The Murverse Mothership

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:41 — 34.0MB)

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Matt and Mur come to you live from their separate yet equal tanning salons in Ditch Diggers Manor.

• Matt makes a very random yet amazing Yan Can Cook reference, although Martin Yan is NOT the topic of this episode.
• Mur disrupts the usual Ditch Diggers end-of-episode shilling format to boost Matt’s newly released middle-grade novel debut BUMP and plug his appearance on the Escape Artists’ Twitch stream.
• Matt and Mur talk about trying to be happy for yourself and your professional accomplishments while such a large quotient of the people you know are fairly miserable.
• A brief tangent about the Office Ladies Podcast and how The Office is intrinsic to Matt and Mur’s friendship.
• Matt remembers this is a show about writing as a profession, and Mur further remembers the goal of the show is to talk about professional writer problems and solutions to those problems.
• A brief recap of the last episode detailing Mur’s search for a new agent, which segues into the topic of this episode, finding an agent as a new author.
• How the author/agent relationship can and often does straddle the line between professional and personal, and how that can complicate the former aspect of that dynamic, especially for new authors.
• Matt rants briefly about how authors do not work for their agents and how no agent can “fire” you.
• Questions you should ask any prospective agent during your first conversation/interaction, and why you should ask them.
• Matt and Mur talk about the “harsh writing advice” meme, how other authors are not your competition, and the value of Twitter “main characters” and the ensuing discourse that evolves from them.
• No Q&A this week, but Matt does read some Twitter feedback concerning past episodes (the purchasing of corduroy jackets with library money if you are a British or UK author).
• A final reminder Ditch Diggers is eligible for this year’s Hugo Awards, as well as Matt’s debut epic fantasy novel, SAVAGE LEGION, and Escape Pod, which Mur edits.

Mentioned in This Episode…

• Escape Artists Podcasts Twitch channel
• Office Ladies Podcast
• Escape Pod

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:41 — 41.3MB)

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We are live on Twitch to show our beautiful mugs and talk about Matt’s new book, BUMP.

We will be going live more often!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:03 — 42.0MB)

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Matt and Mur are back!

• It is a new year, the new Ditch Diggers mansion HQ that is definitely not imaginary has been finished, and it is a house warming party in quarantine!
• Mur tells an amusing anecdote about missing many of the US Capitol insurrection news (the day after which this episode was recorded) because she was with her dog at the vet.
• Matt and Mur talk about their hiatus from Ditch Diggers over the holidays, during which Matt had heavy book deadlines, the unique circumstances of which he explains, and Mur’s NaNoWriMo goals went off the rails.
• Mur talks about suddenly finding herself agentless before the holidays through no fault of her own or her former agent’s, and announces on the podcast for the first time that she has signed with a new agent, the great Seth Fishman!
• Matt and Mur discuss how to approach the situation Mur found herself in, seeking a new agent while not currently having a new manuscript to pitch, and being as deep into a career as Mur is.
• How Mur compiled her list of agents to which to reach out, and what about an author and their career incentivizes or should incentivize a prospective agent.
• What questions did Mur ask prospective new agents, what did they ask her, how did those conversations play out, and ultimate how did Mur decide on signing with Seth?
• What the Ditch Diggers have coming up in 2021, including a (hopefully) new release schedule, format changes, increased accessibility, and live-streamed events.
• The first end-of-episode shilling of the year! Mur pumps the Ditch Diggers Patreon and she also writes books, including the Escape Pod 15^th Anniversary anthology. Matt’s first middle-grade novel, BUMP, in which Matt could not and did not use curse words, releases on Tuesday, January 26^th!

Mentioned in this Episode…

• Seth Fishman, Agent Extraordinaire
• Jennifer Udden’s newsletter, A Faster No
• DongWon Song’s newsletter, Publishing is Hard

Coming next, livestream via Twitch!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:23 — 42.6MB)

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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.