The Murverse Mothership

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• Matt and Mur come to you live from the snack tent outside the construction site where the new Ditch Diggers mansion will one day be.
• Everybody loves snacks, and it’s a fun word to say.
• Mur and Matt don’t know if construction workers call it a “snack tent,” but they want their construction worker aspiring writer listeners to popularize it for them.
• Personal lives! They happen, and they must take precedent, and for Matt and Mur personal lives have been an issue recently.
• Tiger Balm is the greatest name for anything ever created.
• It is going to be one of the Ditch Diggers’ infamous, patented, ever popular Q&A/feedback episodes!
  A question concerning the need to be “marketable” to agents, and when/if to broach topics like your ability to continue regularly producing books.
• A listener reacting to Matt’s previous rant on publisher’s marketing ability asks about the necessity/value of traditional publishing, and the Ditch Diggers discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both trad and self-publishing.
• The definition of “debut” author and when and how it’s appropriate to use the label is discussed.
• Children age, and it is hard on those observing it.
• Matt is steadily becoming anti-list, and he apologizes for mispronouncing a listener’s name repeatedly.
• With the questions answered, the Ditch Diggers commit the traditional end of episode shilling.

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:52 — 43.5MB)

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Matt and Mur come to you live from the jigsaw where they are cutting the joists for the brand new Ditch Diggers HQ!

• Brief discourse on Timothy Olyphant, aka Olyphantastic.
• The spike in your daily allergies is probably caused by tree sexism.
• Mur interviewed Kameron Hurley at ConFusion last month and you’re going to hear it on this episode.
• Before that, Matt and Mur talk about publisher vs. author responsibility and dig into the American Dirt catastrophe.
• What to do as an author or other professional when big publishers, possibly even publishers with whom you’re affiliated, behave harmfully or problematically.
• Matt announces a new book deal!
• We go live-via-prerecorded-tape-but-not-really-tape to ConFusion where Mur talks to blockbuster author Kameron Hurley!
• Mur and Hurley are at ConFusion, but they are not confused, nor are they drunk.
• THAT story publishing by Clarkesworld, and being the author of a story that goes viral and polarizes people so widely and heavily.
• Hurley talks about criticism, more specifically how authors should (and shouldn’t) relate to it.
• Content warnings, their evolution, and their purpose and validity, and being aware as creators that your content is going to provoke reactions in those who consume it, good and bad.
• Hurley finds an excuse to talk at length about The Witcher.
• Hurley advises authors on what to do if they find they have written THAT story.
• Hurley shills her many platforms and works, all of which are good things.
• Returning to Ditch Diggers HQ-in-Progress, Matt and Mur end the show.
• Matt beseeches you to preorder and talk about his forthcoming epic fantasy novel, SAVAGE LEGION.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:32 — 37.7MB)

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• Coming to you live from the poured concrete foundation of the brand new Ditch Diggers HQ, it’s the first episode of 2020!
• No longer will Matt and Mur squat on the estates of celebrities who let them down with their moral and ethical decay. They are taking responsibility for their own destinies.
• Matt launches into an unrelated tangent about how Alton Brown seems like kind of a dick, and how Matt will not mill his own flour.
• The year has began both late and in a frustrating fashion, but Mur states the Ditch Diggers goal of increasing listenership in 2020.
• The topic of the episode finally emerges! Matt and Mur are going to talk about the ways in which they will achieve expanding the podcast’s listenership, and how those lessons relate to promoting books and other creative works.
• But first! A brief explanation of both how Hugo voting works, and how being nominated or winning an award like a Hugo can be a false metric by which to measure the size of an audience or the reach of a particular work.
• The importance of consistency, and how consistently releasing content at a scheduled time can be an essential component in building a large audience (and some of the challenges you encounter when trying to consistently produce and release content).
• Cross-promoting your work with other content creators, whether it’s interviewing them on your podcast or appearing on their platform.
• Matt longs for simpler times when authors didn’t have to do virtually every job in publishing, and he launches into a rant in which he compares himself to The Rock.
• Mur reigns in Matt’s angry tirade and recaps the Ditch Diggers’ plans to expand listenership in 2020, and how they’re going to achieve it. Keep tuning in to see how it unfolds!
• No Q&A this episode, but there is a plea to nominate the Ditch Diggers for the Best Fancast Hugo Award, despite it being a poor metric by which to measure audience growth.
• Also, please preorder Matt’s epic fantasy novel SAVAGE LEGION, out July 21st!
• ALSO, support the Ditch Diggers Patreon, which Mur does benevolently share with Matt, and she makes that abundantly clear.