. I just see characters differently. So the book is very different because of this cohort that I facilitate through the podcast.
[00:02:39] Matty: So I have to ask for selfish purposes, I've tried to create that kind of community through a Facebook group, not, I have to say two huge successes so far. So do you think that the Slack platform lends itself more to community building? Or do you think that there's something independent of the technology that you feel is being successful to you in terms of building community?
[00:03:02] Jeff: Yes and yes. So at the moment, I think Slack lends more community building. Slack and Discord seem to be the things of community building.
What they're doing well is it is an isolated place that allows for instant communication. So the instant communication is important because I've been in groups that tried to build around like message board style, and those become more venting places where somebody vents and then doesn't ever return to like actually have a conversation. We, in our text message world, our expectation is immediate communication. So Slack and Discord have that down.
[00:03:45] Facebook does too, by the way, immediate communication on Facebook happens as well. What Slack and Discord have over Facebook right now is that there is no algorithm behind Slack and Discord mediating what you see. Because you opt into the group, so when you opt into the group, you're just kind of in a room with all of these people. Whereas Facebook, you get community members in your group for Facebook, but Facebook is acting as a third party, deciding when those community manners are actually, if at all, notified about what's happening in your group. And so that's why I've actually left. I started on Facebook, and I realized like, oh, Facebook for me is really good for advertising. If I want to run an ad to people who may not know about me, Facebook is good for that. Facebook is bad for true relationship building.
[00:04:44] That being said, the relationship building that has really worked well for me is not just gathering people into a space to talk but providing those people ways to connect. So I do at the Dialogue Doctor masterclasses, which are like, if you're in the Slack cohort, you get a discount on it because I want to encourage those people to be there. Those are like four and a half hours that we have together in a Zoom room. Those are really important for relationship building.
[00:05:13] For this Slack group, I do a once a month Zoom call where like we get on a Zoom call with a short story, and we diagnose it together. And most of the time that's just me being like, so how did y'all feel about it? And that hourly interaction once a month, usually those go about two hours, that two hours of interaction once a month is actually what builds the relationship.
[00:05:36] Another person doing this really well is J. Thorn has the Author Success Mastermind, which has a Slack group to it. It has a really strong connection between the group members there. And he does a monthly town hall where they come on and they literally just talk about what's happening in their lives. And sometimes they tackle a question. The key though is to see yourself as a facilitator of that cohort and then provide ways for the cohort to connect with one another. And that's how the community has built for me is being like, okay, I need to find something for us to connect around.
[00:06:11] So for J.'s it's questions about publishing questions about indy life, questions about writing. It's a more general connection. Mine is very specifically craft. Like we get on, we're talking about craft questions. I try to find interesting things for them to do. Like I put out a writing prompt every Tuesday and everybody posts their work, and we'd comment on the work together. Part of that is me facilitating opportunities for us to be on this learning journey together.
[00:06:40] Matty: That's very interesting. And I think one thing that's it's making me think of is that I've tried different approaches to my Patreon set up. And for a while, I was encouraged by the guidance that Patreon provides to have different tiers of membership with different stuff. And I finally thought, earlier this year I offered two levels, but I said, basically it's all the same stuff because I kind of don't like the idea of withholding some information artificially.
[00:07:11] So for a while, what I was doing is I was providing, members at a certain membership level with either outtakes or extra material from the recording. But it always felt creepy to me to withhold that, which was good information, from some of the listeners. And so I finally just said, look, if you support me, you get the same thing. It's just, you know, make the decision based on the value you're getting and what you can afford and all that.
[00:07:35] And, I didn't see any down tick and people signing up, but I didn't see any uptick either. But one of the things I'm thinking of is that something like access to a group I think it's a legitimate thing that you can use as an offering to people who support you at a higher level. It's feeling different to me somehow, I guess because it's something that by its definition is more valuable the more restricted it is. So a Slack group with let's say a hundred people is I think a more interesting place to be than a Slack channel with a thousand people because the group becomes more intimate. So I feel better about restricting that to a certain level of community than I did before.
[00:08:19] Jeff: You know, when we talk about Patreon and the tier level and that kind of stuff. I think you have to make a choice between, are you a content provider or a community builder, because there are two different things, right? Like I'm part of Joanna Penn's Patreon. Joanna interacts with the Patreon, but she is a content provider at the highest level, right? Like that's not a downplay. That's like she is providing futurist thought. She's providing news and resources. She's providing this amazing content that helps me be a better writer. I don't have an expectation from her that she is going to build a community.
[00:09:03] Now I'm part of her "community," but it's not an interactive thing where I expect her to hang out with me. I come from a community organizing background I worked in nonprofits for 15 years. So for me, the group is the point. That is the point. Building the community is the point. So for me, Patreon is just a vehicle to provide a gate for people to get into the community. But I'm thinking about the community.
[00:09:35] The difference between the two is if you're thinking from a content provider direction, where you're like, I'm going to set up my content provider for tiers, Patreon is right. Set up tiers, make sure all three tiers are super easy for you to provide. Like you can almost knock out all three tiers at once and then offer a low, medium, and high because people are unlikely to grab the high. If they see a medium, they'll get the medium. So you actually want them to buy the medium, right? Like, so that's why Patreon's like you need tiers because people are going to look at it and they're going to be like, oh, well, I don't want to just do the low level. But that top one that's really expensive. I'll get the one below it. Like it's just gaming how people think about prices.
[00:10:21] So if you're a content provider, understanding that you're not withholding things from people. What you offer is worth it in itself and got them to come to your Patreon in the first place. And these bonuses you're offering is about them choosing their level of engagement with the content you're providing. So I wouldn't think of it as like you're withholding anything from anybody. They're making choices as to how active they want to be with the content you're providing. And that's the content provider side.
[00:10:48] For me, though, on the community builders side, it costs a dollar a month to get into my community. That's it. Because I want as many people in that community as possible, because I know as a business, Slack people don't listen to this, as a business, I know that Dialogue Doctor's going to be funded and run by the people in the community. Because I'm building a community, people that love this community and want this community to continue. So they are going to fund the Dialogue Doctor to continue.
[00:11:18] Like I came from church building world. That's how you build a church. You get a bunch of people in the room. You're like, hey, we're all in this together. Don't you love it. Awesome. We have to tithe to keep this going. That's what the Dialogue Doctor community is. We're not a church, we're an organization of people obsessed about craft. We're all obsessed about craft. We want to keep working on craft and you got to know that you're going to have to pay a little bit to keep this community going. So people accept that kind of club mentality. Because it's something that we're used to.
[00:11:49] Matty: Can I ask you a question about that before you go on? And that is that I'm starting to think a little bit about the way you just described the Dialogue Doctor community. It sounds a little bit like Story Grid. Did you follow the Story Grid Podcast? And so it started out with basically Shawn Coyne, who is the originator of Story Grid, and Tim Grahl, you know, the two of them talking, and now it's like an industry.
[00:12:12] Jeff: So when they started their certification process, they started building a community. They're like, if you're a Story Grid editor, you're part of this elite community of people. And we're going to bring you on to talk about things and we're going to include you in, and you get benefits as a Story Grid editor being part of now, I would say the difference between what I'm doing is that my gate is very easy to get through. Their gate is very difficult and selective.
[00:12:40] And that is an example of people who are doing community over content. They're not cranking out a thousand new Story Grid books. They're not content providers. They're a community having a conversation around a piece of content. So that’s a good observation. And I would say for podcasters who are like deciding again, like take my words with a grain of salt because I've been in this for 70 weeks. It's probably better to talk to like Sacha Black or Joanna Penn about this. They're going forever.
[00:13:08] I would say pick one or the other. You can't do both. I mean, you can do both as your superhuman, but the community takes a lot of work to build and keep going. Generating constant new content that keeps people engaged takes a lot of work. You will have both, if you go content provider, a community will form around it. Like I said, I formed around Joanna Penn, like I listened to all of her stuff. I consider myself part of her community, even though she's not doing the activity of community building, she's providing new content. There is a community that's formed around her.
[00:13:42] Matty: I think that's an excellent distinction. And I can see that I'm definitely building a community as secondary to providing content.
[00:13:50] Jeff: Yeah. It's one of the reasons your Facebook page hasn't taken off, right? Like, Sacha Black is a natural community builder. She draws people into her brand and into her story in a very dramatic way. She provides people to participate like on her Facebook group every Monday, she's very vulnerable and open about like, hey, here are my goals for the week. Here's what I accomplished last week. And here are my goals for this week, and then she says, everybody share your goals. And she's got active questions and things happening. She has a pay for patron Slack group as well. That is the most active Slack group. It's crazy. Now she's also providing content. She's doing both, but man, her community building is on point.
[00:14:34] Matty: And I think it's even interesting that oftentimes for content is driven by what our community is asking for. So I interviewed Sacha, Episode 91 was creating stellar side characters with Sacha Black, which is, you know, when her side character book came out. And I believe that she picked that as the topic because her community voted for that as the topic that they most wanted to hear her perspective on. really been a community formed around dialogue. And I now kind of think of the work of Dialogue Doctor is really the work of the community that has come around because some of the people in the community we've been walking and learning together now for a year and a half since Dialogue Doctor started. So, we have a Slack group together and we're on Zoom calls once a month. And I'm always talking about new ideas with them and they're evaluating and sharing their thoughts on those new ideas.
[00:15:21] Jeff: And that's part of where the concept that we're going to talk about today of vehicles, engines, anchors, and hazards came from was having conversations with them and working on their work with them and looking at their stuff. Like, oh, this is a problem we're having that we kind of need to solve with characterization and dialogue and how characters operate within a narrative. So, yeah, that's why I use the we, cause it started to, I feel like the Dialogue Doctor, is it just me on a podcast anymore. There's actually like a group of us that are kind of putting it together.
[00:15:49] Matty: You have a whole practice now. It's not a single doctor. It's a practice.
[00:15:54] Jeff: I have, I called them a cohort. I have a cohort, the Dialogue Cohort that are we're all on this journey together.
[00:16:01] Matty: It's sort of back to the whole the definition of introvert and extrovert is extroverts get their energy from interacting with people, introverts get their energy by not interacting with people. I'm not expressing that very well, but the whole idea of community of that kind of community interaction to build that community sounds as exhausting to me, which is why I think I'm more of a content person.
[00:16:22] Jeff: I am an introvert. Like if you get me in a room of people, I have about an hour before I'm like, I need space. But I also love people. So I think part of it is like, what makes you feel like you're wearing a medal. As opposed to where your energy comes from, I'd encourage you to think about like, where are you going to feel most successful? So an hour Zoom call with my community super drains me, and I have to go straight to bed after I'm done. At the same time, I feel amazing hanging out with those people. And so, there is that balance of is it going to drain you, but also like, you know, my dog does certain behaviors because I give him treats for doing those behaviors, and I'm the same way. I keep holding Zoom calls and keep showing up to my community because it feels great to be with those people. And so I get that little treat when I do it. I want to do it again.
[00:17:13] If you get a treat out of putting amazing content into the world, putting content in the world stresses me out. Like when I put the Dialogue Daisy out and people love that piece of content, but man, I agonized over that for a month before I told anybody about it because I was so stressed that I was wrong. Or the tools that I build, I sit there and stress out about them forever because I'm so afraid that no, this is just Jeff being weird in his own head.
[00:17:39] So I couldn't be a content provider. And I do provide a lot of content. I put a lot of content into the world, but that's not my focus. My focus is building the community because building the community makes me feel good. Whereas building the content stresses me out. So that's how I made the decision is like what, when I got accomplished something, what makes me feel good?
[00:17:58] The Dialogue Daisy felt great to me after people started using it and they were like, this is helpful. That was like, oh, awesome. That makes me feel good. But just putting it into the world. I was like, oh my gosh, this is super stressful. I don't ever want to put anything out again. It's one of the reasons I've struggled to write a book, because well, one, I couldn't figure out what the book was about, but now that I know what the book is about, I really have to focus on I'm putting a book out because people want it and have asked for it. Because for me, the treat comes from helping other people, not putting the content in the world. I don't care about the content. Like for me, it's like, oh, this is going to help you then yes, I want to do this thing. So I think part of it is about figuring out, like what's triggering that treat.
[00:18:42] Matty: Yeah. And for me, when I put content out, I'm like, this is so cool. And then when I start getting responses, it's like, oh, there's an extra I didn't even think about. Yeah. It is very interesting, those differences, and then how it plays out in terms of community building as you're saying.
[00:18:56] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's all, sometimes, I feel like we're just rearranging words to justify, to trick ourselves into doing things, right? Like that's all we're doing. We're just rearranging the story we tell ourselves in order to get the desired result we want. And so the question is like, what's the best story to tell yourself to motivate what you needed to do. I have to tell myself that this is helping people in order to actually do it. But if you have to tell yourself that you're adding to the wealth of knowledge in the world, then tell yourself that story. Whatever story is going to motivate you to work. Yeah. Tell yourself that story.
[00:19:37] Matty: And I guess if you have to talk yourself into either one of those, maybe that's the wrong path, but there's probably one of those that immediately resonates with you, and one where you go, huh.
[00:19:48] Jeff: Yeah. If you're having to tell the story really hard and you're like, I don't care. Seriously.
[00:19:55] Matty: Yeah. Well, when we started out, you said there were three things that you had learned that were different. Have we covered three of them in that conversation or did we only cover one?
[00:20:03] Jeff: Okay. I'm learning things. Community-building is critically important. The third other one kind of goes into that community building there, which we have covered, which is understanding that I'm motivated by helping others. So just knowing that. That really determines what I put on the podcast and what I don't put on the podcast. I get a lot of requests for interviews. I mean, we all do, but I think once you get over like 30 episodes, people start to email you. I get, once a week I get somebody that's like, hey, can I be on your podcast? And part of me is like, I'd really like to help you, but that's not how I'm helping my community. Like my community is, I ask the community all the time. I'll be like, hey, you know, do you guys want me to start doing interviews? They get a lot of requests, and I could really be helping people by interviewing them. Like they want to show off their stuff. I want to help them show off their stuff. But my community has said like, no, if we want interviews, we go listen to Joanna. We don't need to listen to you. It's just like, oh, so this isn't helpful, so this isn't something that I'm going to do. So part of the way I gauge what I do on my podcast is what is my community finding the most helpful? And that's where I'm like, okay, I'll do that thing.
[00:21:10] Matty: Yeah, well, and I, I’ll just be the, what's the opposite of altruistic? I'll be the selfish representative here that almost all my podcast interviews are triggered by me saying, you know, I really want to talk to X more about Y. Like I heard your talk about vehicles, engines, anchors, and hazards at J. and Zach's Career Author Summit, and I was like, oh, I want to talk about that more with him. And as an added extra bonus, other people will be able to hear it too. So, yeah.
[00:21:36] Jeff: Yeah. And again, you're just telling yourself the story like that. You need to tell yourself, right? Like that's the key, is that self-manipulation in order to, yeah.
[00:21:45] Matty: Well self-manipulation, or I'm going to go back to listening to what your natural inclination is and capitalizing on that. And maybe not trying to force yourself. Like I'm realizing not kind of forcing myself into a community building effort that isn't the thing that's giving me energy or making me feel like I'm getting a medal.
[00:22:03] Jeff: Yeah. And that's the question, you know, your original question about Facebook. The question is like, is Facebook the problem? Or is it the community building is a chore.
[00:22:11] Matty: Right. And it also varies between fiction and nonfiction because I also have a private Facebook group that's more for my fiction. I would never move it off anywhere other than Facebook, because it's mainly people posting cute pictures of their pets, I have to say, we're all having a good time with it. Like, that's fine. I'm having fun.
[00:22:30] Jeff: They're having a good time.
[00:22:32] Matty: Yeah. But oh, very interesting. Well, thank you. Thank you. I can see this as being like a whole a little inbetweenisode or something like that.
[00:22:40] Jeff: I'm all for whatever.
[00:22:42] Matty: Well, thank you for indulging me for an effort extra little shot of content there. And I think community building.
[00:22:49] Jeff: Yeah, absolutely.
I hope you loved what Jeff had to say as much as I did.
I loved when he talked about how you can identify if you’re a community builder or a content provider by asking yourself, What makes you feel like you're wearing a medal?
Sharing his perspective as a community-building podcaster, I loved his comment that It's my job to be authentic and real with what I'm learning and where I'm going, and then allowing other people to come on that journey with me. … The key is to see yourself as a facilitator of that cohort and then provide ways for the cohort to connect with one another.
Right now, I see myself as being squarely in the content provider camp, but I also agreed with Jeff’s comment that if you go content provider, a community will form around it.
Taking all this into account, I finally succeeded in coming up with a plan for my patronage program that I feel best serves my community and my efforts to keep The Indy Author afloat.
First, how could I provide a platform for building community among my patrons?
I was intrigued by Jeff’s conversation about what Slack had to offer, so I joined Jeff’s Slack community, as well as Sacha Black’s community, to see how the experts were managing it. Then I created my own Slack space—The Indy Author Crew—for patrons and past podcast guests … and I have to say I’m enjoying Slack more than I expected! I’m also gratified to see that even in the relatively small current Indy Author “shakedown crew” Slack space, there is already starting to be some interactions not only between me and the members, but also among the members, which is fantastic.
I also liked Jeff’s advice about providing some differentiation among three patronage tiers, and here’s what I came up with …
I'm going to be offering a $1 per month, $3 per month, and $5 per month level. And all of them will include early access to the interview videos on YouTube, an on air thank you on the podcast, and inclusion in a patron list at theindyauthor.com, along with the link to the patron's website.
The second benefit is membership in the Indy Author Slack Community, and currently, if you're a member at any level, you have access to the Indy Author Crew Slack space, and I plan to continue this approach for a little while. However, I'll probably be moving to having the Slack membership as a benefit to those of the middle and higher tier memberships.
But once you're in the Slack space, you're grandfathered in regardless of your patronage level. So perhaps that will be an incentive for you to take the plunge with a $1 per month patronage level now.
And then, for the highest level tier, I would include ebooks of TAKING THE SHORT TACK, the book I co-wrote with Mark Leslie Lefebvre about creating income and connecting with readers using short fiction and THE INDY AUTHOR'S GUIDE TO PODCASTING FOR AUTHORS, plus any future non-fiction books I publish, if the patron is active at the time of the launch.
There are still a couple of options that I’m pondering, and I would love your input on these …
Would you be interested in having a monthly Zoom call with me and fellow patrons on topics related to the writing craft and the publishing voyage? This would probably be a benefit for mid- and high-tier members, at least initially.
Finally, I’d love suggestions for nautically themed names for each of the tiers--$1, $2, and $3 per month.
I would greatly value any input you have on my updated patronage program. To leave a comment, please go to theindyauthor.com/podcast and click on Inbetweenisode 116. You can also leave a comment if you’re watching this on YouTube. Or send your comments to [email protected]—and that’s Matty with a Y.
To review the options, or to support me on Patreon, go the theindyauthor.com/Patreon.
As always, you can also use Buy Me a Coffee if you’d like to make an occasional contribution, perhaps to indicate the value that a specific episode or resource provided to you on your creative voyage. You can find the Buy Me a Coffee link at the bottom of any page at theindyauthor.com.
In addition to any input you may have on The Indy Author patronage program, I’d also love to hear any thoughts you have in general about the insights and advice Jeff shared. And, if you loved what he had to say as much as I did, I hope you’ll check out Jeff’s patronage program at patreon.com/JeffElkins … and perhaps I’ll see you in the Dialogue Doctor Slack space.
I loved when he talked about how you can identify if you’re a community builder or a content provider by asking yourself, What makes you feel like you're wearing a medal?
Sharing his perspective as a community-building podcaster, I loved his comment that It's my job to be authentic and real with what I'm learning and where I'm going, and then allowing other people to come on that journey with me. … The key is to see yourself as a facilitator of that cohort and then provide ways for the cohort to connect with one another.
Right now, I see myself as being squarely in the content provider camp, but I also agreed with Jeff’s comment that if you go content provider, a community will form around it.
Taking all this into account, I finally succeeded in coming up with a plan for my patronage program that I feel best serves my community and my efforts to keep The Indy Author afloat.
First, how could I provide a platform for building community among my patrons?
I was intrigued by Jeff’s conversation about what Slack had to offer, so I joined Jeff’s Slack community, as well as Sacha Black’s community, to see how the experts were managing it. Then I created my own Slack space—The Indy Author Crew—for patrons and past podcast guests … and I have to say I’m enjoying Slack more than I expected! I’m also gratified to see that even in the relatively small current Indy Author “shakedown crew” Slack space, there is already starting to be some interactions not only between me and the members, but also among the members, which is fantastic.
I also liked Jeff’s advice about providing some differentiation among three patronage tiers, and here’s what I came up with …
I'm going to be offering a $1 per month, $3 per month, and $5 per month level. And all of them will include early access to the interview videos on YouTube, an on air thank you on the podcast, and inclusion in a patron list at theindyauthor.com, along with the link to the patron's website.
The second benefit is membership in the Indy Author Slack Community, and currently, if you're a member at any level, you have access to the Indy Author Crew Slack space, and I plan to continue this approach for a little while. However, I'll probably be moving to having the Slack membership as a benefit to those of the middle and higher tier memberships.
But once you're in the Slack space, you're grandfathered in regardless of your patronage level. So perhaps that will be an incentive for you to take the plunge with a $1 per month patronage level now.
And then, for the highest level tier, I would include ebooks of TAKING THE SHORT TACK, the book I co-wrote with Mark Leslie Lefebvre about creating income and connecting with readers using short fiction and THE INDY AUTHOR'S GUIDE TO PODCASTING FOR AUTHORS, plus any future non-fiction books I publish, if the patron is active at the time of the launch.
There are still a couple of options that I’m pondering, and I would love your input on these …
Would you be interested in having a monthly Zoom call with me and fellow patrons on topics related to the writing craft and the publishing voyage? This would probably be a benefit for mid- and high-tier members, at least initially.
Finally, I’d love suggestions for nautically themed names for each of the tiers--$1, $2, and $3 per month.
I would greatly value any input you have on my updated patronage program. To leave a comment, please go to theindyauthor.com/podcast and click on Inbetweenisode 116. You can also leave a comment if you’re watching this on YouTube. Or send your comments to [email protected]—and that’s Matty with a Y.
To review the options, or to support me on Patreon, go the theindyauthor.com/Patreon.
As always, you can also use Buy Me a Coffee if you’d like to make an occasional contribution, perhaps to indicate the value that a specific episode or resource provided to you on your creative voyage. You can find the Buy Me a Coffee link at the bottom of any page at theindyauthor.com.
In addition to any input you may have on The Indy Author patronage program, I’d also love to hear any thoughts you have in general about the insights and advice Jeff shared. And, if you loved what he had to say as much as I did, I hope you’ll check out Jeff’s patronage program at patreon.com/JeffElkins … and perhaps I’ll see you in the Dialogue Doctor Slack space.
Links
Patreon page for Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn: https://www.patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Patreon page for Sacha Black, The Rebel Author: https://www.patreon.com/sachablack
Patreon page for Jeff Elkins, The Dialogue Doctor: https://www.patreon.com/JeffElkins
Patreon page for Matty Dalrymple, The Indy Author: https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
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