People often ask me, they're like, dave, how do you do a solo show? How

do you talk to nobody? And I go, well, there's always at

least two voices in my head. And I just got

back from the Novel Marketing Conference in

Austin, Texas. This is an event that was put on by my

buddy, Thomas Umstadt Jr. Because it's just fun to say

umstad. And it was an amazing

event. And so this episode is

like, you asked me, dave,

how's the Novel Marketing Conference? And I'm going to answer it like

you're sitting across the table from me. Don't overthink it.

Hit it, brother. What's happening? This is Brother Love of the Just Keep Talking

podcast. You are hanging out with Dave Jackson. The only

way to listen, and the only way to learn is to listen

and learn. The school of podcasting. Plan, launch,

grow with Dave Jackson. Again, this is Brother Love of the Just Keep

Talking podcast.

Podcasting since 2005. I am your

award winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson, thanking you so

much for tuning in. If you're new to the show, as Brother

Love said, we plan, launch and grow your podcast here. And I

am fresh back. As in, like, just got off the plane, just got home.

It is a whopping 66 degrees in my office and we're going to talk

podcasting. And I got to tell you,

my favorite, my absolute favorite kind of conference

is a single track conference. And I just got

back from one of the best single track conferences I've ever,

ever been to. You've heard me talk about Thomas

Umstadt Jr. Before. You can find him at

novelmarketing.com or authormedia.com they both go

to the same place and this was a lot of fun. Now, in full

disclosure, I got floated a ticket and I got to sit in the

back and it was absolutely great. It was great to see Thomas.

Congratulations. Every time I see Thomas, his wife is expecting

and I was like, holy. I mean, seriously, like 6, maybe

27. I forget how many kids he's going to have. But you know

what? Those kids are lucky. We need more umstats in the world.

And so the opening keynote was

amazing. It's this guy named Chase and I believe

it's reploggle. This is where it

would have been good to go hear that guy say his name. But he was

amazing. And it was. He

had so many cool stats and he was talking about,

you know why? Now here's the cool thing. This was a book conference

and you might. This is a cool strategy. So. So we weren't really there

to talk about podcasting, although Zach and I'll talk about

him in a second. Was there talking podcasting.

But it was a book conference. But here's the thing. It was book

marketing, and they're not a whole lot different between

book marketing and podcast marketing. We are both artists,

man. We're artists. We just want you to consume my stuff.

It was interesting in a way that

there was a different. It's always interesting when you go into somebody else's bubble. You

know what I mean? Like, their own little niche. Because there are, like, apparently 37

million types of. Of books.

Like, one was steampunk,

one was like comfy fantasy, and then there was,

like, uncomfy hillbilly. Like, wait, what

is that a real. Like, no, I don't know. But it was. I knew I

was in a niche when they started talking about things that I didn't know.

Meanwhile, back in my notes, I was telling you about

Chase Rep Logel, and he. Oh, wait, before I

even say it, I gotta play the sound effect because I'm gonna mention maybe

a P and J word. You

guessed it. Invisible sky buddy alert. Invisible sky

buddy alert. Beware.

Yes, Chase is a pastor, and he

does a show called the Pastor Writer

show, among other ones. And this was the one I was

like, I got to share. That's really cool. And he talks about how

he has some kids as well, and his one

son is taking jiu jitsu, and

he tells his children that there are

times when we're afraid, but really courage is.

Is doing it afraid. It's like being afraid and doing it

anyway. I don't know exactly the

stat he quoted here. I just wrote down that a thousand people start

something and only six people will finish. We all think

about doing it. We might take a couple steps, but apparently not many

of us will basically finish something

that we started. But he brought up some things, and I thought this

was really cool. The first one is, I'm going to call this the

1, 2, 3, 4 Ds

of podcasting. And again, he was talking about writing. But

writing and podcasting are distant cousins, really.

And the first D is decisiveness.

And this is where you need to decide,

I'm going to start a podcast. Not. I think I'm going to,

like, no, make the decision. Like, are you gonna do

it or not? Come on, man. Everybody's doing it,

right? And he said, nobody

reads what you write. They read what you

rewrite. So let's put that into podcasting.

Nobody listens to what you record. They listen to what

you edit. And that is a key. In fact,

I had a lot of questions about that. Like, how do you do this and

that? And what if you do this? And I go, that's the magic of editing.

I am not perfect by any means. So the first one is you

have to decide, as they say, you have to poop

or get off the pot. The second one is a

discipline, and this is the courage to

keep going. You jumped into the pool and you're like, hey,

I gotta kick my legs and move my arms to swim. And you're

like, uh, huh, yeah, takes a little discipline. And

he talks about how writing. And I agree, this applies to

podcasting is kind of blue collar work. You get in there, you get dirty,

you turn that wrench, you batten that wench and turn

that bail. Something like that. I don't know. Don't hit the wench. That doesn't

sound right. But you have. I

decide, then you have the discipline. Because it

does take a little discipline to go, well, I could just

sit here and watch yet another rerun of Friends in

Seinfeld, or I could do something productive. So

decisiveness, discipline and

discernment. And this is a fun one.

In other words, how do you know when it's ready?

And you kind of have to. Is this good is. Because often

he said you don't feel as good as you thought you were going to

feel like you're like, hey, the episode's done,

you know, or the book's done, and you kind of thought

you'd feel a little more like, you know, oh,

like it's done, like the angels sing, etc. And

he said, but instead we kind of keep

making changes. Maybe I need a new microphone or maybe I

need to do this, maybe I need to do that. And

I love this line. He says, when it comes to making

changes, are you making changes for the better,

or is this change just making it different?

And sometimes making it different doesn't mean you're making it better.

And I see a lot of podcasters making changes

so they can say, well, I'm working on my show and we'll get to

this. In the end, there's kind of repeated in a different phrase. So

yeah, the discernment to know when it's done.

And then the fourth one is the devotion,

and this one is, okay, we've decided to do a

podcast. We had the discipline to go through the work and

to roll up our sleeves and get in there and do the work.

And then we decided, yep, that's good enough. And it

was. In the end, you kind of go, I hear this all the time, man.

That took a lot more time than I thought it was going to. And when

you first start out, that's absolutely true. It's called a learning curve,

and I'll talk about that in a second. But the devotion

is. You know what? That was hard. And it

wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be at first. And of

course, nothing ever is. But then you

decide to do it again. Why? Because

you're devoted. And for me,

at the heart of every good podcaster is a

devotion to your audience, to serve the

audience. So decisiveness, discipline,

discernment, and devotion

from Chase Replogle,

I believe is how you say that. And I will put a link to

his website and to his podcast

out in the show notes. Just go to

schoolofpodcasting.com

1021. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I want to give a quick thanks to Aubrey

Hendrick, who writes medieval fantasy and historical

fiction. And again, that's. I hear this and I'm like,

oh, well, I write reluctant lore. Fantasy or

speculative domesticity. I was like, what?

Is that real? No, I just made those up.

But it was cool that I was like, wow, I'm in a niche and I

have no idea what they're talking about, but the marketing

applied greatly. And so thanks to Aubrey. Thank

you also to Emily Kate. You can find Emily Kate

Milykate Creative. She writes Fantasy Comfort. There

you go. And Aubrey. Oh, doggone it, Aubrey, your

website is not on your business card. And I do

a similar thing. People notice that my email was not on my business card,

which kind of defeats the purpose, which is why I'm having new cards

made. But, ladies, thank you for the dinners that

you took me to. I deeply appreciated that. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. And one note I took that was inspired by

Chase's opening keynote was

we always worry, right? We're always scared.

And what if nobody listens to my show?

Well, somebody will. You will get at least

two downloads. One of those will be you. And maybe mom listened.

But let's go. Absolute worst case scenario.

What if nobody listened to your show? The

only person that would know that nobody listened to

your show is you.

There's no shame in that. You swung the bat and

you missed. All right, well, let's take that knowledge

and try to swing again. And maybe this time keep our eye

on the ball. And I'm not saying that getting your ego

smushed isn't fun. Right? That would

be not easy in some cases to get over But I just had that

in my notes that we. All right. Because he was talking

about doing things, afraid, and what's the worst that could happen?

Nobody listens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. And going

forward, I'm not going to. Here, go. Oh. In books, it's

this. In podcasting, it's this. I'm just going to translate everything into

podcasting. And Thomas did a great talk, and

he said, make your audience a promise.

And so whatever the title of your episode is,

that's the promise that you are

saying to your audience. Hey, today I'm going to share the

four Ds of podcasting with you and then get to that topic as

quickly as you can. But he asked a question. He said,

is your podcast, is it a vitamin or is it a

painkiller? And the difference there is you can take vitamins. I take a

bunch of vitamins. I have no idea if they're working or not. Right? It's like,

do I have more energy? I don't know. I keep getting older and I have

less energy, and I don't know. But if it's a

painkiller, when you have a headache and you pop a

pill and the pain goes away, it's noticeable.

And so you have to ask yourself, what pain am I

taking away from my audience? Make the right

promise to your audience. And

realize that podcasters, we think about

the competition because the last time I checked, there were like,

4 million podcasts. But don't poop your pants with that. There's only,

like 250,000 that are actually putting out

episodes. And actually, it's probably less than that. It's really.

When you Compare it to YouTube, there's much less competition

in audio podcasting. But realize we're not just

competing against podcast.

We're competing against video games. We're competing against

satellite radio. We have to look at all these

different things. We have to be more fun than tv, in

a way. And so we have to ask ourselves,

what makes our podcast the best? And

it's easier to answer that question when you have a

clear picture of. Of who your audience is.

Who is it for? And when you try to do it for everyone,

it's really hard to ask everyone, hey, what's your favorite thing? And

then put it in the show. And so he went on to

talk about, why do people consume

books? And again, we're talking podcasting. But you'll

see where this applies. Number one is entertainment.

I listened to be entertained. Am I entertaining you?

Right? And the people that

consume things for entertainment. I remember Waking up once

and it was like 4 in the morning, and I

get up to pee and I see the light still on

in the living room, and I go out and there's my dad. And my dad

was one of those guys that if you gave him a good book, he would

not put it down until it was over.

And so people that consume content, they

just have to finish it. So when you're binging that thing

on Netflix or Hulu or whatever, you're into the

entertainment. And next week, we're going to talk about what

makes things bingeable. So stay tuned

for that. Some of us consume podcasts for education,

and this is where we're constantly listening on

the plane. In my case, maybe when we're

walking around the neighborhood, wherever we're at, we're

trying to get to the answer to that question. And I listened to

an episode. I won't say what the podcast was, but they

said they were going to answer a question. And, man, did it take forever

to get to the actual answer of that question.

But we want to know how it ends. What's

the answer to that question? And then some of us

listen to podcasts for escape. It makes us feel different.

It takes us. Calgon, Take me away.

Remember that commercial? And these people

where the people that read for education or for entertainment,

they really are, they're trying to get to the end of the, like, what's the

answer? These people that consume things for escape, they

kind of don't want the episode to end

because it takes them to a different space. It

helps them forget the fact that their boss is a total

jerk. Right? And so

when you hear shows that are kind of like, well, that seems kind of dumb.

Well, sometimes we need things that we don't have to think. I don't

want to have to think about it. Just take me away.

And so sometimes you will hear shows like that where it just seems like a

bunch of people babbling on about nothing. And sometimes that's

exactly what people need. But realize

we've got more competition than the other podcasters.

And that sometimes can, again, make us a little nervous.

But sometimes we do things scared. And so

think about recording a podcast

that people want to listen to. I know that's kind of a duh,

but, you know, record a podcast that people want to

listen to. And here's the other one. These are my notes

after listening to Thomas. All podcasts

are the same price, right? Almost every podcast is free,

but they're not. Thomas pointed this out.

Whether you're reading a book or you're listening to a

podcast, you're paying with your

time. The reason I haven't listened to

a Dan Carlin's Hardcore history, although I've had so

many people tell me how amazing it is, Dan doesn't put

out a podcast. He basically puts out an audiobook. And I look at it and

go, three hours. That's a big

investment. And so we need to

earn their time and make sure that we are

the best podcast for that person that we know

like the back of our hand. The school

of podcasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's another

quick note that I saw that Thomas had put down and I was like, oh,

that's a great analogy. You know me, I love me a good

analogy. And if you look at a podcast,

it's a lot like a shower. When you first turn it on,

it's kind of cold. And then you just have to wait for the cold

to go through until the hot water finally

makes it. And when you first start a podcast, the

numbers leave you a little cold. It's always kind of funny

because first people are like, ah, why should I start a podcast? Nobody's going to

listen. And then eventually that water starts to get warm and people actually do

listen. And then people get nervous. They're like, holy cow, people are listening to

me. So just be patient. Realize that sometimes

you gotta let that cold water go through before the hot water makes it.

And sometimes you gotta wait a bit for your audience to find you

before things start to warm up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zach

Russell did a session on podcasting. And I had

met Zach, I believe, at the National Religious Broadcasters,

which I'll be speaking at here in February. And what was

interesting is Zach is like the

rest of these folks, and I say this with love and compassion. He's a book

nerd. And I am book nerd Light because

of my book Profit from youm Podcast. And so Zach did

a presentation on podcasting, completely different

than I would have, but it was much more

book nerdy. Like, he speaks their language. And I found

that very interesting. In fact, if you think about it, there were

a lot of Christians because Thomas is a Christian and he does a Christian

show. There were a lot of Christians at this event. And the

thing I thought about that is any Christian

show is kind of tough

because in theory, they are all using the same source

material. They're all going back to the Bible, and it's just

a matter of what angle are you going

to show it at. So this was a case where Zach was

talking about podcasting, but In a way that I definitely

was like. And then finally I went, oh, I see where he's going.

He would get to the point. Not that he was meandering or whatever, but I

just didn't quite get it because he was doing a little more book speak than

I would. And so keep that in mind, that sometimes

what you can do is go

listen to other shows and listen for what they're not doing.

Like, when you listen, like, well, they're not talking about this. Okay, well, then you

could talk about that. Oh, and I hate the lightning round. Okay,

don't do a lightning round. You can be inspired by other shows. Don't

rip them off. But it never, you know, just see how

they do it and write down what you liked about it and what you didn't.

And then maybe you can come up with a format that fits you and, more

importantly, fits your target audience.

Jonathan Schuberger. I'm messing up

Jonathan's name. Jonathan Schurger,

if you see the spelling. Jonathan was, first of all, very entertaining

the night before he spoke. He is a, I believe, former

Marine and had all sorts of fun army stories, and I

think his hobby. And he does this in a loving and caring way. I

think Jonathan just waits for the opportunity to punch somebody in the face.

I got that kind of take from him in his presentation. He

actually did some jiu jitsu, which was kind of interesting. He's a very

unique guy. And he did a whole thing on Amazon page optimization. And

he made a great point. He said, we often make things

to sell ourselves that we

think, oh, well, I would buy if I saw something like that.

So we gear our marketing for us,

which is great as long as our target audience

is just like us, and in some cases they're not.

And in a very, you know, again, he's got this military background. He goes,

you got to know what your target is, otherwise you're not going to hit

it. And Thomas had brought up a point that

sometimes doing a poll on,

let's say, X or wherever, you're going to do it

if it's something like that. People only get to

see your stuff if the algorithm says they

can, which means you may not be getting

an absolutely clear picture in that poll because

only certain people got to see it. And I was like, that is

a really good point. That's where newsletters really come in handy.

And I get it. Somebody said, yeah, but newsletters, those people

are people that just said, hey, I want more from you. And I'm like, yeah,

who do you want to Take care of more than those people. The people that

have already said, yes, I like your stuff. Yes, I want to make sure those

people are really, really happy. So again, it was

a marketing conference. Yes. About books. But there were a lot of good

nuggets in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Thomas, I

swear, is one of the most just brilliantly

intelligent. Like, the guy just knows everything about everything. And

he was talking about when. Back

when the United States was settled. People are driving across

this country and here's your plot of land, and it's just covered in

trees. And what was the first thing to do was to.

Yeah, cut down trees. But you had to figure out

which trees to keep and which trees to lose.

And then also. And we've all heard this analogy, right? If you're going to cut

down a bunch of trees, you better sharpen your ax. And so he talked about

that we need to work on the right thing

the right way. And I was like, man, that's.

I told him, I said, you have a lot of bumper stickers in these

presentations. That stuff we know. But

sometimes hearing not the basics, but you're just like,

oh, you know what? That's true. Because so many times

we start running around like a chicken with our head cut off, and we

just need to do something. And whatever is the closest, we grab our

dull axe and start hacking away at it when we need to figure

out, well, what do I need to do to move the needle?

And that might be, and in many cases might be

your content. I always say great

content is, you know, a great episode is made up of two things.

Remarkable content delivered in an

entertaining or educational way. And we've talked about that

before. You know, the whole laugh, cry, think grown, educate, or entertain.

Try to do at least one, two, or maybe three of those. You can solve

a problem, meaning save them time or money.

That's always a bonus as well. And he

talked about getting things done because it does

take more time than we thought when you first start off. And one of the

things I've done, and we talked about smart

goals, I won't go into that. I'll put a link to a show where I

talked about that before. But I had to realize

that I got 24 hours a day,

and at the end of the day, sometimes I've been doing the wrong things

the wrong way. And one of them is I have bought

so many courses that I will watch

someday. And so I just went to my calendar

and I put an hour block a couple times a week that just

says, learn stuff. And

I'm smart enough to go, well, right now I'm going through a bunch of SEO

stuff, but I have a storytelling course. I have a whole bunch of courses,

and I just keep buying more and I'm not learning any of them.

And that's that. Discipline to go. Okay, well,

maybe tonight I'm not going to spend 20

minutes scrolling through Facebook lives or, you

know, reels or whatever. I'm not going to do that. I'm not

going to sit here on Hulu trying to find something to watch.

You know, we have things to watch. So think about

doing the right thing the right way. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. And of course, we had to talk about AI

Thomas. If you look for Patron

Toolbox, if you are an author, you got

to go to patron. It's 10 bucks right now. And it is an

insane amount of tools that I will be signing up for as soon as

I get done here. I was going to do it last night, but are you.

Is this just me? I get really weirded out buying

things when I'm on a hotel WI fi. I just am always

assuming someone's going to hack something. But anyway,

I will be doing that. And he was talking about

AI. And

Thomas refers to his target audience as Timothy.

And so what you do with AI if you're brand new to ChatGPT,

this is super simple. You say who you are

and then what your role is. So it might be, hey, I'm Dave Jackson. I'm

a podcast consultant. And then what to

do? I need you to write a

blah, blah, blah about such and such

so you can kind of tell who the audience is there.

But here's who I am, here's

my identity, here's my role. I'm a podcast consultant,

and I need you to do this for these people. And he said, there's

a super prompt. Because if you're like, dave, I

don't know anything about that GPK. What is it?

M double X. What? Chi ChatGPT.

I still remember when ChatGPT was around and nobody could say GPT

we all said GT DEP GX thing.

It's this who am I? So I'm a

historical fiction author who wants to avoid historical errors. And

then what I want, I want my fictional story to feel like

it could have really happened. So who am I? What do I

want? And then here's the cool thing. If you don't know

AI, ask AI how to write a

prompt for for AI. And then he said, so it could

be help me create a prompt to check my manuscript

for Anachronisms. That's a big word

right there. Anachronisms. Try to work that into your

vocabulary today. And I haven't tried that yet, but he said it

is an absolute game changer. And

what was really cool is he. You can hear me turning these pages in the

background, probably. He had a sponsors and

stuff in the back, especially the stuff.

And QR codes are throughout the whole thing.

And so I'm looking at the page now from the pastor

writer and about him. And

again, Jamie Foley did a whole

thing on making a great book cover.

And that, again, applies to

podcasters. And the rule number one is don't be cheap.

Just don't be cheap. Because as much as you shouldn't judge

a book by cover, we all. What is it? Yeah, we all

judge a book by its cover. And we actually did it. She had these

little experiments where she had kind of a. Okay, book

cover and then one that was professionally made. And

she would ask the group, she'd put it on the screen for like a second

and go, which one would you buy? And everybody together was like, oh,

the one on the right. Oh, the one on the left. The one on the

right. It was really cool. And so he has. As I look at

this workbook, so this made this interactive. And here's the other

thing. I asked him at the end because I was like, dude, this

was. And again, I'm somewhat biased because I love

single track, smaller conferences. And that's

what this was. And I'm like, dude, this was so much fun. It was so

good. And I go. And I'm looking at the workbook

and there were little places to, like, fill in the blank. And

so just so you could kind of pay attention. You're always looking

for. It's that brain thing, right? You know, I always talk about

when there's a cliffhanger, the brain's like, wait, I need to hear.

You know? And so you turn the page and like, wait,

there's three words missing from this workbook that I have to

fill in. And so it was a way. I was surprised at how much

my brain was like, wait, I've only got two out of three words. Did I

miss a word? It kept you alert.

And it was really, really good. I really. And the cool

thing was, here's another thing he did. And we're going to. I'm going to interview

him in the future. I want to interview Mark Roenick. Ironic. I always

get that wrong. Mark. Mark from Podcast Morning Chat. He

does the Empowered Podcasting Conference. I

want to Interview him. I want to interview Chris Komitsos because I think

this might be something we want to look into. And

this is. Look, I love podfest. I just had a blast at podfest. That was

the last episode, but for me,

it's just a little sprinkle on top. I got to meet so many people. And

this is one of the things that Thomas did is he

grouped people together and you all sat together,

and then after lunch, you had to sit someplace else.

He purposely made us sit someplace else. We're constantly doing

interactive things. So by the end of it, I got to meet a ton

of people. And what was fun again was I was

the podcast guy and shout out to both

Zach and Thomas. And I didn't ask them and I

didn't pay them, but they both said, hey, Dave, Jackson's in the room.

Dave, could you raise your arm? And if you have. Because they were talking

about podcasting, they said, if you really want to get a in depth answer,

that guy back there with the Pod page shirt is the guy you want to

talk to. So thanks both to Zach and Thomas there.

And Zach and I one time were at a

table, and we were kind of the podcast gurus that were

answering a ton of questions. And thanks to everyone who asked questions.

It sounds weird because by the end

of Sunday, and when I went out with Aubrey

and her husband, you know, here again was another, like, half hour,

probably time of just talking about podcasting. And

it gave me a chance to really go, yep, this is what I love

to do. Because I was answering, yeah, I was answering the same questions that

a lot of people had already asked. But to see the

answers plant a seed in someone

that they're like, you know what? I think I'm going to do a podcast. I

think I'm going to do it. And that, to me,

it puts gas in my tank, because I know. I know what's on the other

side. I know the things that can happen when you start a podcast

and when you do it right, and you figure out who your audience is

and you figure out why you're doing it. And a lot of times people are

like, what's my schedule? And I'm like, here's the thing. Do a couple episodes and

record everything. Thing. Record the time you're planning, record

the time you're editing, record the time you're writing show notes, record everything

and see how long it took. And then go, okay, that took three hours. Okay,

do you have three hours every week to do a podcast? And if the answer

is no, you're not doing a weekly show, you know, or

you need to make it shorter, things like that. So it was so much fun.

And just the speakers are great. And that's why

bring. I knew there was a reason I brought up the workbook because I went

to Thomas afterwards and I go, man,

I've been a person that ran the podcast track for the New Media

Expo. And when you pick your teachers

and your speakers, you know,

kind of they've told you what they're going to talk about, but you

cannot control them. We've all been at conferences where people

blatantly sell from the stage. And I'm here to tell

you, every conference I know of says you're not allowed to

blatantly sell from the stage. If you want to put a QR code up at

the end, that's cool. But we've seen people that you're like, this is nothing

but a 20 minute pitch. And there was none of that here.

Zach played a couple clips from his show, but it wasn't in a salesy

listen to my show kind of way. It was again, kind of

showing the book speak thing. And so I said,

did you know what everybody was going to say? And he said, well, we do.

He gives them kind of a like, here's how to make your slides,

here's what's expected. And so while I didn't know exactly

what they were going to say, he had a clue because he had to print

that workbook and he saw all the missing words. And I was like, that's

a really cool way to. Without kind of

micromanaging your speakers, at least have a clue what's coming

on. And that way he could also see if the

content kind of just flowed together.

And it did. It was amazing. There was a speaker on lead

magnets and everything you needed there for marketing. Again, this was

the marketing version of that. I guess another version of this is if you're going

to do a book launch and that will be coming up. And I may go

to that one because again, it's marketing

and I'm sure there's not a whole lot. Well, there probably are some different things

because you have to work with publishers and things like that, but I might go

to that. And it's in Texas. And it was weird because

I was in Texas and the one night it was, I want to

say, 41 degrees outside, which is

ridiculous in Texas, where it's supposed to be, you know. And I was

in Florida the week before and it was like 50. And I'm like, look,

I came back to Ohio. It was, well, the one night. The

night before I came back, it was minus seven in Ohio. When I got back,

it was 21, so it was much colder. But

I was waiting for some heat in Texas and boy,

the weather's really, really weird. But I had a great time at the

novel marketing conference. I'll put a link to everything. I don't know

that it was recorded. I don't believe it was. I could be wrong, but I

didn't hear any kind of talk about that. But if you are

a person that is interested in writing a book, or if you

have a book and you're looking to either launch it or get an agent

or any kind of book stuff, I'm

here to tell you Thomas Umstadt Jr. Is the man. And you can

find him@again, novelmarketing.com

the School of Podcasting. I thought it was done, but

I found another nugget in here. Again, these are

all like bumper stickers, but when you're trying to figure

out, should I do something, you want to

ask yourself, this was from Thomas again, how does this action

that you want to take? How does this compare to

my next best alternative? And

this is where he said the bit about social media is

kind of a bubble and it may not show reality.

And then I love this line if you're,

look, I get my ego gets in my way. I don't really

have much of an ego and I'm not really sure why, but I'm obsessive about

making sure I don't miss Mondays. And I've

always said that I would rather have a quote.

Can you just put up your little air quotes? A late show

that was good than an on time show that was

okay. And he made a point and I think he credited

Nintendo for this. But he said, a game

is only late for a short time, but it's

bad forever. And so if you're

rushing to do an episode, which I kind of was a

couple weeks ago, because you don't want to be late,

it's only late until your next episode comes out, right?

But it's bad forever. And I was like, oh, holy cow,

that's a thinker right there. And then if you

are in a Christian type of show

and you're like, yeah, it's really hard to target

Christians on Facebook or wherever

Jonathan mentioned in his talk that

you don't, you can't, in some cases, you can't target that. So what do

you do? You target Chick Fil A and Hobby

Lobby. And I was like, Oh, I see what you did

there. That guy. That's a good one right there.

Quick tangent and then we're going to go back to the conference. How to pitch

a podcast@pitchapodcast.com I got a few

examples. Somebody shared their stories. I need more.

I want to have 20 before I start. So when you get a bad

pitch from somebody trying to be a guest on your show, simply

read it into a microphone and send it to me, along with the name of

your show, your website, and who your perfect guest

would be and what you're looking for. Because you never know, they might be

listening. Go to pitchapodcast.com yeah, yeah,

yeah. And I think one of the things that I was really excited about, how

do you grow your podcast? Is

you find people that don't listen to your

show but should. And I was

in a room with a lot of authors and some of

them definitely are not ever going to start a podcast. They don't want it and

that's perfectly fine. But there were a lot in there that were like, I've been

thinking about it a long time. And then others are like, I've already started it,

but I need some help. And so I left

thinking. And hello to everyone from novel marketing

that is now listening to this. Thanks for a great weekend. It was a wonderful

time. But that's how you grow your audience. And I was like, I should look

for more podcast adjacent. So what is

your topic? Like podcasting? It's an art man.

And I was like, maybe I should go to more art related shows.

Maybe I should go to music conferences. Because every musician

should be doing podcasts, doing the behind the scenes of every

song, which then makes you do what it makes you want

to go listen to the song. And every. I remember once I

got some clients, I went to a webinar or a thing at a

library and it was about SEO. Well,

people that are studying SEO are trying to get more traffic and

to get more exposure. You know, a great way to get more exposure, start a

podcast. So sometimes going to not

an exact Facebook fit is kind of adjacent

to maybe what your topic is, but your audience might be

there as well. And then the one thing they stumped, a

question. Emily Kate has a question that you'll be hearing

for the question of the month. And if you haven't figured it out, we didn't

do one in January. And so you just heard Emily

Kate there a second ago for February. And we will be using I

know I hinted at one for January. We're going to Use that next

month. But there was a question that I was like,

huh? And that was, what if you do a fantasy

podcast? I got your. I'm sorry, I'm a fantasy author.

What kind of podcast would you do? And you have

to think about, I'm trying to attract people

who read fantasy, right? That's my target

audience. Because you could do a show about

fantasy, like what's going on in the

fantasy author industry, but

that would probably attract fantasy

writers who may or may not be

fantasy readers. Now, you could

interview other fantasy authors and hope

that their audience who are fantasy readers

might go, oh, yeah, I love that interview with Shelley.

I wish her new book was out. Oh, wait a minute. You know,

Zach's got a new book out, maybe I'll go read his.

So you have to really think about sometimes who is going to

be attracted to this information. Again, going back to Jonathan, you gotta know

your target. You gotta use the right thing. Lisa did a

session on Lead Magnets, and you have to know. Again, it always starts with

knowing your audience. And the best

way to know your audience is if there's a conference around

or if there's a meetup around. The best way to know your

audience, when you can tell me what your audience's eye

color is, you're in the right spot because you'll

learn more things much quicker when

you're in person. Then you go into things like forums,

Reddit. And yes, Reddit can be kind of the CIS bull of the Internet, but,

you know, take it with a grain of salt and bring an extra layer of

skin. I know I've. I got trolled once on Reddit and it took me a

day or two to kind of shake it. You can go over to YouTube and

look at comments there to see what you know, Find a show that is

similar to yours and go look at the comments and you can kind of get

an idea. An idea. And again, I said kind of

an idea. And I don't think there's a way around it. You're going

to start a show and you're going to get feedback.

And this is where if we look at books. When

I wrote my book, I thought I was done, right? I'm like, oh, here it

is. And then they edited it and they sent it to me to

approve the edit. And I was like, here it is. And I was like, okay,

we're done now. Yeah, four more times it got

edited. And the last time was like, now we're fact checking. And I was like,

how dare you question my facts?

But it Went through a bunch. And that's the step I think most of us

skip. I don't think we get feedback. I haven't quite

figured out why, besides the fact that I just spent 10 hours on this thing.

I want it out. It's like in labor, right? I've never

been in a labor room, but I just, you know, I see the Hollywood movies

where they're the women, God bless them for going

through childbirth, you know, and they're just like, get this thing out of here.

And I think sometimes we. We adopt that mentality. Like, I've

been working on this thing. I can't. I can't take it anymore. Just

take this episode and get it out there. Which is

okay, but probably not the best strategy. You should get some feedback,

shape it up a little bit, polish it up a little bit, and just know

that when you do episode 10, you will still look back at episode one

and go, Yee. So thanks so much

for listening to this. Thanks again to all my. If

I start naming more names, I'm going to forget somebody. But

thanks to, you know, who really needs thanked. Of course, Thomas

Umstad Jr. But also, I don't know her name, but

Thomas, if you play this for her, Mrs. Umstadt

Jr. Who is home taking care of his, you know,

stage coach of children that he has. And that's such a beautiful

picture, my friend. Congrats on the new one on the way.

Just. Thank you, Mrs. Umstadt, because

one of the things you'll hear the question of the month that we're talking about,

sacrifices and, you know, when you have

lots of kids and you go, honey, I'm going to go do a conference for

the weekend. You know, I'm sure she brought in maybe a couple

reinforcements, but, you know, that's

kudos to Mrs. Umstad for. Because

we realize you're not there, but you're part of that conference just as much,

and we appreciate that, along with all the speakers and everybody

else. So if you need help with a podcast, if you, hey, I met

you at that conference. We're talking about a podcast. This is

where I am, schoolofpodcasting.com where I help

you plan, launch, and grow. And if you want to monetize, but realize you

don't monetize a podcast, you monetize an audience. And

I'll have links to my book. I'll have links to all the things I mentioned

here today. Again, you can find them at. And for the record, I

just realized I said today and not today, but I'm

not going to fix that. So we all know I'm not AI now.

Schoolofpodcasting.com 1021 because

today is episode number 1021.

I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what I do. Been doing it

going on 21 years, and I can't wait to see what we

do together. Until next week, where we'll be

talking about, why do people binge? I think I

found the actual recipe. So

until next week. Take care. God bless.

Class is dismissed. If

you like the show, please share it with a friend.

If you like the show, pretty, pretty please share it with a friend right

now. And then

Joseph again, the guy that was talking about Amazon

that wants to punch people in the face. I think it's his name. Hold

on. What was his name?

Yeah.