Mur, recovering from a migraine, and Matt discuss the concept of “staying in your lane” when politics are a hot topic and perhaps your audience doesn’t want to hear your views.
Also, please vote.
NOTE- We are changing our formatting around here, and there will be, as the cute similes say, a lot of dust. We are determining each year a season, so the titles of these episodes will be changing — ie, 2020 is our 6th year, and this episode is our 20th. If you have already downloaded this or older episodes, nothing will change. Only new downloads will get the new numbering of old episodes.
I discovered that the Story Grid method is more of an editing tool than an outline tool, but we talk about that. You can see more resources at the Story Grid website.
ALSO NOTE- As I’m a podcaster of 16 years, you no doubt won’t be surprised that I still forget to set my mic input. So the internal mic grabbed allllll the fan noise and the audio was a bear to edit. I’m quite sorry.
We welcome Andrea back to the show, talking transmedia, marketing, and her new book,America, Inc.
Matt and Mur come to you live from the library of witty comebacks in the Ditch Diggers manor with special guest, author and transmedia writer, Andrea Phillips!
Mur begins the show by depressing everyone immensely with a reminder of fire, ice, and plague, but Andrea is quick to point out it’s all about the friends we made along the way (during Mur’s intro).
Professional updates! Mur is doing kind of okay (and starting a trend), Matt did his first reading for an audience in five years, and Andrea had a rough week with copy and script writing (NDA’s abound!).
Andrea talks about the collaborative process of writing transmedia content over Zoom for established IP’s, most of which she can’t mention, supervising other writers, and how it proscribes forming a regular routine.
The phenomenon that is Blaseball is discussed at length. What it is, how it has evolved, why it is so compelling, how the developers achieved all of that, and how that all relates to what Andrea does with transmedia and game content.
Andrea talks about her new author-published novel AMERICA INC, what it is, why she decided to self-release it, and her process of transparency with sharing her sales numbers and marketing process publicly.
How online marketing can affect sales of a self-published novel, and where authors can fall short in marketing their self-published works.On the subject of “the only way you really fail is if you stop putting out work” and Andrea apologizes needlessly for her lack of sunny optimism.
The patented end of episode shilling commences! Spoiler Alert: Buy AMERICA INC by Andrea Phillips (only on Amazon right now, but possibly moving to other platforms soon!). Also, Mur yells at games. And Matt has written a middle-grade novel that may or may not be for people who eat children (it isn’t).
NOTE- We are changing our formatting around here, and there will be, as the cute similes say, a lot of dust. We are determining each year a season, so the titles of these episodes will be changing — ie, 2020 is our 6th year, and this episode is our 19th. If you have already downloaded this or older episodes, nothing will change. Only new downloads will get the new numbering of old episodes.
This is the audio for a LONG video and it seems people don’t like you to post 1hr + videos to Youtube when you’re not fancy and verified. So the video is on Twitch for TWO WEEKS only, check it out if you want.
I’ve been messing about on Twitch for a while now, and I’m slowly getting the hang of it. I started by moving my Patreon-only AMA chats there for everyone to attend, and then just kept going with gaming streaming and doing live I Should Be Writing episodes. Keeping to a regular schedule is good for me, it seems, and I’ve been very regular both streaming and podcasting since starting this.
I’m still super new, and Twitch feels like a many tentacled beast I am trying to wrestle. Unfortunately, every advice book/video I have found is like “Oh, Twitch has two, three tentacles, tops. You totally got this!” And I’m being dragged under by at least fourteen tentacles.
Advice I’ve heard:
Be consistent. (useful)
Follow general etiquette which is [detailed video or blog post follows]. (SUPER useful)
Be a woman. ([side-eye] Really? This advice was from a guy who’s convinced that female presenting streamers get more views because … female. While I think the key to views is to be a twenty-something white male who screams a lot when he games and possibly pranks people in a way that thrills teenagers, but, hell, I’m new at this. He also acknowledges harassment was a thing, but suggests just moving past or getting over it. He was a big fucking help.)
While here are problems I have run into and haven’t found a solution for:
What moderation bots do I need, do I need more than one, and where are the hidden swearing filters? I have turned those filters off everywhere I could find (Swearing is fine, hate speech is not), and still words like “ass” are “vampire” — not kidding — are being flagged for swearing or hostile language.
Raid etiquette. Should I toss my 20 viewers at a streamer who I admire, and am friendly with in their chat, but they don’t know ME as a streamer at all? I haven’t started raiding yet, but that’s partly cause I don’t know how to approach it.
Cheers vs Bits vs Coins vs Channel Points vs Glorms vs Flickabeads vs… How many different moneys does Twitch have, and what do they all mean, and how do you get them as a viewer and how do you get/use them as a streamer? And JFC WHY SO MANY?
Hey, Mac users, SLOBS isn’t necessarily an easy plug n play option for software, and no one tells you this. I just figured it out last night with Streamlabs’ help. OK, I lied, I have found a solution for this one but it’s been bothering me for weeks.
Lessons I’ve learned:
Some people are making money by charging you for the knowledge of how to make money streaming. They’re like the true capitalists of the gold rush, where they are making their money selling picks and shovels to streamers and promising them gold. One actually said she made a boatload of money on Twitch one month, but that was when her book on streaming came out. [More side eye.] I have learned to take their advice with a grain of salt. And it amuses me to imagine them holding shovels and picks.
Audiences are understanding. VERY understanding when you’re struggling with things like lighting, green screens, audio, games not showing up where they should, computers dying in the middle of streams, etc. Thank you, audience.
Sometimes your opinion isn’t needed in someone else’s chat. This is a rule for the whole Internet, actually, but it’s something I deal with because I might want to chime in just to be part of the conversation and meet other people, but if I don’t fit into a convo it’s OK to sit back. It won’t hurt me. And their conversation won’t suffer without my scintillating addition. Take note, folks.
Kindness and politeness go a long way. (Now I’m just sounding like Life Advice From Mom. )
That’s mostly it for now. I may post again as I learn more. But here’s my schedule as of October 1, 2020. * All times Eastern US time zone.
M: 12:30pm AMA, general chat
T: 12:30pm Live I Should be Writing
Th: 12:30pm Live I Should be Writing, 8pm gaming (currently Hatoful Boyfriend)
Su: 2pm gaming (currently Stardew Valley or Blaseball** commentary. ***)
*ok, September 28, but starting at the beginning of the month is so much tidier.
**I will have a whole blog post about this soon.
***I may also be adding a news show about Blaseball, color commentary, etc, but I don’t have a time slot chosen yet.
I like to plan early, and through long discussion we worked out what we’re doing for NaNoWriMo. Reruns for the daily show and live virtual write-ins for the streams!
Note: I lost the stream in the middle and had to reconnect. I’ve edited the two halves together but I’m noticeably flustered for the second half.
Mike Underwood comes on to talk to us about his new book, ANNIHILATION ARIA (The Space Operas, Vol. 1), but the talk also goes into Mike’s experience with book marketing, and, boy, the stuff he tells us, no lie, is enlightening.
Matt and Mur come to you live from the haberdasher in the Ditch Diggers Manor that is also occasionally a Mansion, with special guest, author, podcaster, and book selling/marketing veteran, Michael R. Underwood!
Very important cowboy hat discourse preempts the main topic of the episode, with an aside into the difference between a comically small bowler hat and a fascinator.
Everyone talks about what’s new in their freelancing lives, and Mike discusses being an SWFA mentor working with multiple mentees.
Mur is a runaway Twitch sensation, and anyone who hasn’t joined in on the phenomenon is going to be left behind (according to Matt. Mur insists she’s having to build a new platform from scratch and it is difficult).
Mike talks about his new space adventure found family novel, ANNIHILATION ARIA, and Matt and he discuss how their careers have intersected at multiple points in weird ways.
Mike discusses the spectrum of traditional publishing, small presses, and self-publishing from the perspective of someone who has released books through all three, and worked as a bookseller and publisher rep.
Different ways to think about marketing your book as an author.
The big ways the publishing industry is broken, how that affects the staff, including publicists, at the publisher itself, and your relationship/dynamic with them as an author.
Virtual book tours, and the importance of diversifying your marketing content in the age of COVID, and balancing everything with self-care.
The traditional end of episode shilling commences!
Mike will return in Michael R. Underwood vs. The World Crime League (no, seriously, Mike will be back in a future episode to talk more about publishing and marketing).
It’s been a rough few days, but I’m back to talk about agents being people, too, still addressing ADD and productivity (I’m seriously considering writing a LARPing a responsible human blog series), and how to handle an editor who doesn’t use Track Changes. (Wha?)
Way of the Laser: Future Crime Stories— Includes another new Six Wakes story, asking the legal question, “if grandma’s murder over Christmas is actually murder?”
Twitch Schedule (All times Eastern Daylight Time):
I have been eyeing the platform Jemi for a while, wondering how I could use it to better connect with y’all. It’s different from Patreon, where you pledge to support every month. Here you support for a one-time reward, no subscriptions, no monthly fee.
I decided to focus most of my rewards (at first, anyway) on my Twitch activity. If you want to interact with me on a gaming level or give ISBW one specific topic that I’ll dedicate a whole live show to, you can determine my game or my topic over there. I’m also including a video pep talk, where I will send you a unique video pep talk to keep you going when things get tough, writing-wise, creativity-wise, or any other time.
These new interactions will be fun, and I am looking forward to seeing what the new platform will deliver. So check me out at Jemi!
(Note- Podcast archives and access to the discord, as well as all the other rewards, will stay the same over on Patreon. That’s not changing due to this addition.)
I discovered that the 
This one went MUCH better, so for me, Saving the Cat is better than Snowflake. 
This is the audio for a LONG video and it seems people don’t like you to post 1hr + videos to Youtube when you’re not fancy and verified. So the video is on
