Episode 25Mar 11, 2022· 27:46
Christopher Tallon Discusses the Benefits of Podcasting
About this episode
I'm chatting with Christopher Tallon about the benefits of podcasting. Christopher is the creative genius behind the Creative Ops Podcast and you can find him online at: https://christophertallon.com/
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Full transcript
00:00
Welcome to the blogger show.
00:21
Well, Christopher, welcome to the show.
00:22
I'm so excited you could be here today.
00:24
Can you tell me a little bit about what you do and what you blog about?
00:28
Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:29
Um, so I have my personal blog and that started with
00:34
mostly just blogging about writing.
00:36
And then I blog where I actually make a little bit of money
00:39
doing it for a podcast production company and some of their sponsors.
00:44
So when did your blogging journey begin?
00:47
Let's see. Oh, I had to write it down because I couldn't even remember when I
00:51
when I tried to remember June 21st, 2019
00:54
is when I wrote my first blog post on my website.
00:57
So that's when it started.
00:59
And then probably within a few months of doing that, I met up with some guys
01:02
that wanted to talk to me about that on their podcast.
01:06
And I ended up working for them and starting my own podcast.
01:09
So was the podcasting first or was the blogging first?
01:12
The blogging was first.
01:13
OK, what did you do before that?
01:14
Well, I could buy a short margin.
01:16
OK, well, that I was a middle school teacher.
01:19
Really? Middle school.
01:20
Oh, my goodness. I was a substitute teacher for two years
01:23
and in another lifetime, and I could never go back.
01:27
So when did you decide to stop teaching and start doing stuff
01:30
in the content creation side of things?
01:32
My wife had our fourth kid, which we were not expecting, but, you know, it worked out.
01:36
And it just didn't really make sense for me to be teaching anymore
01:41
for the amount of money that we were going to be spending on childcare
01:43
and everything else.
01:44
I was barely bringing home anything.
01:46
So I started doing the stay at home dad thing and started blogging
01:50
and writing a book and ended up doing podcasts and all that kind of stuff.
01:54
So now my my certificate is gone.
01:57
I guess I could go back and get it renewed if I wanted to.
01:59
But I kind of like where I'm at.
02:01
Yeah, our educators in this country do not get paid enough money.
02:05
Absolutely. It's it's I can't even imagine.
02:08
I can't even imagine like trying to handle all those expenses,
02:12
especially childcare and that take home pay from from an educator perspective.
02:16
It's just ridiculous.
02:18
Yeah. So so now you said you blog a little bit about writing.
02:22
Do you still blog about that?
02:23
Specifically, or do you do more than just that on on your website?
02:27
On my blog now, I'll blog about my podcast, about some of my friends podcasts.
02:34
Every now and then I'll drop something about writing.
02:36
But when I first started the blog, all I was doing was writing a novel.
02:40
So that was the epicenter of my entire world was writing.
02:44
And so now I still will still will write about it from time to time.
02:49
But yes, it's a little bit random what what comes out of it.
02:53
What comes out on my personal blog.
02:54
OK, now is the is the blog monetized?
02:58
No, it's not. I've used it to prefer to.
03:02
Let's try that again.
03:03
Speak English. Yeah, I've used it to like trade professional services
03:07
with other people where I've said, hey, you know, if I can get some attention
03:10
on whatever you're doing, will you give me a discounted rate or, you know,
03:14
we'll just swap sees if it's worth that same amount monetarily.
03:18
And so I guess I've
03:20
not completely not used it, but yeah, I don't make steady income with it.
03:24
OK, so in terms of monetization, what are you doing for for for that aspect?
03:29
It thinks is strictly blogging for the podcast hosting company or or what do you do?
03:33
So I blog for the podcast company as well as some of their podcasts.
03:39
And then from time to time, one of their sponsors will say,
03:42
oh, you have a blogger who, you know, you seem to like does get some results.
03:48
And so I've gotten stuff from them and then people have reached out to me
03:52
from sponsors that said, oh, yeah, this guy, we hired him and he did a good job.
03:56
So OK, cool.
03:57
So do you do ghost writing for like other websites or?
04:00
Yeah, yeah, I've worked for.
04:04
People that were trying to social issues,
04:07
I did some stuff for a hospital that didn't get credited,
04:10
some writing for people in the I'm in Michigan and we have
04:14
recreational and medical marijuana here at Cedar Valley.
04:17
I want to hear some written for people in the cannabis industry,
04:20
personal improvement, mental health, religious issues.
04:23
So it sounds like a lot of the stuff you've been doing has been based on
04:26
like referrals and word of mouth.
04:27
Have you actually gone out and advertised yourself at all?
04:30
I did a little bit, but then I got to a point where I started
04:33
getting people asking me to do more than I could say yes to.
04:37
So I just went back to the old school referral system.
04:40
But I had like a contact page on my website that said, you know, I write,
04:44
here's some of my stuff, contact me if you're interested.
04:46
So but as of right now, that page is asleep.
04:49
That's amazing. Wow.
04:50
So so to someone who wants to get into what it is you're doing,
04:54
what would you recommend to them?
04:56
See, I'm not.
04:58
A good person to probably ask that because I literally just fell into it.
05:02
Somebody said, oh, you write a blog and you're writing a novel.
05:06
Come talk about all that on my podcast.
05:08
Hey, you should start a podcast.
05:09
Will you write our blogs?
05:10
And so I guess more than anything, I just kind of put out there into the universe.
05:14
I'm a writer. I do writerly things.
05:16
And that's one of the more in demand things right now.
05:21
Now, would you say that
05:22
that the podcasting has been helping you with the networking, though?
05:26
Oh, for sure.
05:27
And it goes both ways, too.
05:29
But the podcast, I also started that thinking that
05:34
that would be a good way to reach out to potential blog clients.
05:37
Or when this book comes out this summer, get people, you know, in the know
05:41
about the book. But since then, I've made a lot of friends that way.
05:44
I've made professional connections that way.
05:45
And it's been well, as I'm sure, you know, podcasting it.
05:49
It's done a lot more for me personally than I expected it to.
05:53
Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I started mine,
05:55
I had no idea that people were actually going to care.
05:59
Like, I mean, for a while, they didn't care about mine.
06:01
I just I was telling somebody that I got more downloads
06:03
on a single day last week than I did in like the first three months
06:06
for a whole month of podcasting.
06:08
Well, it is amazing how much the industry has just blown up just since like
06:11
just since twenty nineteen, because twenty nineteen is when I went
06:14
to my very first podcast movement and kind of became addicted
06:17
to the idea of the medium.
06:18
I bought my domain for a bloggy French show in twenty sixteen.
06:22
And I'd been talking about it since then.
06:24
I was like, I'm going to I'm going to blog about well,
06:26
I'm going to podcast about bloggers because I was already blogging about blogging.
06:29
And so I was like, yeah, I want to podcast.
06:31
It's all about bloggers and spotlighting bloggers.
06:33
And then I kind of just sat on it and was afraid to launch.
06:37
And then in twenty nineteen, an opportunity came my way to go to podcast movement.
06:41
I learned about it and just became obsessed, like right off the bat,
06:45
because the community of podcasters, it's fascinating how caring they are.
06:50
I mean, I'm not talking about your like super influencers that are, you know,
06:53
oh, do you know who I am?
06:55
But the the ones that are like, you know, the OGs that were, you know,
07:00
really getting into the business for for the art of talking to people
07:04
and for getting their message out there.
07:05
It's just such a fun community.
07:07
Yeah. Now, what is your podcast?
07:09
I've seen that a little bit across other mediums, too, because I, well,
07:13
going into what I podcast about, it's called Creative Ops.
07:16
And I just talked to creative people and we talk about their creative process.
07:19
And usually it's around like an hour or so.
07:21
So we'll talk about, you know, whatever personal stuff comes up, too.
07:24
But yeah, everyone says the same thing.
07:28
Like, yeah, when you just dive all into something,
07:30
whether it's an art community or a blogging community or a podcast community
07:34
or a writing community, there's a lot of people that you would expect
07:38
would hold their secrets and not want to let you get one step ahead of them.
07:43
But everyone's, oh, yeah, you do this. You should do this.
07:45
You know, somebody you should talk to is this person over here,
07:48
and they could probably help you with that.
07:49
And everyone wants everyone to succeed.
07:51
It's it's a lot less competitive and more enthusiastic than I thought it would be
07:56
coming into writing communities and podcasting communities.
07:59
Now, would you say I can already have my my my biases on this,
08:02
but I really want to know what you think about this.
08:04
Do you think a blogger getting started today needs a podcast?
08:10
I mean, I would tell anybody to start one, regardless,
08:12
if you're trying to do anything that's, you know, kind of in the entertainment
08:16
sphere, podcasting is a great way to network and get the word of mouth out.
08:22
Do you need one? No. But.
08:25
I think it definitely would help your outreach.
08:27
Absolutely, absolutely.
08:29
And that's kind of what I feel about it is, you know, I know this one guy
08:32
I interviewed for for a company podcast recently.
08:35
He was basically saying that they used to do all of their efforts
08:38
were on guest blogging, like it was it was what they would do.
08:42
They would. He did like PR and all that kind of stuff.
08:44
And and he would constantly just be you got to go and guest blog for everybody.
08:49
And now he's like doesn't do any of that.
08:51
It's all guest podcasting because he says guest podcasting is the new guest
08:55
blogging. And it's so much faster because, you know, you already have all this
08:59
this knowledge in your brain.
09:00
You have all this expertise in your brain.
09:03
So rather than trying to figure out, OK, what ranks for SEO?
09:06
I can just tell you about the shit I know.
09:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
09:11
Yeah, because people say, why?
09:12
How do how do people pay to write blogs?
09:14
Why would it's all search engine optimization?
09:17
It really is.
09:18
Yeah, because I mean, and it's so sad because like the most,
09:22
you know, the largest expert in any field, if they can't optimize it
09:25
the way that Google wants it to be optimized, then you're never going to find it.
09:29
And you need the keyword density, the right thing in your age to headings.
09:33
And yeah, yeah.
09:34
So then they need a podcast so they can wax philosophical
09:37
on everything that they're thinking.
09:39
That's right.
09:40
So how often does your podcast come out?
09:43
It's weekly unless I, you know, say I'm taking a break.
09:45
I usually do around the holidays or sometimes in the summers.
09:49
But otherwise, it's every Monday.
09:50
That's awesome.
09:51
Yes. With an interview every other Monday and then usually like a 10 to 20 minute
09:56
solo that just kind of talks about whatever I'm doing or
09:58
things that I've learned about the podcast or whatever is, you know, socially happening.
10:04
OK, so we've already alluded to the fact that you and I met through a tweet
10:08
that I put out. I had put out a cataclysm, if you will.
10:12
Honestly, I didn't see that first.
10:13
My friend Jason, who started the podcast company, he said, he's like,
10:17
dude, this sounds perfect for you.
10:18
So I looked at it and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:20
And that's awesome.
10:21
So how do you find your your guests, though?
10:24
How do you how do you go about finding people to be on your show?
10:26
A lot of times I'll see somebody in the moment and go, hey, I have a podcast.
10:30
And a lot of times I'll do it.
10:32
You know, a lot of people are just game for it.
10:34
So I've seen musicians at shows and been like, hey, I have a podcast.
10:37
Oh, I'll do it. Or Instagram.
10:40
A lot of times, if I see somebody who just has like an original page
10:43
and they're a writer or an artist or a comedian,
10:46
I'll reach out and ask if they want to talk for an hour.
10:49
And, you know, when you first start a podcast, they'll look and see like,
10:52
oh, you have two podcasts now. I'm good.
10:54
But you know, you got to bug some friends and people to come on.
10:57
But after a while, then, yeah, people see that it's a real show.
11:01
It's got some consistency to it and it's a little bit easier.
11:04
It's amazing how receptive people have been to if you have at least
11:08
more than a couple of episodes, they're like, OK, I'm in. Yeah. Yeah.
11:12
Do you ever get nervous?
11:13
I just released six episodes for his first drop because he was like,
11:17
yeah, I just want people to have to be able to kind of dive in all at once.
11:20
Yeah, that's really smart. It's very smart.
11:22
Do you ever get nervous whenever you're outreaching?
11:26
Not really.
11:28
I get more nervous when I'm about to talk to somebody
11:30
because I'm a pretty outgoing person anyway, but just to like,
11:34
oh, we're doing this. No backing out.
11:36
It's going to be on record. OK, here we go.
11:38
Cool. Yeah. Oh, shit.
11:39
It's being recorded. Like, oh, my goodness.
11:42
Yeah. Yeah. The first half dozen times, I was probably like more nervous
11:45
than my guests and they're looking at me like, OK.
11:47
Yeah.
11:49
You know, it's funny.
11:50
You know, it's funny because every time I hit record
11:53
there or even if I'm just like turning on the camera, we're doing
11:56
we're doing this on Zoom right now.
11:58
But every time that I hit record, I still get those little butterflies.
12:01
Like, it's so funny. I'm an outgoing person, too.
12:03
I love talking to people. I love, you know, interacting with them.
12:06
But even I'm just like, oh, and then, of course, like the worst part
12:10
is whenever you completely forget everything you wanted to say.
12:13
That's why I've gotten really good about I have all my notes
12:16
of everything that I sent to you.
12:17
It's all right in front of me so that if I forget something,
12:19
I can just look really quickly and go, OK, yeah, I really wanted to say that.
12:23
Yeah. Yeah. I'll usually think of some bullet points ahead of time.
12:26
And then if I am just sitting there and go, uh, look down and go,
12:30
we haven't talked about that yet. OK, let's talk about that.
12:33
I love that. I love that.
12:34
And then I added out my moment of, uh,
12:36
so it sounds like I'm a lot better at this than I really am.
12:39
Yeah. Sometimes I just leave them in because it's like, you know,
12:41
I kind of like the raw and the real a little bit.
12:44
Like, yeah, you want to be a little polished.
12:46
But I kind of feel like for my podcast, it's been a lot more
12:50
just like the fun and the the not as polished because, you know,
12:54
whatever I'm doing for clients, I know I have to be, you know, very
12:58
Ashley's professional.
13:00
But here, but you're like, no, I'm just talking to my friends.
13:02
I don't care. That's why.
13:04
Yeah. Especially when you write professionally, everybody's constantly like,
13:08
oh, I shouldn't say ain't in front of them or I should make sure that I'm using the
13:12
do I use the Oxford comma or do I not?
13:14
Yeah. Yeah, I don't care.
13:17
Yeah, exactly.
13:18
And then that's the other good thing about podcasting is you don't have to think
13:21
about any of that when you're talking.
13:23
It's like, who cares if I, you know, am not using the exact proper language?
13:28
That's awesome. Yeah.
13:29
So now you your website, Christopher Towne dot com.
13:33
Is there a reason you chose to just have it be your name
13:36
instead of something other than just your name?
13:39
I think I'm just bad at titles.
13:41
At one time, I tried a couple out and just every time I went to it
13:46
or wrote it down or told somebody that it was called something else, I was like,
13:49
so, yeah, I know I would like
13:52
Chuck Wendig is a science fiction writer,
13:55
slash kind of horror writer who I try to kind of model mine after his at first.
14:00
And his is called Terrible Minds dot com.
14:02
That's an awesome website name blog name.
14:06
But I just I was super unoriginal and just went with my name.
14:08
Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, though, because at least, you know,
14:11
you're branded. You are the brand.
14:14
So so what do you see for like the future of your your blogging,
14:18
your podcasting and all of that stuff?
14:22
Well, I've been using money that I've been making from blogging to put towards
14:28
this book that I'm self publishing this year,
14:30
because that costs more than I anticipated it would.
14:34
But it's nice to have full control on things, too,
14:36
because I talked to some small publishers who were like, yep,
14:38
we've got our own editor and we've got our own book designers like,
14:40
I don't really want to use your editor, your book designer.
14:44
So, yeah, the blogging, as far as all that goes,
14:49
will continue to go on kind of in support of the other writing and podcasting
14:53
things that I've been doing in the podcasting.
14:56
At first, I just thought it was going to be here.
14:59
This is how I'll build an audience.
15:01
But it's really become more of a community.
15:03
So, yes, podcasting is definitely a community.
15:06
So tell me a little bit about your book.
15:08
You said it's coming out this fall?
15:11
June 3rd is the tentative date for that right now.
15:14
OK, so what's it about? Somebody's going to format it.
15:16
I got another guy who I'm supposed to talk to tonight about the cover.
15:19
It's called Switchers and it's a time travel thriller, I guess you could say.
15:24
It's not super hard on the science, but, you know, time travel.
15:27
So it is science fiction.
15:29
It's a bunch of kids in 1996 get stuck in a war
15:33
between people from our near future and people in 1996.
15:37
And there's something terrible happening in the near future
15:39
that everyone's trying to escape.
15:40
But when they go back in time.
15:43
So let's say me, if I'm 40 years old and I'm like,
15:46
oh, I got to go back to 1990, whatever.
15:49
My 40 year old self will swap bodies with my 14 year old self.
15:54
So then this book is taking place from the 14 year olds
15:57
who are getting sent into the future, into their adult bodies to face wars
16:01
and natural disasters and all kinds of fun stuff.
16:05
It's giving me Looper vibes.
16:07
Yeah. Somebody else told me that they thought it was like that, too.
16:10
I still got to see that when that's one of the few that I haven't seen.
16:12
Oh, man. One of one of my favorite movies,
16:15
Joseph Gordon Limit and Bruce Willis.
16:17
Oh, so good. Yeah. I love that. Love that.
16:20
Now you're making my go to it.
16:21
I've been getting so many movie recommendations, people like,
16:24
have you seen this? Have you seen this?
16:25
Like, yes, yes, yes. Looper. Haven't seen it yet.
16:27
Yeah. One of my one of my blogger friends that I used to actually
16:31
go straight with, he has an awesome podcast called The Crooked Table.
16:36
And it's all about, like, reviews of, like all the different movies.
16:38
I've been on his show a couple of times.
16:39
We talked about, like, Fight Club and Confidence and and things like that.
16:44
And we haven't talked about Looper yet.
16:45
And if he hasn't done that, now you're reminding me.
16:47
I got to make a note. I got to ask him if we can jam on that.
16:50
So so, gosh, you're doing so much.
16:54
How do you keep track of everything that you're doing?
16:57
Like, do you have a content production system, a calendar?
17:00
What do you do?
17:01
I have like one of those right here sitting under me, one of those desk calendars.
17:05
I write everything down on that.
17:07
I also have a little one that I carry around with me.
17:08
So if I am out and about and I book somebody, I can real quick write it down.
17:13
I use digital calendars a little bit, too, but mostly,
17:16
mostly I rely on this giant desk calendar.
17:18
Yeah. So you're an analog guy.
17:21
Yeah. Yeah, very much.
17:22
So I write to on on yellow legal pads before I put it on the computer.
17:25
So that whole book that's coming out this summer was written by hand first.
17:30
And then put into a computer. Amazing.
17:32
So now in terms of for the book, are you planning on like doing like a whole
17:37
press podcast, you know, constantly like reaching out to people to
17:41
to promote it that way or how are you going to go about promoting it?
17:44
Yeah, I'll definitely reach out, go on some other podcasts, talk about it on mine.
17:49
Even if it's just little, hey, before I introduce this guest today,
17:52
don't forget, I got a book out, you know, that kind of thing.
17:56
But yeah, I'm not sure exactly how else how else I'll push it into the world.
18:00
I know I've got a couple other friends in the podcast community
18:03
who are really good with audio visual stuff.
18:06
I'm more just audio.
18:08
So they said, you know, they want to help me do something.
18:11
So we'll see. So, well, with that, you know, speaking of audio,
18:15
are you going to release it as an audio book as well?
18:17
Record yourself reading the book. That's brilliant.
18:20
I love it. There's different services.
18:22
ACX is the big one, but there's places that you can go through them
18:26
and actually like interview and try out different voice actors, too. So.
18:32
So more busy stuff to put on my plate.
18:35
I think it's awesome, though.
18:36
So, I mean, it sounds like you're pretty busy, like you have a lot that's going on.
18:40
Yeah, yeah. And not having the traditional, you know, desk job helps a lot, too.
18:47
I can get everything that I need to get done, done on a Monday and a Tuesday
18:51
and then spend the rest of the week booking guests or writing or editing.
18:56
Or whatever else I got to do.
18:57
Now, what do you do whenever you're like you wake up on that Monday and you're like,
19:00
I just don't feel like doing it and nobody's there telling you
19:04
what you got to do it or you're fired.
19:05
Well, I got all those kids.
19:07
And so I only have a small amount of time that I can do and it's while they're at school.
19:12
So I'm usually constantly thinking, oh, when I talk to this person,
19:17
I need to ask him this or in this next scene, I should be writing this.
19:20
So by the time I actually get a moment to sit down, I'm usually within an hour,
19:26
hard at work doing something.
19:28
That's it's really cool.
19:30
Like to know that you're actually self-disciplined to do that,
19:32
because there are moments where like I'll have a long to do list and I'm just like,
19:36
well, you know, I could do that or I could take a nap.
19:39
Oh, yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong.
19:40
I've got my days, too. But just because I've got two of my four kids are.
19:48
What are they now? They're eight and six.
19:49
So it's it's a full time job when they're not around.
19:53
It's like my speed is a lot slower than their speed.
19:56
So it's it's not it's not that big of a deal.
19:58
It's kind of a reprieve, if anything.
20:01
Now, so if you weren't doing the blogging, the podcasting,
20:03
what do you think you would be doing?
20:08
I had.
20:11
Interviewed for a couple of jobs doing like editing and.
20:17
What do they call that copywriting?
20:19
But ultimately, days didn't work out.
20:23
Hours were either too much or too little or was too far away.
20:27
So, I don't know, probably something in in that.
20:30
Yeah. Sphere of things still writing or, you know, judging grammar somehow or another.
20:34
Yeah. One of the things you mentioned was that you like having the control.
20:38
And that's why you just decided to self publish.
20:40
There's a book by James Altucher called Choose Yourself.
20:43
And that's kind of one of the reasons that I decided that I really wanted to work
20:48
for myself is if I'm the only one that's in control of whether or not
20:51
I'm bringing in income, bringing in clients, you know, and putting out content
20:55
into the world by choosing myself, I'm making sure that I'm getting it done
20:59
the way that I want it done.
21:00
I'm controlling my my narrative, if you will.
21:03
And so, yeah, I should definitely check out that book if you have it.
21:06
It's really good.
21:07
James Altucher is one of my favorite authors.
21:09
He's kind of eccentric and he's wild.
21:13
But his books are so good, so good.
21:16
Yeah, I'm a big nonfiction nonfiction fan.
21:19
I love nonfiction books.
21:21
I've been getting into that more lately.
21:23
I just read I can never remember how to say his name.
21:25
It's either Gary or Gary.
21:26
Oh, but he was Richard Gary.
21:28
Gary is the guy who invented the first massive multiplayer role playing game
21:34
like back before World of Warcraft and all that.
21:36
And he wrote a book called Explore, Create and just talks about, you know,
21:40
basically living your life.
21:42
Letting your imagination take the wheel.
21:44
Yeah, he's doing done that.
21:46
He's been literally in a submarine that was underneath the Titanic.
21:50
And he's been in space and he's invented all these games and he's worked on movies
21:54
and he's done all these things.
21:55
And it just, you know, all kind of comes from having that.
21:57
Like nothing's impossible. I can do it.
21:59
I don't need somebody else to make my way for me.
22:01
Exactly. Exactly.
22:03
So now you mentioned role playing games.
22:05
Do you play any on your own?
22:08
No, not really.
22:09
But that part of his book was fascinating because it just like the sociological
22:14
experiment part of it, he said that this is something that they found early and
22:17
it's held true ever since.
22:19
And the research that's been done is that anytime you have a massive online world,
22:23
it'll be five percent almost exactly of the people are only there to do.
22:28
Can you swear on this or no?
22:29
OK.
22:31
Or they're just to fuck with other people.
22:33
So, I mean, that's really not that far off from how people are.
22:37
You see a lot of negative comments.
22:39
Oh, man, I'm just going to get off Twitter because people here are so toxic.
22:42
It's like that's at best five percent of the population.
22:45
They're just making the most noise. Don't worry about it.
22:47
It's true. I mean, and the funny thing is like it there is toxicity everywhere.
22:52
There really is. I'm going to find.
22:54
Yes, it really is.
22:55
And my my role playing game that I'm obsessed with is Final Fantasy.
22:59
I'm playing Final Fantasy 14.
23:01
You know, and Endwalker just came out and I'm obsessed with Final Fantasy 14.
23:05
And Endwalker just came out and I'm still going through Heaven's Ward.
23:08
I'm very obsessed with that.
23:10
And it's it's funny that most of the people are really nice.
23:13
They're really nice.
23:14
But then you get, you know, that one or two that you just they're mean.
23:19
Yeah, like I had this guy like trying to man, explain to me how my
23:23
my character needed to be, you know, done a certain way.
23:27
And I wasn't doing it the way that he thought I should.
23:29
And it's just like, you know, just leave, man.
23:32
Like you're ruining the whole day for me.
23:33
I came here to play and you know what I mean?
23:35
But yeah, get a life and go live it, man.
23:37
Come on. Exactly. Exactly.
23:39
Like, you know, some people just want to make problems for everybody else.
23:42
People know what's the world burn.
23:44
I've seen people on like YouTubers who I would like outdoorsy.
23:50
Not totally outdoorsy.
23:51
I like to hike and camp and stuff like that.
23:55
There was a guy that I followed who does all these videos about,
23:58
you know, how to hike and do things super lightweight.
24:00
And he did one video just being like, stop commenting that you think
24:03
that people that do ultra light hiking are weak or whatever.
24:06
I don't care what you think. Just stop.
24:08
Don't watch my videos and then comment. You're doing it wrong.
24:12
We're all doing it.
24:13
Somebody like, bro, don't even don't even worry about those people.
24:16
But yeah, I feel you. Yeah.
24:18
So we're kind of wrapping up on time now.
24:21
But I got to ask you one thing that I have not asked you is,
24:24
is there anything that we didn't talk about that you really wish we had?
24:27
Well, as far as blogging goes, I would tell anybody who's listening,
24:31
if you're just getting started, if you've never had a job before,
24:34
like a paying job, charge more money than you feel comfortable charging.
24:38
Otherwise, you're going to be like, yeah, I had this job,
24:40
but it took way too long to do and I didn't charge enough money.
24:43
I charged somebody like twenty five dollars for something that I ended up
24:46
taking almost three hours to write.
24:48
So figure out how long it's going to take to research and write something
24:52
and charge accordingly. People will pay if it's worth it.
24:55
Absolutely. That is really sound advice.
24:58
And I've definitely had similar experiences.
25:00
I mean, there was one girl that I or one woman that I used to work for.
25:05
She was known for, like, trying to convince people to write as cheaply as possible.
25:09
And she would convince you that, you know, oh, if you do this,
25:12
I'm going to give you so much work.
25:13
And then you don't even think about the fact like, oh, yeah, sure,
25:16
I'm going to get so much work.
25:17
But that means I'm going to be doing like three times the amount of work for crappy pay.
25:23
Yeah. Yeah. People that are handing out money always lean more towards
25:26
do more work, not get paid more.
25:28
But yeah, yeah, for sure.
25:30
If you're worth it and what you're doing is worth it, get paid more.
25:33
Yes. And and plus, you know, the more you write,
25:36
the better you're going to get at it and the more you're going to learn
25:39
what you care about.
25:40
And so I feel like when it comes to blogging, the more you can do, the better.
25:44
Because as you as you keep going and keep, you know, honing in on your craft,
25:49
you're going to learn what things you can do.
25:51
You're going to learn what things you actually want to become an expert in.
25:54
And the more you become an expert in it, the more likely you are to actually get those paying gigs.
25:59
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
26:01
Yeah. So well, I just want to say I appreciate your time.
26:04
I feel like everything you shared was really fun.
26:06
And I haven't had anybody yet that's that's doing like a self-published
26:10
self-published nonfiction book or excuse me, fiction book.
26:13
So so that's exciting.
26:15
I can't wait to see it come out.
26:17
And maybe we'll have to bring you back on and have you talk about it.
26:19
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
26:21
And I wanted to tell you, too, I used to play Final Fantasy back in the like
26:25
actual like PlayStation, PlayStation days.
26:27
I think the last one I played was like six or seven.
26:29
But I talked to a drummer on my podcast.
26:32
His name is Jake Bryan. He's a drummer for Heart Sick.
26:34
And before he was in that band, he was in a Final Fantasy tribute band
26:38
with guys that would like meet and play with each other.
26:42
I'm using air quotes online.
26:44
They were all from different parts of the country.
26:45
And then they would travel to these like conventions, practice
26:50
for a couple of hours together and then play these conventions.
26:53
That is the coolest thing.
26:55
And it's just mind blowing how many different ways
26:59
that you can create content there are.
27:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:03
If you like something, you can blog about it.
27:05
You can do a YouTube show about it.
27:06
You can make a tribute band about it.
27:09
There's all kinds of ways to monetize.
27:10
There's there's plenty of money out there.
27:12
You just got to find out what works for you.
27:14
Oh, yeah. I love it.
27:15
I love it.
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