Podcasts about blades

In this episode the 7th Tower Gang has some  downtime and we Pemberton develops a new vice...Cast- Reza- LenaThe Magnificent Figaro- Danny DelucaGamemaster- Jared WitkofskyAl Key- Chris FrenchPerberton- Andrew Collins-AndersonKevin- Morgan JustTony 'The Toe' Tito- Chris ThielFeaturing music by Pressure Highway, Jordan Fickel,  Danny Deluca and Motoshi Kosako  This work is based on Blades in the Dark (found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). 

To mark the launch of Blades by Numbers, a new interactive Sheffield United data dashboard, The Pinch dives into what the numbers can tell us — and what they can't. Sam Taylor and Riley Roberts talk xG, performance patterns, and how data can deepen rather than deaden our love of football. Get full access to The Pinch at www.thepinch.uk/subscribe

In the second hour of the Chase & Big Joe Show, Scott Hamilton joined the show for the full hour. Scott spoke more about his cancer journey. He was asked if he had ever been mad at God for his diagnosis. His answer is heart-warming. Later in the conversation, Scott went down memory lane, sharing some laughs about his time on the set of the movie Blades of Glory. Listen to hear more.

Scott Hamilton joined the show for the full hour. Scott spoke more about his cancer journey. He was asked if he had ever been mad at God for his diagnosis. His answer is heart-warming. Later in the conversation, Scott went down memory lane, sharing some laughs about his time on the set of the movie Blades of Glory. Listen to hear more.

La cacería continúa, esta vez, en la jungla de asfalto. Un policía, Rubén Blades, María Conchita Alonso y Bill Paxton se enfrentarán a una amenaza alienígena mientras la ciudad de Los Angeles vive una oleada de calor y de conflicto entre los Escorpiones Colombianos y la Clica Voodoo Jamaiquina.-Puedes apoyarnos y tener acceso anticipado enhttps://www.patreon.com/updateando Show en vivo y más contenido enTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/updateando-https://www.instagram.com/updateando/https://twitter.com/updateandohttps://www.facebook.com/updateando/https://discord.gg/YftZeAj-Sigue a Lego:https://twitter.com/Lego_Rodriguezhttps://www.instagram.com/legordgzSigue a Mei:https://www.instagram.com/meimeimei.___Sigue a Cham:https://x.com/Cham311#Depredador2 #Predator2 #JunglaDeAsfalto

La cacería continúa, esta vez, en la jungla de asfalto. Un policía, Rubén Blades, María Conchita Alonso y Bill Paxton se enfrentarán a una amenaza alienígena mientras la ciudad de Los Angeles vive una oleada de calor y de conflicto entre los Escorpiones Colombianos y la Clica Voodoo Jamaiquina.-Puedes apoyarnos y tener acceso anticipado enhttps://www.patreon.com/updateando Show en vivo y más contenido enTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/updateando-https://www.instagram.com/updateando/https://twitter.com/updateandohttps://www.facebook.com/updateando/https://discord.gg/YftZeAj-Sigue a Lego:https://twitter.com/Lego_Rodriguezhttps://www.instagram.com/legordgzSigue a Mei:https://www.instagram.com/meimeimei.___Sigue a Cham:https://x.com/Cham311#Depredador2 #Predator2 #JunglaDeAsfalto

On This Week's Episode of Hemen and Paul's Batman retrospective podcast, we look at Batman: TheAnimated Comics - books that encapsulate or inspired the style of Batman: The Animated Series! We dive in Batman's Ego with the beautiful work of Darwyn Cooke and then cross swords with Blades, written by James Robinson and drawn byTim Sale! And remember: we want YOU to pick which theme we discuss each week! Tune into our socials or check out the text below for the remaining themes and cast your vote in the comments. The theme with the most votes gets played nextweek.   Remaining themes: 'Batman, you loser!', 'Bat-Hamm!', 'Monsters & Mad Monks',  'Joker's Wilder!'. Vote in the comments or on our socials!Check out The ComicCrush Website: https://www.thecomiccrush.com/ Get Batman comics:https://www.thecomiccrush.com/shop-batman Check out all ourshops: https://www.thecomiccrush.com/our-comic-shop-links Sign up to our Patreonfor just £2: https://www.patreon.com/the_comiccrush_com Follow Us! On Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/thecomiccrush.bsky.social On Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/thecomiccrush/ On Threads:https://www.threads.com/@thecomiccrush Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thecomiccrush/

Bob DeMarco digs into his collection and pulls out 11 of his biggest Cold Steel fixed blade knives in Episode 642 of The Knife Junkie Podcast. From the 30-year-old Trailmaster that remains his number one recommendation to the Cinquedea that he shadow boxes with, each knife gets the spotlight it deserves.The episode kicks off with a stacked pocket check featuring the North Mountain BBMN, Jack Wolf Knives Gateway Barlow, TKell Agent 001, and APOC Survival Waning Moon Yatagan. DeMarco also reveals the Gentleman Junkie giveaway knives for November (a TKell Agent 001) and December (a Gunfighter Customs Gunfighter).Knife Life News covers the RoseCraft Blades Cumberland River Coke Bottle Jack, the Kizer Topsail collaboration with Jonathan Styles, a limited Winkler and Dead Air Silencers battle axe, and a sobering look at knife turn-in boxes in the UK. The First Tool segment tells the story of the Randall Model #1, the handmade fighting knife that soldiers carried through World War II and Vietnam.State of the Collection highlights include the new Jack Wolf Knives Gateway Equal End slip joint, a Fenix LD30 flashlight, and an Opinel folding vegetable peeler that DeMarco could not resist. Then came the big Cold Steel fixed blades: Trailmaster Bowie, Laredo Bowie, Tanto XII, Jimmy Slash Competition Chopper, Wild West Bowie, Rondel Dagger, 1917 Frontier Bowie, Chieftain's Seax, Natchez Bowie, Chaos Kukri, and Cinquedea.Find the list of all the knives shown in the show and links to the Knife Life news stories at https://theknifejunkie.com/642. Support the Knife Junkie channel with your next knife purchase. Find our affiliate links at https://theknifejunkie.com/knives. You can also support The Knife Junkie and get in on the perks of being a patron, including early access to the podcast and exclusive bonus content. Visit https://www.theknifejunkie.com/patreon for details. Let us know what you thought about this episode and leave a rating and/or a review. Your feedback is appreciated. You can also email theknifejunkie@gmail.com with any comments, feedback, or suggestions. To watch or listen to past episodes of the podcast, visit https://theknifejunkie.com/listen. And for professional podcast hosting, use our podcast platform of choice: https://theknifejunkie.com/podhost.

On this week's episode, Brad and Eric fill the holes in everybody's... armies… with massive units that will never come… into being. Yeah… i repeated the joke from 40K's description, sorry. It was too good to be ignored. Anyway, you can join their hunt to find the perfect infantry, monster or mounted unit for every army in Age of Sigmar.   POORHAMMER MERCH! https://orchideight.com/collections/poorhammer PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/SolelySingleton YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@thepoorhammerpodcast TWITCH: https://www.twitch.tv/poorhammer Website: https://poorhammer.libsyn.com/   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Hello and Welcome 00:42 Ground Rules 02:17 Cities of Sigmar 05:28 Daughters of Khaine 09:30 Fyreslayers 15:36 Idoneth Deepkin 19:03 Karadron Overlords 22:38 Lumineth Realm-Lords 24:39 Seraphon 29:59 Stormcast Eternals 34:12 Sylvaneth 39:13 Flesh-Eater Courts 45:13 Nighthaunt 48:33 Ossiarch Bonereapers 51:37 Soulblight Gravelords 54:16 Blades of Khrone 57:10 Disciples of Tzeentch 59:23 Goats aren't creepy, they are just ugly sheep 01:03:23 Helmsmiths of Hashut 01:05:45 Maggotkin of Nurgle 01:08:29 Skaven 01:12:39 Slaves to Dankness 01:16:37 Gloomspite Gitz 01:21:19 Ogor Mawtribes 01:25:57 Iron Jaws 01:30:30 Kruleboyz 01:34:42 Sons of Behemat 01:37:45 Alright Audio Audience   Contact Information: You can interact with Solely Singleton by joining the hosts on discord and Twitter to give input to improve the show. Feel free to email more detailed questions and suggestions to the show's email address.   Your Hosts: Brad (DrRuler) & Eric (OnekuoSora) Brad's Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/drruler.bsky.social Eric's Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/onekuosora.bsky.social Show Email: thepoorhammerpodcast@gmail.com Merch Website: http://www.poorhammer.com/ Edited by: Menino Berilio Show Mailing Address: PO Box 70893 Rochester Hills, MI 48307   Licensed Music Used By This Program: "Night Out" by LiQWYD CC BY "Thursday & Snow (Reprise)" by Blank & Kytt CC BY "First Class" by Peyruis CC BY "Funky Souls" by Amaria CC BY

Ryan and Noah sit down for a good ole chat with Greyson from Grey BladesShout out and huge thanks to our sponsorswww.ameribrade.comwww.maritimeknifesupply.comwww.pheonixabrasives.comwww.bakerforge.comwww.evenheat-kiln.comwww.texasfarriersupply.comCheck out our small business spotlight membersKHDAILY KNIVESROCK SOLID SCALESPELICAN PASTETIMBER TIGER FORGEHIDDEN ROSE FORGE (CAD FILES} Thanks to our monthly supporters Your Wife's Boyfriend only eats Red Delicious Donald Bryant Mathern Knives Walker Knife Co. Kris Modisette Daniel Smith Jason Posey Evan Dudley Grant Ball Todd Newton-Twin Oaks Forge Coulter Moulton Tree Swift Goods Waltrip knives Waltrip Knives Baker Forge & Tool Bald Man Knife & Tool Clint Long Fingal Greg Nuckols micah dunn Chaz Belongie Pink Ladies are superior to Red Delicious. Just Brad @brads_customs David Burke Miller Knife Works ( CJ Miller ) BOB GORE ... METALSTORM FORGE Brent Dignam AmeriBrade Travis Haines (@birdforge) Collin of Hayworth Handmade Jeremy of 419 Forging BryanHunt.hiddenroseforge Will From Maine @sprucehillstudio Jerod Weaver at Weaver's Custom Metalworks Instagram Masterofmetalmanipulation Neil@Maximus Knives Ira Houseweart Timber Tiger Forge, Chris Magnus Echo Blades - Jerid Brian Hinnenkamp - Tortuga Bladeworks KraftyMan Forge Noah “can't be arsed” Bloomberg Driver Defense Knives - Dustin Driver MaritimeKnifeSupply.COM Triple-T Podcast! Todd Harrington TH Blades Marc Leblanc papa_hache_axe Brigham Kindell AROO Bladeworks Knifematerial.at Donny Dulevich ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

On this week's episode Will, Ian & Nora (who in out) welcome JAKE BONN to the show! Together they'll brave the HOT HOT streets of Los Angeles 1997 in this MONTH OF PREDATOR and take on a gang slaying vigilante who is also a-PREDATOR 2 (1990) R 108minutesDirected by: Stephen Hopkins. Starring: Danny Glover, Bill Paxton, Gary Busey, Maria Conchia Alonso, Rubén Blades, Robert Davi, Adam Baldwin, Kent McCord, Morton Downey Jr., Calvin Lockhart, Kevin Peter Hall and Many Other Talented People!00:00:30- Welcome JAKE BONN!00:01:45- First Thoughts00:13:45- Guestions00:21:45- PREDATOR 2 (1990)00:24:00- Tasty Morsels00:33:45- Rating/Review01:06:45- Totals01:09:00- Next Week in PREDATOR MONTH/Thank You Jake!/Bye!Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/THELastActionCritics⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: @TheLastActionCriticsemail:   Thelastactioncritics@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Next Week: Predator: Badlands

On this week's episode, Brad and Eric fill the holes in everybody's... armies… with massive units that will never come… into being. Yeah… i repeated the joke from 40K's description, sorry. It was too good to be ignored. Anyway, you can join their hunt to find the perfect infantry, monster or mounted unit for every army in Age of Sigmar.   POORHAMMER MERCH! https://orchideight.com/collections/poorhammer PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/SolelySingleton YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@thepoorhammerpodcast TWITCH: https://www.twitch.tv/poorhammer Website: https://poorhammer.libsyn.com/   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Hello and Welcome 00:42 Ground Rules 02:17 Cities of Sigmar 05:28 Daughters of Khaine 09:30 Fyreslayers 15:36 Idoneth Deepkin 19:03 Karadron Overlords 22:38 Lumineth Realm-Lords 24:39 Seraphon 29:59 Stormcast Eternals 34:12 Sylvaneth 39:13 Flesh-Eater Courts 45:13 Nighthaunt 48:33 Ossiarch Bonereapers 51:37 Soulblight Gravelords 54:16 Blades of Khrone 57:10 Disciples of Tzeentch 59:23 Goats aren't creepy, they are just ugly sheep 01:03:23 Helmsmiths of Hashut 01:05:45 Maggotkin of Nurgle 01:08:29 Skaven 01:12:39 Slaves to Dankness 01:16:37 Gloomspite Gitz 01:21:19 Ogor Mawtribes 01:25:57 Iron Jaws 01:30:30 Kruleboyz 01:34:42 Sons of Behemat 01:37:45 Alright Audio Audience   Contact Information: You can interact with Solely Singleton by joining the hosts on discord and Twitter to give input to improve the show. Feel free to email more detailed questions and suggestions to the show's email address.   Your Hosts: Brad (DrRuler) & Eric (OnekuoSora) Brad's Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/drruler.bsky.social Eric's Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/onekuosora.bsky.social Show Email: thepoorhammerpodcast@gmail.com Merch Website: http://www.poorhammer.com/ Edited by: Menino Berilio Show Mailing Address: PO Box 70893 Rochester Hills, MI 48307   Licensed Music Used By This Program: "Night Out" by LiQWYD CC BY "Thursday & Snow (Reprise)" by Blank & Kytt CC BY "First Class" by Peyruis CC BY "Funky Souls" by Amaria CC BY

In the build-up to the Sheffield derby, Hal speaks with popular Blades content creator Andrew aka RoysViewFrom to look at memories of days gone by. Their first Sheffield derby, worst and most crucially; BEST! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, we discuss the advantages of digital content ownership for both readers and writers. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Ashes, Book #3 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: CLOAK2025 The coupon code is valid through November 24, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 277 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 14th, 2025, and today we are discussing the benefits of owning your own content for both readers and writers. Before we get to our main topic, we will start off with Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up is Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Ashes, Book #3 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. That coupon code is CLOAK2025. And as always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through November 24th, 2025, so if you need a new audiobook for your Thanksgiving travels this month, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report the rough draft of Blade of Shadows is done. This will be the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. Right now, it is just about exactly as long as Blade of Flames. It may be a little longer or a little shorter depending on how editing goes since there's some stuff I'm going to cut out, but there's also some scenes I'm going to add. I also wrote a short story called Elven Arrow. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Elven Arrow when Blade of Shadows comes out, which will hopefully be before American Thanksgiving at the end of the month. I'm about 23% of the way through the first editing pass, so making good progress there and hope to keep up with the good progress. I am 11,000 words into Wizard-Assassin. That will be my next main project once the Blade of Shadows is published and probably the final book I publish in 2025, because I think the first book I do in 2026 will be Blades of Ruin #3, if all goes well. In audiobook news, the recording for Blade of Flames is done and it's gradually making its way out into the world (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills). I think as of the time of this recording, the only place where it's actually live is Google Play, but hopefully more stores will come online soon, and it would be cool if the Blade of Flames audiobook was available everywhere before Blade of Shadows came out. Hollis McCarthy is still working on Cloak of Embers and we hope to have that to you before the end of the year, if all goes well. So that's where I'm at with current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:25 Main Topic: Digital Content Ownership as a Reader and Writer Now let's move on to our own topic, the ownership of digital content as both a reader and a writer. As the digital revolution has gone on and on and put more decades behind it, people are increasingly building very large digital content libraries and it's an increasingly tangled point of law what happens to those digital libraries when for example, their account gets suspended, or for example, someone else dies and wants to leave their Steam library of games to their heirs. We're today going to be focusing on digital content ownership for readers and writers, and we'll start with readers. Although the price of an ebook and print book of many traditionally published books are roughly the same at this point (and sometimes bafflingly, the ebook versions cost more), the rights you have as the owner of the ebook copy are substantially less powerful. In fact, technically speaking, you aren't actually the owner of an ebook purchased from Amazon or other retailers. It's more accurate to say that you purchased a long-term conditional lease. As a side note, I'm talking about this from the perspective of United States Copyright law and ebook/audiobook stores there. The laws and standards in your own country may be different. Also, I am not a lawyer and nothing in this episode should be taken as legal advice. You obtain legal advice by hiring a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. But now back to the main argument. In America, there is something known as the First Sale Doctrine. This section of the US Copyright Act allows physical media to be lent out and resold, among other things. For example, someone who purchases a physical book is considered its owner and the publisher can't take it back from them. The physical version of books can be used in libraries or as classroom materials until they literally fall apart, unlike their electronic equivalents, which face complicated licensing agreements that generally offer far less favorable terms of use for a much larger cost (especially for libraries and academic institutions). In the US, electronic content ownership is covered by contract law instead of the First Sale Doctrine. Although each seller has their own licenses and standards, a few things tend to remain consistent across those licenses: the inability to lend or resell the content, the inability to remove DRM from the content, and the right of the seller to alter or even remove the content. Ownership is not a right guaranteed for digital content. There is an American lawsuit currently challenging Amazon Prime Video and its use of words like "purchase" and "buy" for its video content. The lawsuit accuses Amazon of misrepresenting a heavily conditional license as a purchase, giving the average customer the impression that they own the content in perpetuity. Amazon lawyers argue that the average customer understands the difference, but frequent outrages over content being removed from users' libraries suggests otherwise. Here are four reasons owning your ebook content is important. #1: Keeping access to the content if the company closes or gets bought out. One of the early leaders in the US ebook store market way back at the start of the indie revolution was Sony. When their Sony Reader store closed, they gave readers the option to migrate their libraries to Kobo. Books that were not available through Kobo were not able to be transferred, so some purchased content was lost for readers. A more egregious example comes from, as you might expect, Microsoft with the closing of the Microsoft ebook store in 2019. When the store closed, they offered refunds instead of giving readers an opportunity to self-archive or transfer their purchases. Any margin notes taken by readers were lost, and they were given a $25 credit for the inconvenience. Although refunding customers was a good gesture, it's not a guarantee that readers are able to repurchase the ebooks elsewhere or even that the price would be the same when they did. As an aside, I spent a good chunk of time in 2018 trying to figure out how to get into the Microsoft ebook store and then finally gave up because it was too complicated, which in hindsight turned out to be a good decision. Owning your ebooks outright gives them independence from the store that you bought them from. #2: Keeping content from being altered. Ebooks can be altered anytime. Most of the time these changes are harmless, such as updating a cover, fixing a typo, or adding a preview chapter. I do that myself all the time. Every time I get typo corrections, I upload a new version. Yet there is a potential for books to be edited or censored from the original copy that you purchased. Chapters could be removed, scenes altered, or in extreme cases, the entire book could be removed. Owning a hard copy means that you have a version that cannot be changed without your knowledge. #3: The ability to self-archive. Most ebook stores use a form of digital rights management (DRM) that makes it difficult to transfer or permanently store your collection outside of their collection or library. Trying to do so is a violation of the license you purchased from the store, so I won't discuss how to do that. Amazon recently made self-archiving more difficult by discontinuing the feature to download and transfer Kindle books via USB. Finding DRM-free ebook stores is important if you want to organize and store your ebook collection as you see fit. Two examples of stores with DRM-free ebooks are Smashwords and direct [sales] sites like My Payhip store. Other stores like Kobo have a dedicated section devoted to DRM-free ebooks. #4: Keeping your reading habits private. Companies like Amazon track reading data, mostly out of a desire to sell you similar books or ad space. They track what you're reading, the amount of time you spend reading, your reading speed, and the highlights that you make in a book. Now, most of the time this is generally pretty harmless. It's mostly used for…you look on Amazon, you see that the section "customers who enjoyed this book also enjoyed this". Then if you use the Kindle app on your phone a lot, it has a lot of badges and achievements and it tends to be used for that kind of thing. However, there could be sinister undertones to this, especially if you're reading things you would prefer other people not know about. So if this concerns you, if there are some settings that you can adjust, but if you want complete privacy, outright ownership of your ebooks is the way to go. So what is the easiest way to own your own ebooks as a reader? The easiest way and perhaps the safest way to own your content outright is to buy print copies of books. That said, buying direct from authors or finding ebooks that have more favorable license terms is easiest way to own your ebook purchases. One of the reasons that opening a Payhip store was important to me was I gave my readers a chance to outright own purchased copies of my work and self-archive them in the way that they saw fit, if that was important to them. The price is the same on my Payhip store as other ebook or audiobook stores (and sometimes even cheaper if you're using Coupon of the Week). The ebooks and audiobooks there are DRM-free and untethered from specific stores and companies. You have the option to download files in a variety of file formats and store them in a way that makes the most sense to you. Buying direct also gives a greater share of the sale price to the authors, especially in the case of audiobooks. In conclusion, ebooks lag behind print books in terms of ownership rights for purchasers here in the United States (at the time of this recording). That said, you can be an informed consumer by reading terms of use carefully and educating yourself to make sure that you have the most possible access to your purchased content. Now, we've covered that from the reader side, and let's look at it from the side of the content creators, specifically writers. This can also apply to other content creators such as musicians, and we're going to use a very famous example for that, Taylor Swift. The general public learned about the importance of fully owning your content as a creator during the long and very public battle between musician Taylor Swift and the record company that sold her work to a private equity firm associated with someone she personally disliked. She owned the copyrights to the works (along with her various collaborators), but not the masters, the specific recordings of each song. As long as she didn't own her masters, she didn't have control over song choices for her public performances, the label releasing older content against her wishes, or how her music would be licensed out for commercial use. Swift reasserted control by rerecording old albums (a strategy previously used by the musician Prince), which gave her ownership of these new masters and devalued the original masters to the point where she could later afford to buy them outright. Many artists, including Olivia Rodrigo, credit Swift for helping them to negotiate adding the ownership of their masters into their contracts. As predatory as the publishing industry can be, the music industry tends to make them look like rank amateurs in terms of sheer evil. So it is a testament to her popularity and business success that she was able to convince them to do this. The world's most famous pop star taught millions of fans that owning your work is the ultimate goal of a creative. Why is ownership of your work important for writers specifically and not just American pop stars? We'll discuss six reasons why it's important for content creators and specifically writers in this episode. And as a reminder yet again, I'm talking about this from the perspective of United States law. Laws and standards in your own country may be different. Also, I am not a lawyer and nothing in this episode should be taken as legal advice. You obtain proper legal advice by contacting a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. So with that in mind, let's get into the topic. What is ownership as a writer? Writers generally keep the copyrights to works they sell to publishers. Writers are essentially selling the right or a license to produce and distribute their book in a certain format, language, and geographic area. Most of the time, geographic area rights are sold separately. For example, rights for the Harry Potter books are owned by Scholastic in the United States and Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. Sometimes writers will keep the rights in a specific format, like when I signed with Tantor to give them the audio rights to the first five Frostborn books while keeping the rights to my print and ebook formats. What writers lose in the process of selling to publishers is the ability to control how their work is marketed, packaged, and sold. They do not have the freedom to make major decisions such as when a book is released or where it is marketed. Today I am going to share six reasons that retaining ownership is important for writers and what things you generally sacrifice when you sign with a traditional publisher instead of self-publishing or indie publishing. #1: Creative control. It is not standard to have complete control over your book's cover design. Often an artist is able to submit suggestions to the designer, but the publisher has ultimate authority over the book's cover. Sometimes covers end up being wildly inappropriate for the book, but the author has no recourse. The same is usually true with the ability to pick an audiobook narrator or change anything about the narration. At times, writers (especially new ones) are pressured into changes they do not want by editors. The surest way to completely lose all creative control is signed with a book packager like Alloy Entertainment. If you want to hear the story of how L.J. Smith was fired from her own series due to a plot dispute with that publisher, YouTuber Jenny Nicholson covers it in her epic length summary of The Vampire Diaries show. Although a certain paycheck from a book packager is tempting, you'd be wisest not to create any fictional characters or worlds for this type of publisher for that reason. #2: Dead Series Syndrome. If the first book in a series does not sell well, the publisher tends to abandon the series. The next book in the series might be ready for publication, but they're not obligated to publish it if they suspect it will not be profitable. Unfinished series are extremely common in traditional publishing, unfortunately. Writers who are locked into a contract for a series are generally out of luck putting out the books on their own. Even if they put out later books on their own, not having the rights to the first book in the series makes it difficult for a writer to sell and market subsequent books. I had a series (Demonsouled) that I wanted to continue even though the first book was released by my publisher. I was able to get the rights back for it and then was able to self-publish this rest of the series. This was much easier to do 14 years ago than it is now. Modern contracts, especially from larger publishers, are not so generous in letting authors do this. It would be much easier to start as a self-published author and have full control over the trajectory of your series and make sure readers are able to finish it instead of waiting for a contract to elapse or fighting a difficult, hard to win battle to get the rights back. #3: The ability to change. One of the perks of owning your book is the ability to make quick changes that react to data. For example, I was able to retitle the Stealth and Spells series fairly quickly when it became immediately clear upon release that some found the original title confusing. A traditional publisher would likely not have bothered to make the effort unless there was a legal reason for doing so. The ability to change covers, repackaging books in different ways (like omnibus editions), and to make quick changes to the book on the fly (such as fixing typos or continuity errors), is the unique privilege that comes with owning your own work. Publishers are slow to make these types of changes, if they do it at all. #4: Profit. Writers typically only receive an advance (an initial lump sum) when working with a traditional publisher. The complexities of publisher accounting usually ensure that only great successes receive royalties, and often even those that do can take a while to reach that benchmark. Royalties are typically doled out quarterly or semi-annually, for those who make enough to receive them. The earning statements are fairly byzantine. It's hard for the average person to understand them fully to make sure they're being paid exactly what is owed to them. Owning your own work and publishing yourself means that you keep all of the profit after the cut taken by the ebook store and whatever you pay cover designers, editors, and so on. You can see all of the sales as they come in and don't have to wait for those two to four royalty checks each year in order to get paid. It's much easier to make a living as a writer and to feel confident that you can pay others when you have more accurate data on the money coming in. Indie publishing sacrifices the certainty of an advance for a far, far greater share of the profits in the long run. Additionally, agents typically take a 15 to 20% commission on author earnings, and they are an essential part of the process in traditional publishing. It's just about impossible to get foot in the door with traditional publishing without one. Most self-published writers don't bother with an agent, which means they're able to keep that cut of the money and don't have to shape their work around the preferences and whims of an agent. They also spared the stress and hassle of working with an unethical or bad agent (of which they're unfortunately far too many). #5: Professional freedom. The publisher decides when the books are released or if they're released at all. Are you ready to publish a book two months after the first one is released? Too bad. A publisher is not going to put out the next one that quickly. The traditional wisdom of publishing schedules seems wildly out of date in the content-heavy modern world, where algorithms reward recent titles and frequent publishing. Publishing more often also helps fans stay connected to your work, and frankly, it's much easier to make a living as a writer putting out several books a year instead of just one. Additionally, traditionally published writers do not control how a book is marketed. Are you upset that your book is being marketed as a romance when you think it's complex literary fiction? Too bad. It's not your call. In fact, writers may be contractually obligated to post content to their social media pages written or approved in advance by the marketing department at the publisher. You might have to put your name publicly to marketing copy you dislike or disagree with in order to not violate your contract. In a related vein, you might find that if you post heavily on your social media pages about political or controversial topics, you may be reprimanded by the publisher or in some cases, have your contract canceled entirely. Although indie authors aren't immune from social consequences of what they post, no publisher is holding them back from posting what they want just because they're writers and the publisher is scared of what the shareholders might think. #6: The publisher being sold. One of the biggest problems for traditionally published writers is when their publisher is sold to another one. This may mean restructuring that takes away staff they worked with a long time (like a favorite editor being replaced by an inexperienced one). As smaller publishers are eaten up by the larger ones, you might find that your books become an afterthought and you don't have any power to fix that. You might even have to fight to get paid what you're owed in your own contracts, which writers of Star Wars books found out when Disney acquired Lucasfilm. Apparently when Disney bought Lucasfilm, it decided it no longer owed royalties to several writers of Star Wars tie-in novels that Lucasfilm had published and weren't going to pay them until it went public and caused a bit of controversy. Finally, a settlement was reached. This is sort of the shifty behavior that Disney is well known for in certain circles, and it is something you have to watch out for with large publishers and media conglomerates. The easiest way to keep this from happening is, once again, to publish yourself and keep ownership of your work. In conclusion, when traditional publishing was the only way to become a writer, their restrictions and control were something you had to live with because you had no other option. Now that self-publishing is extremely accessible and traditional publishing is shrinking, it's no longer worth making the trade-offs that authors once had to in order to gain readers of their work. Although I never actually listened to a Taylor Swift song all the way through, her career and business ventures are proof that owning your work as a creative is the best way forward. Ownership should be the starting point, not the end goal of anyone who values creative control and fair, transparent payment for their creative work. So that is it for this week. I hope that illuminated the importance of owning your own work, especially if you are a writer or other creative. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Hal and Oli speak through the players they would like to see join Sheffield United in January. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hal and Oli speak through the players they would like to let go in January. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode the 7th Tower Gang harnesses the dead and fights two gangs to get their payoutCast- Reza- LenaThe Magnificent Figaro- Danny DelucaGamemaster- Jared WitkofskyAl Key- Chris FrenchPerberton- Andrew Collins-AndersonKevin- Morgan JustTony 'The Toe' Tito- Chris ThielFeaturing music by Pressure Highway, Jordan Fickel,  Danny Deluca and Motoshi Kosako  This work is based on Blades in the Dark (found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). 

Safety within the Safe Zone is arbitrary at best. If the power dies, so do we. Content warnings for this episode include:  complex family dynamics & interpersonal conflict // apocalypse & societal collapse // darkness and shadow // visions and mind control // substance use // violence // murder // grief & loss // being chased // blackmail // death of family members & loved ones // power dynamics // class inequality // memory loss & dementia // severe injury // needlesAfterlight is performed by Amelia Som as Evlan, Em Carlson as Luce, Gina Susanna as Pen, Sean Depner as Danny, and Si Rutherford as Game Master. The voice of Francis is Jannes Wessels. Special thanks to our campaign artists. Hannah Harder, who did our cover design, and Lesly Oh, who did our character portraits. Editing, sound design and original music by Si Rutherford. For more stories, come follow us everywhere at @blackwaterdnd, and make sure you check out our Main Campaign on Monday nights at 8pm PST at twitch.tv/blackwaterdnd, as well as our library of campaigns on both youtube and your favourite podcast platform. This show is made possible by our sponsors, who really should have reminded us to bring a torch for this journey out into the endless dark. We are grateful to be sponsored by Evil Hat Productions, publishers of Blades in the Dark, along with other incredible titles such as Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Scum & Villiany, Girl by Moonlight, and so many more. With compelling mechanics, stunning art, and rich lore for whatever world you choose to bring towards the apocalypse, head on over to evilhat.com to shed some light on new games to bring to your table. This show is also sponsored by Bookwyrm Games, a Canadian tabletop company bringing you the finest in gaming essentials and accessories. Activate your senses with candles, tea, and coffee to help set the scene in your campaign, ensure your party is rolling with stellar dice at a custom table, or leave the adventure to them with their series of Quest Chests and Quest Coins. Whatever you need to bring your table to the next level, Chester the Dragon and the folks at Bookwrym have you covered. Check them out over at bookwyrmgames.com and let them know Blackwater sent you. Finally, we're thankful for our Patrons for joining us on this journey outside the Safe Zone. You too can come join us on patreon, where you can check out behind the scenes info, our talkbacks, exclusive Afterlight content and so much more. Head on over to patreon.com/blackwaterdnd for all the info. See you next time, and keep the lights on!

Welcome to The Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS, in partnership with Vertical Valor magazine.Listen closely for your chance to win awesome prizes from Heli Life! Throughout 2025, every episode of The Hangar Z Podcast will reveal a secret word. Once you catch it, head to contests.verticalhelicasts.com to enter!The 2025 Blades of Valor Tour continues in Las Vegas, Nevada, visiting the Las Vegas Metro Police Department (LVMPD) Air Support Unit. LVMPD has an incredible hangar located on North Las Vegas Airport. This unit covers 8,000 square miles of Clark County, Nevada, with a population of 2.3 million. Seventy percent of Nevada's population resides inside Clark County. Add 40 million visitors a year and this unit has a great deal of responsibility in both patrol functions and search-and-rescue.With only five aircraft, they flew over 4,000 patrol hours and responded to 91 rescue calls in 2024. It is not unusual to complete a rescue in the snow-covered mountains, respond to a rescue in Lake Mead, and then handle a pursuit, all in the same shift.Our conversation with pilot Blake Farris and tactical flight officer Brad Bear was fascinating. We discuss training, unit dynamics, the mixed fleet of aircraft, mission profiles, and the full time search-and-rescue team located inside the hanger facility.Brad shares an impactful story of working as a patrol officer, where having skilled air crew overhead kept him safe. He knew exactly where he wanted to work someday and now, he is living that dream.Be sure to watch for the article by Brent Bundy about Las Vegas Metro's air support unit in Vertical Valor magazine.Special thanks to Airbus and Massif for the incredible support of this year's Blades of Valor Tour. We could not do this tour without them.Thank you to our sponsors Airbus, Becker Avionics USA and BLR Aerospace.

The story continues when the party meets THE DARK FALCON. Who is THE DARK FALCON? You can only find out by listening to THE DARKEST OF FALCONS, so you too can experience the revelation of the true identity of THE DARK FALCON. Insert falcon screech here! Also we do a lot of shopping. GRENADES! FINALLY! Special note to listeners: A heads up that some point in the next few releases, we will be releasing the Effects-Enhanced versions of these episodes as bonuses for our patrons. The main feed will feature a complete episode, including all bonus outtakes when they are present. This episode is fully FX'd though, and we hope you enjoy the fun added accents! Drop us a line! You can follow us (sporadically) on Facebook, and we'd love to see you on our Discord Channel too. And let us know your thoughts by leaving a review on iTunes or any other podcast aggregate sites. For even more info and options, check out our main website or our low-bandwidth alternative feed site. Links of Note: Official Campaign Wiki at Goblin's Notebook Rifts RPG Ultimate Edition, Digital Rifts Ultimate Edition, Hardcover A Cloak of Blades, by Isaac Sher Bastard Quest Podcast Credits: GM: Kyle Players: NPC, Just Jacob, Alex, Cranston Music: Opening is "8-Bit bass & lead" by Furbyguy, Closing is "Caravana" by Phillip Gross Sound Effects: Unless specified otherwise, all of our sound effects are either self-made, acquired under a Creative Commons Zero license, or sourced by attribution from Tabletop Audio Episode Length (We support chapters!): 1:42:57 Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse, and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games! You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at Drive-Thru RPG as well. We release all of our public episodes simultaneously on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuc8KbdMqx8ajWfm2OUTs7A Audio RSS: https://breakfastpuppies.com/feed/glitterbois Want to help us pay for hosting? We have a few options: Drop us a one-time donation or a recurring membership at our Ko-Fi page Follow this link to our Pinecast Tip Jar We've got a merch store if you're looking for some sweet Glitterbois swag. Check out our affiliate store and buy some of the various products we endorse. Support The Glitterbois by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-glitterbois Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/the-glitterbois/2dc37ff7-3953-4d59-87d9-bb7426f6318e This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-66e5ee for 40% off for 4 months, and support The Glitterbois.

Running a sawmill efficiently isn't just about having the right equipment. It's about optimizing every aspect of your operation, from layout to blade selection to seasonal maintenance. In this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, host Jennifer Alger sits down with Justin McMinds from Wood-Mizer Industrial to explore the ins and outs of sawmill optimization. Justin shares his unique journey from operating his own sawmill business, WoodMinds, to working with Wood-Mizer in Blades and Industrial Equipment Sales, bringing a wealth of hands-on experience to help sawmill operators maximize efficiency and profitability. You'll hear practical insights on creating efficient sawmill layouts that improve workflow, the game-changing benefits of advanced blades like bi-metal and carbide for cost savings, and essential strategies for winterizing equipment to maintain peak performance. Justin also dives into exciting topics like urban wood salvage and the unique opportunities it presents, optimizing quarter sawing techniques, and how multi-rip machines can drastically reduce labor costs and cutting time. This conversation goes beyond technical advice to explore the creative problem-solving required in the sawmill industry, the importance of personal connections in building business opportunities, and why sharing knowledge strengthens the entire woodworking community. Justin even shares how his ADHD has become a strength in tackling complex challenges and finding innovative solutions. Whether you're a sawmill operator looking to improve efficiency, considering equipment upgrades, or interested in urban wood salvage and sustainable milling practices, this episode is packed with actionable advice and industry insights that can transform your operation. Tune in to learn how to optimize your sawmill for maximum productivity and profitability and don't forget to follow the Woodpreneur Podcast for more expert conversations from the wood industry. Chapters: 00:00:04 Introduction to the Episode 00:02:09 Justin McMinds' Background 00:03:33 Transition to Wood-Mizer 00:04:30 Optimizing Sawmill Operations 00:08:47 Efficiency Tips and Tricks 00:12:55 Advanced Blades and Cost Savings 00:18:42 Multi-Rip Machines and Labor Costs 00:23:46 Winterizing Equipment 00:26:46 Exciting Projects and Challenges 00:30:53 Creative Problem-Solving in Business The Woodpreneur Podcast brings stories of woodworkers, makers, and entrepreneurs turning their passion for wood into successful businesses - from inspiration to education to actionable advice. Hosted by Steve Larosiliere and Jennifer Alger  For blog posts and updates: woodpreneur.com See how we helped woodworkers, furniture-makers, millwork and lumber businesses grow to the next level: woodpreneurnetwork.com Empowering woodpreneurs and building companies to grow and scale: buildergrowth.io Connect with us at:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woodpreneurnetwork/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/woodpreneurnetwork/ Join Our Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/woodpreneurnetwork Join our newsletter: https://substack.com/@woodpreneurnetwork You can connect with Justin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-mcminds-567265222/

Doctor Spork and I play out The Rivalry of Rot mini campaign using the Song of Blades & Heroes rules and my various Nurgle miniatures. Support the show by leaving a tip

As we head into the international break, we review the Blades tribulations to this point in the season, review the QPR match, and look forward to hopefully better days ahead. Red Half of SheffieldTwitter/x - @redsheffieldBlueSky - @redsheffieldFacebook - @redhalfofsheffieldYoutube- @redhalfofsheffieldNoah SnyderTwitter/x and BlueSky- @nessman930Insta - @sunpuckChad JarvisTwitter/x/Insta - @Cjarvis_13 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to The Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS, in partnership with Vertical Valor magazine.Listen closely for your chance to win awesome prizes from Heli Life! Throughout 2025, every episode of The Hangar Z Podcast will reveal a secret word. Once you catch it, head to contests.verticalhelicasts.com to enter!The 2025 Blades of Valor Tour continues in Las Vegas, Nevada, visiting the Las Vegas Metro Police Department (LVMPD) Air Support Unit. LVMPD has an incredible hangar located on North Las Vegas Airport. This unit covers 8,000 square miles of Clark County, Nevada, with a population of 2.3 million. Seventy percent of Nevada's population resides inside Clark County. Add 40 million visitors a year and this unit has a great deal of responsibility in both patrol functions and search-and-rescue.With only five aircraft, they flew over 4,000 patrol hours and responded to 91 rescue calls in 2024. It is not unusual to complete a rescue in the snow-covered mountains, respond to a rescue in Lake Mead, and then handle a pursuit, all in the same shift.Our conversation with pilot Blake Farris and tactical flight officer Brad Bear was fascinating. We discuss training, unit dynamics, the mixed fleet of aircraft, mission profiles, and the full time search-and-rescue team located inside the hanger facility.Brad shares an impactful story of working as a patrol officer, where having skilled air crew overhead kept him safe. He knew exactly where he wanted to work someday and now, he is living that dream.Be sure to watch for the article by Brent Bundy about Las Vegas Metro's air support unit in Vertical Valor magazine .Special thanks to Airbus and Massif for the incredible support of this year's Blades of Valor Tour. We could not do this tour without them.Thank you to our sponsors Airbus, CNC Technologies and Metro Aviation.

After an all-timer Game 7 finish, the crew shifts from heartbreak to hobby joy with a massive '90s/'00s insert show-and-tell: Pacific, Crown Royal, Topps Gold Label, Mystery Finest, Beam Team, Lamplighters, Omega Online, Kramer's Choice, Blades of Steel, hat-shaped die-cuts, acetate sandwiches—the works. We unpack why these mixed-media, heavy-foil, die-cut designs still slap, how binders keep sets fun and affordable, and where to hunt budget-friendly shine. Then we zoom out: is a superstar championship good for the hobby? Should acquired Panini brands (Prizm, NT, Kaboom) go dormant for a few years or continue uninterrupted? Plus the new Topps NBA flagship—do “first Topps” cards matter, how do one-of-one ‘First Off the Press' parallels change the chase, and what the long NBA/NFL licensing shift means for collectors. Highlights Binder bliss: Why viewing full sets (refractors, atomics, team-combining puzzles) beats lone slabs Design nostalgia: Foil/acetate layering, laser cuts, jumbo oddballs—why this era's creativity endures Affordable lanes: Beautiful inserts that won't break the bank, even for star names First-Topps vs rookies: Importance, value expectations, and where scarcity actually lives Dormancy debate: Let legacy Panini brands rest (rarity pop) or keep them running (continuity)? Championship effect: Superstar wins, hobby sentiment, and where it really moves markets Follow & Subscribe Watch live on YouTube (@SportsCardsLive) and catch replays on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If this segment hit the nostalgia nerve, subscribe, like/review, and share with a binder buddy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's episode, I take a look at my direct sales for 2025, and consider six lessons for improving direct sales. I also answer a reader question about Kobo Plus. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Shield of Battle, Book #5 in The Shield War series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SHIELD2025 The coupon code is valid through November 17, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 276 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 7, 2025, and today we are discussing how I had a 300% increase in direct sales for 2025 so far, and the challenges that might pose. We'll also have Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing progress, and a reader question about Kobo Plus. First up is Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Shield of Battle, Book #5 in The Shield War series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store, which seems appropriate because we're talking about direct sales. That coupon code is SHIELD2025 and as always, links to my store and the coupon code will be in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through November 17th 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing progress. As of this recording, I am 70,000 words [into] Blade of Shadows, the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. That puts me on chapter 16 of 20, so I'm about three quarters of the way through. I think the rough draft is going to land at about 85 to 90,000 words. So if all goes well, I'm hoping to finish that rough draft next week and hopefully get the book out before Thanksgiving, but we'll see how the rest of this month goes. I'm also 8,000 words into Wizard-Assassin, which will be the fifth book of my Half-Elven Thief series. If all goes well, I want to have that out in December, which will make it the final book I publish in 2025. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is working on recording Blade of Flames, the previous book in the Blades of Ruin series and good progress is being made there. And Hollis McCarthy is also working on the audiobook of Cloak of Embers, which was Book 10 in the Cloak Mage series. So if all goes well, we should have both of those audiobooks to you before the end of the year. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:00 Thoughts on Kobo Plus Let's talk a little bit about Kobo Plus before we move on to our main topic. A reader recently asked if I made more money from sales on Kobo from direct sales on the Kobo platform or through Kobo Plus, which is Kobo's subscription service. And the answer is, well, it depends. My primary answer always is that readers should read my books on whatever platform they prefer and which is most convenient for them (with the exception of piracy). As for the specific details, it gets a little bit more complicated. I suspect at this point more Kobo readers use Kobo Plus than actually buy ebooks off Kobo. Like in September alone (which is the last month I have complete figures for), 75% of my Kobo revenue came from Kobo Plus. So very clearly not having my books in Kobo Plus is a non-starter of an idea. That said, Kobo Plus (unlike Kindle Unlimited) runs off minutes read rather than pages read that KU uses, which makes it a lot harder to game the way some people do with Kindle Unlimited because the system is more opaque. So obviously longer books do a lot better with Kobo Plus and I have a lot of longer books in the form of various omnibus editions. Even a fast reader is going to take a while to get through Frostborn: Omnibus One, so I know for a fact those do quite well on Kobo Plus. So I suspect with individual novels I make less with Kobo Plus than I do with ebook sales, but for the omnibus editions, I make more from Kobo Plus than I do with the individual sales. Overall, I would say if you're a Kobo user and you want to read a book just once, Kobo Plus is probably the economical choice, but if you want to reread the book many times, you're better off buying it outright. For an interesting bit of data, here are my 10 most read Kobo Plus books for 2025 so far. Thanks for reading them, everyone! 1.) Shield of Deception 2.) Cloak Mage Omnibus One 3.) Shield of Battle 4.) Ghost in the Assembly. 5.) Cloak of Illusion 6.) Ghost in the Corruption 7.) Cloak of Embers 8.) Dragontiarna Omnibus One 9.) Dragonskull Omnibus One 10.) Cloak of Masks So as you can see, there were three different omnibus editions in that Top 10 list, so those do quite well on Kobo Plus. 00:04:00 Main Topic: Six Lessons Learned from a 300% Increase in Direct Sales Now onto our main topic, six lessons learned from a 300% increase in direct sales for 2025. By means of some background, in 2021 I started a direct sales site for my books and audiobooks using the Payhip platform. I'd been thinking about this for some time and the instigation was that at the time I was about to publish Ghost in the Vision. The Barnes and Noble site had problems with a ransomware attack that made it impossible to upload new books to the Barnes and Noble site for about three weeks (if I remember correctly). And obviously this was concerning because I had Ghost in the Vision coming out during that time and I wanted to be able to get it to Barnes and Noble readers, but I couldn't because the Barnes and Noble site was having technical difficulties. So that's when I started using Payhip and mentioned that hey, Barnes and Noble readers, I know I can't upload it to the Barnes Noble site right now, but you can get it from Payhip and obviously Barnes Noble restored the website and I was able to upload a book again, but I kept going with the Payhip site. Why did I do that? Well, as I've said before for direct sales, it makes sense for me to have a place that I could fully control since (barring technical difficulties that we talked about) the main ebook platforms can take a day or two before the books are ready to be sold. And as we mentioned before, sometimes oddities happen and a book can get delisted on a site like Amazon or a site could suffer a cybercrime attack like Barnes and Noble did in 2021. Direct sales also give authors a greater percentage of the profits, especially for audiobooks. The highest rate of royalty I get for any audiobook sales is definitely through direct sales. Progress was slow for getting people to use the Payhip site for obvious reasons. People are locked into the platforms where they feel the most comfortable (the Kindle Library, for example). It takes a lot to get people to change their buying behaviors, but over the last year, I've seen a 300% increase in sales at my Payhip store over what I had made in 2024. And there are six reasons why I think that happened that I'd like to share with you in this week's episode. #1: The first reason is it gives people an alternative. For a variety of reasons, many people are frustrated with Amazon or Google and the other big tech companies and are boycotting them for a number of reasons. If you've paid attention to the news at all over the last five years, you can probably guess what a few of those reasons might be. Others are concerned with the amount of tracking data on these sites and having their browsing data sold as advertising info. Having a direct sales platform gives readers who have these concerns a way to support you. Payhip is great for those with privacy concerns because it provides us with very, very little user data and there's no way to put ads on the site or even sell ad space there. The only customer data I get from a transaction through Payhip is the email address, which is obviously necessary since there needs to be a place to send the ebooks and the audiobooks. I don't sell or share that data with other companies or even other authors, so that is a good way to buy my books while leaving a minimal data footprint that can't be used for any kind of tracking. #2: The second reason and one that I think is about 50% of the sales growth this year, is new releases. And that is because my Payhip site is always the first place to find any of my new releases since I have complete control over the uploads there. How fast books appear on other sites is out of my control and can sometimes take a day or two (or in extreme cases, even longer than that). But I have complete control on Payhip of upload time (so long as Payhip is working and my internet connection is working). Consistently having the new releases available on my Payhip site right away also makes people feel like they're not missing out by shopping there. Having someone to help me with my Payhip store has made that a lot easier to do that consistently over the past couple of years. I did hire someone to help me out with that and it's been light years forward in having all my ebooks and audiobooks available on the Payhip store. #3: Number three, which I think is the other 50% of the reason I had a direct sales increase this year, is Coupon of the Week, which we already listened to on this episode. Coupon of the Week only takes about a minute to set up, but it has been an effective way to get people to buy ebooks and audiobooks at my Payhip site. The discount amounts I use means I'm still getting paid roughly the same amount that I would from a sale on Audible or Amazon, but the reader is getting a pretty substantial discount. Discount amounts are usually 25% off for an ebook or 50% off for an audiobook. It's enough of a discount to make it worthwhile for my readers. I've also been experimenting with discounting entire series in a Coupon of the Week instead of only one book. This change has been good for sales. It lets readers stock up on a whole series for a fraction of the price. That kind of whole series discount is also a good response to (only a few) readers who want omnibus editions that cover every single book in the series, which frankly isn't profitable to me for a couple of reasons. One is that if it's on Amazon, a file that size would incur a significant delivery fee from Amazon, which would cut into the profits. Another reason is that the file size for that just gets to be unwieldy. Frostborn is 15 books and 15 fairly long novels combined into a single ebook file does get pretty unwieldy. #4: The fourth reason and one that has consistently been helpful is the free short stories. Switching ebook platforms is a big change for many readers and it's best to give them a good incentive to do that. The old saying that it's easier to draw someone in with a carrot instead of a stick is true in ebook sales, as is in every other facet of life. Free items are a low-pressure way for someone to try out the site and test out the experience of downloading a book through my direct sales page. Direct sales pages are the best way to have control of free content that you're giving out to readers since price changes on other sites can vary wildly in when they occur, which makes setting up promotions very difficult if you're not sure when the price change will be live on all platforms. It's also a lot easier than what people used to do in the early 2010s for this kind of thing, which is directly email ebook files to readers, whereas having them nicely delivered through Payhip and then the Book Funnel backend is much more convenient. Coupon codes can be too much of a hassle for some readers, and setting up coupon codes on multiple platforms is definitely a massive hassle and can't be done on some platforms as frequently as I would like, so giving away free short stories via Payhip is an effective use. #5: The fifth reason is my direct sales page [content] is DRM free. This winter, Amazon removed the option to download and transfer Kindle books via USB for any books purchased through Amazon, which created a stir on social media even though most readers weren't using the feature and weren't even aware that it existed. What the outrage over the change did was make many people aware that they weren't truly owners of the content they bought from Amazon. It might be your instinct as a writer to put DRM in your ebooks and audiobooks in the belief that doing so prevents piracy. As anyone in the music industry can tell you, people will always find a way around DRM. All it does is punish the honest people who are supporting you by buying your content legally and making it more difficult for them to use in the ways to make the most sense to them. Selling books without DRM gives people a chance to truly own the content and archive it the way that works best for them. Everything on my Payhip store is DRM free for those reasons. Because the books can be downloaded and stored without restrictions, they can't be removed from your collection like a book in a Kindle Library can. A book purchased from Payhip is one that you can truly and completely own. #6: The sixth reason that has been helpful I think is honestly simple patience. Direct selling ebooks is a lot harder than just putting them on Amazon because Amazon is very well optimized for getting people to buy things and direct sales are often not. The very first year I did direct sales in 2021, by the end of the year I made a grand total of $10. This year I am probably going to make high three figures (if all goes well), which still is not a lot compared to some of the sales people can report off platforms like Amazon. But if you go from $10 in 2021 to high three figures in 2025, that is quite a growth trajectory. So again, if you were to start using direct sales, be patient and bear in mind it might take a long time of using things like free short stories and Coupon of the Week to gradually build up interest in the site. I also want to talk a little bit about what I think will be future challenges with direct sales and a big one that will happen if my direct sales continue to grow at this rate will be US sales tax. In 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled that states can charge sales tax for any purchases online. Previously they had not been able to do so and the law has been changed and challenged and tweaked a little bit since then, but it's boiled down to that for most of the states (it varies by states, and this is not legal advice), the rule is if you are selling more than $100,000 worth of product in their state or more than 200 individual transactions in that state, then you're obliged to pay sales tax on those sales to that individual US state. For me, obviously that is not a problem right now. I believe as of this recording, I have had a total of 95 individual transactions for direct sales. If you divide that out among the 50 US states and UK and several EU countries, I'm nowhere near the reporting thresholds for any individual US state, even the most restrictive ones. That said, it could happen if direct sales continue to grow, that will be a problem I need to address in the future. Payhip collects a VAT for EU countries, but it doesn't do any sales tax collecting for the US. So if my direct sales continue to grow to the point where I'm hitting sales tax thresholds for the individual states, I would probably have to change platforms from Payhip to something like Shopify where there are a number of plugins on Shopify (like Tax Jar for example) that will take care of the sales tax reporting and filing and paying for you. But that is obviously not a problem right now unless my direct sales grow a good bit. But that is something to keep in mind for future endeavors. So in conclusion, Payhip has been a growing source of income for me (although still far from my primary one) because of these strategies. Payhip has been a great platform for direct sales and has given my readers another choice in where to buy my books and audiobooks. And as always, I would like to thank everyone who has bought and read my books from either Payhip or any other platform. And even though I have this direct sales platform, a reminder that my preferred answer to the question "where should I get your books?" is "wherever is most convenient for you" (with the exception of piracy, of course). So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting by form of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

Nick reacts to the Blades 0-0 draw live from Bramall Lane. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oli gives you the rundown on each Sheffield United player and what he rates him out of 10. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode The Toe does some tricky shit, Pemberton does Tai Chi and everyone else saves KevinCast- Reza- LenaThe Magnificent Figaro- Danny DelucaGamemaster- Jared WitkofskyAl Key- Chris FrenchPerberton- Andrew Collins-AndersonKevin- Morgan JustTony 'The Toe' Tito- Chris ThielFeaturing music by Pressure Highway, Jordan Fickel,  Danny Deluca and Motoshi Kosako  This work is based on Blades in the Dark (found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). 

W/C 3rd November 2025I want to shout out to all those of you that regularly comment on TFM, comments that I always read but because I read them whilst I am dashing around hardly ever respond to. Actually that is worthy of an apology, so let's start by apologising for not responding to most of the comments I get, but confirming that I do read them all.So this goes out to Christine (invariably the first to listen & comment), Linda (always includes a Allen family insight), Brian (fast becoming a top five responder), Melissa and Kerry (both often a week behind the rest of the pack), Simon (always some Blades based reassurance), Susie (most dedicated newbie), Rita, Michael, Paul & Adam (insights from across the pond) and of course Shane (keeper of the records).I will of course apologise to all those regulars I have missed next week, as names come flooding back to me over the course of the day.And if you would like to comment, then head over to Patreon and check out the episodes there. Stay safe.Flag Day - The HousemartinsTherapy For Me (or TFM as I now refer to it) is a bit of an audio curiosity. It started out as a mechanism for me to clear my head, with the hope that by saying stuff out loud it would act as a little bit of self-help. It's remains loose in style, fluid in terms of content and raw - it's a one take, press record and see what happens, affair.If you want to keep in touch with TFM and the other stuff I do then please follow me on Facebook, Insta, Twitter or Patreon. Thanks for getting this far.

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are diving into another jam-packed Indie TWIG full of fresh gaming news and creative indie surprises! From the brand-new Shovel Knight collaborations shaking up the indie scene to the detective charm of Mouse PI, the prehistoric chaos of Dinoblade, and the mysterious world of Far Far West — there's plenty to talk about. We're breaking down what makes these projects stand out, why they're capturing the gaming community's attention, and how they're redefining what's possible in indie video games. It's a conversation packed with passion, predictions, and plenty of laughs. If you love indie gaming and want to stay ahead of the next big video games making waves, this episode's for you. Tune in to the Video Gamers Podcast for all things indie, creative, and unforgettable!   Mouse PI release date https://youtu.be/4vm7bHKIoI8?si=2d-1sR-wqYLP9qMv Shovel knight collabs with Crypt and Rift of the Necrodancer https://youtu.be/FBiZNLWen70?si=p-Mekq63h5XY9aaD Dinoblade https://store.steampowered.com/app/3440070/Dinoblade/ Dark Light Survivor https://store.steampowered.com/app/3088070/Dark_Light_Survivor/ EXEKILLER https://store.steampowered.com/app/1701840/ExeKiller/ Far Far West https://store.steampowered.com/app/3124540/Far_Far_West/ 13z The Zodiac Trials https://store.steampowered.com/app/2348250/13Z_The_Zodiac_Trials/     Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol' Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder and Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/vUzjAZBV Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hal previews United vs QPR in the Championship Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nick rates the Blades players out of 10 for their performances against Coventry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oli reacts to the Blades throwing away another game, away at Coventry City. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, we take a look at the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire, and consider how ancient history can inspire fantasy novels. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip store: SILENT2025 The coupon code is valid through November 10, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 275 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 31st, 2025, and today we're talking about the Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome and how that can inspire fantasy novels. Also, Happy Halloween (or Happy Protestant Reformation Day, if you prefer). Before we get into all that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in my Silent Order series at my Payhip store: SILENT2025. And as always, both the coupon code and the links to my store will be in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through November 10th, 2025. So if you need a new ebook for this fall as we come into winter, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Cloak of Worlds is now out and you get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and at my Payhip store. The initial response has been very strong and very positive, so thank you for that and I'm glad that people are enjoying and reading the book. Now that Cloak of Worlds is done, my next main project is Blade of Shadows, which will be the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I'm currently 44,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 9 of 20, though I'll probably have more chapters in the final draft than I will in the first draft. I found people really do tend to prefer shorter punchier, shorter chapters. Anyway, I'm about 44,000 words into it. I think I'll be about 109,000 words, when all is said and done. So hopefully that will be out in November. I'm also 4,500 words into the next Rivah book, which is Wizard-Assassin. It'd originally been entitled Elven-Assassin, but I decided Wizard-Assassin sounded punchier, so we went with that instead. I'm about 4,500 words into that and if all goes well, it will come out in December, which will make it the final book I'll publish in 2025, though hopefully I'll be publishing more books in 2026 before too much longer. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is currently recording Blade of Flames and we've been listening to some proof chapters of it and are very excited about what we're hearing. Hollis McCarthy is starting work on recording Cloak of Embers. That'll be the 10th book in Cloak Mage, and hopefully we will have both of those audiobooks out before the end of the year, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. 00:02:33 Main Topic: Praetorian Guard of the Ancient Roman Empire Now let's move on to our main topic this week, which is the Praetorian Guard of the Ancient Roman Empire, and they were very bad at their jobs, but we'll get into that more very shortly. One of the fascinating (if occasionally depressing) aspects of history is how often institutions end up having the exact opposite outcome of what they were intended to do. The late science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle had something called Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which once the bureaucracy got large enough, it will inevitably start turning its main focus to perpetuating the bureaucracy rather than carrying out its actual mission. And we can see examples of that time and time again, and no doubt you yourself can think of many examples: schools that make their students dumber, military organizations that fail to defend, hospitals that make people sicker, bureaucracies that exacerbate the problems that they are created to solve, and so forth. This can also apply to social movements as well. My favorite example of this is Prohibition in America. The Temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th century achieved its goal of banning alcohol sales in the United States during the Prohibition period, but the backlash and the consequences made it unpopular. And today, while alcohol is much more heavily restricted than it was at the end of the 19th century, the idea of banning alcohol in the United States is utterly implausible. The Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome, the personal bodyguards of the Emperor, might be another example of such an institution that utterly failed at its primary goal. For over a thousand years, people have been asking why the Roman Empire fell, and I think that might actually be the wrong question. The better question is why did the Roman Empire last as long as it did, because it sure almost didn't. At the height of its power, the Empire controlled land on three different continents in an area larger than many modern states, and it had to maintain that control without anything resembling modern technology and organization. Think of the difficulties involved in governing a large multi-ethnic state in the 21st Century with modern technology and communications and imagine how much harder it was in the first century AD. Travel was difficult and dangerous even with the Roman road system. The account of St. Paul's shipwreck in the book of Acts must've been an all too common experience in the Roman Empire, given the number of Roman wrecks on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Messages could take weeks to reach their recipients, and there was no division between civilian and military authority. That meant if the Emperors wanted to do anything, they had to use the army to do it because the army was the only pool of skilled men loyal to the state. Since the Empire never really solved the problem of succession and the transfer of power, it didn't take long before ambitious men figured out that the man with the largest army could declare himself Emperor and the Roman Empire actually broke apart into three competing mini empires and almost fell apart entirely in the middle of the 200s AD. So as we can see, there were a lot of reasons the Roman Empire fell apart and the Praetorian Guard, the bodyguard of the emperors, was one of them. The Praetorian Guard certainly wasn't the sole reason the Roman Empire collapsed, but the guard most definitely didn't help. In the last century of the Roman Republic, one of the growing problems was that the armies were less loyal to Rome and more loyal to their general, who made sure they got paid and received grants of land upon discharge. To show their prestige and to guard against the danger of assassination from rivals, generals began collecting personal bodyguards. Since the Roman generals commanded from a tent in a legionary camp called a "praetorium," the general's private guards became called "praetorians." Obviously, the general wanted his best troops as his bodyguards so becoming a praetorian was a privileged position with higher pay and perks. This practice continued as the Roman Republic split apart into civil wars between the ambitious generals of the First and Second Triumvirates. The civil wars of the Roman Republic ended with Octavian, later known as Caesar Augustus, as the last man standing with sole control of what we now think of as the Roman Empire. Augustus is remembered as the first Roman emperor, but the office of Emperor didn't really exist at the time, not the way we think of it now. Rather, Augustus was essentially a military dictator, but after he won, he went to great lengths to conceal his power under cloak of legality by having the Senate invest him with various official powers and offices. In modern terms, it'd be like if the United States was ruled by a military dictator who simultaneously held the offices of President, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, the governorships of the five most populous states, all while claiming to be only the first citizen among equals. Essentially, Augustus invented the powers of the Roman emperor on the fly while being a military dictator and his successors followed suit. Julius Caesar famously pardoned his enemies and went around without a bodyguard to show his courage, which ended up getting him assassinated. Augustus, by contrast, was determined not to repeat that mistake. So after annihilating his enemies, he founded a personal bodyguard in what we know today as the Praetorian Guard. That's a modern term. The praetorians never called themselves the Praetorian Guard, and they always refer to themselves as the praetorian of whichever emperor they happen to be serving like the Praetorians of Augustus or the Praetorians of Claudius and so forth. Augustus seems to have seen some of the potential danger in the institution of the Praetorian Guard, and during his reign, they were scattered around Italy with ones guarding him rotated out every so often. The Praetorians in Italy, when not guarding the Emperor, tended to do odd jobs for the government that needed doing like policing, construction, surveying, settling boundary disputes, and so forth. However, Augustus's successor Tiberius concentrated the Guard in Rome, which made it even more dangerous. It also tied into another problem with the Roman Empire, one that it never quite managed to solve, which was the succession problem. Augustus was a military dictator who assembled a sort of ad hoc legality around his position with various offices and powers. But how would he pass that onto a successor or what if someone else decided they were the proper successor? Augustus had taken his office by force, so why shouldn't anyone else? The Praetorian Guard exacerbated this problem further. Was their loyalty to the office of the Emperor (which was tricky because that office didn't technically exist)? Was it to the man himself or to his heirs? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Praetorian Guard eventually settled on the most practical answer to this question. Their loyalty belonged to whoever paid them the most money. There's a very high chance that Tiberius was murdered by the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, which means that the imperial bodyguard made it only two emperors [repeated for dramatic emphasis] before it started killing them. Tiberius's successor Caligula was famously insane and the Guard eventually got sick of him and participated in his murder. After Caligula's death, the guard declared Claudius as the new Emperor, who repaid them by giving them lavish donatives. That meant the Guard had gone from protecting the emperors to killing ones that didn't like, and then installing new ones. After the Senate turned against Nero and he committed suicide in 69 AD, the Roman Empire had its year of four emperors: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and finally Vespasian, who won the civil war and became the new emperor. Each of the potential claimants had their own praetorians who fought against other praetorians. The original Praetorian Guard of Nero did not cover itself in glory, as their comfortable life in Rome did not make them effective as field soldiers and they lost against the toughened legionaries from the frontier armies who came to fight in the civil war. That said, during the reigns of the Five Good Emperors (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius) from 96 to 180 AD, we don't hear much about the Praetorian Guard. The most likely explanation is that these emperors were strong and capable rulers, so the guard had no reason to turn against them, and therefore any potential conspiracies that would've involved the Guard just didn't get off the ground. However, part of the reason the 100s AD were the apex of the Roman Empire is that Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius did not have sons, so they adopted a capable leader as their son and heir, thereby creating continuity of rule. Marcus Aurelius unfortunately had a natural son named Commodus, and after he died, Commodus became Emperor. Commodus was a spectacularly incompetent narcissist, nowadays famously known as the villain from the movie Gladiator. If anything, Gladiator toned down Commodus' brutality, though to be fair to Commodus, he didn't murder his father like the fictional version did in the movie. Commodus was eventually assassinated, and the Praetorian Guard hit its lowest point soon after. Pertinax became Emperor after Commodus, and there was hope he would be a Nerva-type figure, a respected elderly Senator who would adopt a capable heir the way Nerva did with Trajan. However, Commodus had used the Guard as his privileged force of personal thugs, and Pertinax tried to impose discipline upon them. The Guard most definitely did not care for that, so they murdered Pertinax and then auctioned off the title of Emperor to whoever would pay them the most. Soon after Septimius Severus seized control of the Empire and he summarily fired all the Praetorian and put his own veteran legionaries in their place. So the Praetorian Guard, which had been intended to guard the emperors, ended up murdering the Emperor on a regular basis and sometimes choosing a successor and even auctioning off the title of Emperor to the highest bidder. Septimius Severus was a brutal ruler and held the Empire together long enough to die of natural causes. His sons Caracalla and Geta were his successors, and Caracalla murdered Geta before he was assassinated himself by yet another plot from disgruntled praetorians. After that, both the Empire and the Guard declined precipitously. This was the period later historians would call the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Roman Empire fractured into the three competing mini empires I mentioned earlier. A depressing pattern rapidly took hold. The Praetorian Guard or the army would kill an Emperor and proclaim a new one. The Emperor would last until he tried to do something the army didn't like, such as imposing discipline and then the pattern would repeat. The Praetorian Guard was never really reformed, but like so many failed institutions, it gradually became obsolete. Part of the reason was that the Empire was subject to frequent barbarian invasions throughout the 200s. The Emperor was required constantly on the frontiers to supervise the defense with the field armies. The emperors developed a different kind of bodyguard called the "scholae palatinae", a mounted group of soldiers that would accompany him in the field as he moved about the Empire. The constant defensive warfare also resulted in a subtle shift within the Empire. Rome was no longer the center of power within the Empire. The center of power was actually wherever the Emperor happened to be at the moment. The city of Rome itself had become in many ways an expensive vestigial relic of another age. Some of the emperors only visited Rome once. Some of the shorter-lived ones never made it there at all, and the Emperors certainly did not rule from Rome. Because of these changes, the idea of the Praetorian Guard, a permanent bodyguard force based in Rome, had become obsolete. The actual end of the Praetorian Guard came after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD, the battle where the Emperor Constantine famously had the vision that led him to convert to Christianity. The Praetorian Guard sided with Constantine's opponent Maxentius, and since Constantine had no use for the Praetorian Guard and indeed would move his capital to the new city of Constantinople, he simply had the Guard disbanded and continued to rely on mounted cavalry units for his personal bodyguard. So the Praetorian Guard, after three centuries of frequent treachery and corruption, had come to an end. Amusingly, while the Guard was gone, the title of "praetorian prefect" remained in use in the Empire for the rest of its history, which came to show just how powerful the commander of the Guard could become. In the end, the Praetorian Guard was yet another example of institution that became a hindrance to the very goals it was founded to advance. This seems to be a curse of any organization, and the only cure is constant vigilance and strong leadership, two qualities, alas, that are all too rare at any age of history. Yet you can definitely see why I say history is the best source of material for fantasy writers. You could get like 20 different novels out of the events I discussed above. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe, stay healthy, and see you all next week.

Hal looks ahead to Sheffield United's trip to top of the table Coventry City in the Championship Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Description: The boys dive right in with Ray's homemade windshield wiper re-blading project which segues into cabin air filter and door jamb cleaning. Tire pressure checking and options for painting steel wheels are also explored by the MotorMouth's. While Ray has his paint out he re-sprays a trophy he was awarded to match his car, and Chris can't find the one he was granted. Check our social media feed to see the pictures; on Instagram: @real_motormouthradio and on You Tube: https://youtu.be/owGhqI_Sq78Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/mmr-11-02-2025--68389685

Nick reacts outside Bramall Lane moments after Sheffield United's 1-3 defeat to Derby County, which was a performance that left fans furious. No fight, no intensity, and major questions to be asked about this team. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oli rates the Blades players out of 10 for their performances against Derby Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we find out what Reza has been up to, and the cast is finally all on one job together!Cast- Reza- LenaThe Magnificent Figaro- Danny DelucaGamemaster- Jared WitkofskyAl Key- Chris FrenchPerberton- Andrew Collins-AndersonKevin- Morgan JustTony 'The Toe' Tito- Chris ThielFeaturing music by Pressure Highway, Jordan Fickel,  Danny Deluca and Motoshi Kosako  This work is based on Blades in the Dark (found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). 

Today we're talking about RECON again, a deeper dive than the last time. Enjoy! Drop us a line! You can follow us (sporadically) on Facebook, and we'd love to see you on our Discord Channel too. And let us know your thoughts by leaving a review on iTunes or any other podcast aggregate sites. For even more info and options, check out our main website or our low-bandwidth alternative feed site. Links of Note: Advanced RECON RPG, Digital Deluxe Revised RECON RPG, Digital A Cloak of Blades, by Isaac Sher Credits: Hosts: NPC, Just Jacob, and Matt Buckley Music: Opening is "8-Bit bass & lead" by Furbyguy, Closing is "Caravana" by Phillip Gross Episode Length (We support chapters!): 54:36 Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse, and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games! You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at Drive-Thru RPG as well. We release all of our public episodes simultaneously on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuc8KbdMqx8ajWfm2OUTs7A Audio RSS: https://breakfastpuppies.com/feed/glitterbois Want to help us pay for hosting? We have a few options: Drop us a one-time donation or a recurring membership at our Ko-Fi page Follow this link to our Pinecast Tip Jar We've got a merch store if you're looking for some sweet Glitterbois swag. Check out our affiliate store and buy some of the various products we endorse. Support The Glitterbois by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-glitterbois Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/the-glitterbois/c95d6a85-e697-41d8-8d0b-adad566e91c4 This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-66e5ee for 40% off for 4 months, and support The Glitterbois.

The Knives Templars Podcast is back with S10E92 The Algorithmic Intelligence Edge . We are your Gateway to the World of Blades, Craftsmanship, and CommunityWelcome to the Knives Templars Podcast—the show where blade enthusiasts, makers, and collectors unite! Each episode dives deep into the art and science of knife making, the stories behind legendary blades, and the vibrant community that keeps the edge sharp in the world of cutlery. Whether you're a seasoned smith, a passionate collector, or just discovering the allure of handmade knives, this podcast is your go-to resource for inspiration, education, and connection.A huge thank you to our incredible sponsors who make thisshow possible:·       EvenHeat Kilns – Precision heat treating for serious makers·       TR-Maker – Innovative tools for next-level knife crafting·       Pop's Knife Supplies – Your one-stop shop for premium materials·       Brodbeck Ironworks – Grinders and gear built for makers·       NJ Steel Baron – Steel that shapes legends·       Phoenix Abrasives – Abrasives that rise to the challenge·       KH Daily Knives – Blades and tools forged with passion·       Clark Iron Forge – Blacksmithing tools that strike true·       The Knifemakers' Guild – Craftsmanship, community, and traditionYou can catch the Knives Templars Podcast on all major platforms—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart, Castbox, and wherever you get your audio fix. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share with your fellow makers. Also see us on Facebook at the knives templarsThank you for tuning in to the Knives Templars Podcast. Get ready to explore the stories, techniques, and people who keep the blade world turning. Let's get started!https://knivestemplars.comMusic by BaronsAIBand from Pixabay

Welcome back to The Rams review podcast, this week Jason is joined by Jack Bryan to discuss, finally some home success with back to back wins at Pride Park.We have Jack's Ewe's round up before we then look ahead to a trip to surprise strugglers Sheffield United, preview With Nigel & The Sheffield Utd Way.Thank you for listening, we would love to hear from you soplease follow us & join in on socials,Facebook Rams Review PodcastX RamsReview1Email Ramsreview@hotmail.comDon't forget we also have a YouTube channel The Rams ReviewPodcast please like & subscribe.Thanks again & Up The Rams!

This month on Currently Playing, Daniel is joined by Jonathan (not that one) to talk about the intersectionality of video games and table top role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Penumbra City, Blades in the Dark, Vampire the Masquerade and more. And what better way to frame this TTRPG discussion than by discussing the video game Baldur's Gate 3 which uses Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition as the basis of the gameplay? Peppered throughout the chat are comparisons between "real" D&D and the videogame version, along with stories from table top campaigns and the campaign presented by Larian Studios. There are some spoilers for story beats in Acts 1 and 2 of Baldur's Gate 3, but since Jonathan hasn't finished Act 2 yet, we avoid Act 3 entirely.0:00:00 - Welcome to the Show, Jonathan!0:09:10 - What Are You Playing? Baldur's Gate 30:43:15 - Backlog Recap: Shinobi 30:47:38 - Backlog Challenge: Hotline Miami 20:52:13 - Wrap Up/PlugsFollow Jonathan on Bluesky:Check out the TTRPG Penumbra City: https://www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/penumbracitydigitaleditionSee Jonathan play Blades in the Dark on Of Dice and Dens Meowrathon: https://www.youtube.com/live/a0MoLGFiHnkFollow Jonathan's cat on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/furthermoore.bsky.socialSee Daniel on the TTRPG actual play show Duel Bastards, created by Axiom Games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-hfR4iJjVQ&list=PLgF9JoRNz05JJ37z3gppDp7pjc7vID2dzFollow Daniel on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/douibyorthst.bsky.social

What happens when dark magic, ancient myth, and flawed heroes collide? In Demon's Rise by R. E. Sanders, the stakes soar higher than ever in The Jantakai Saga, proving once again that indie epic fantasy can stand toe-to-toe with the giants of the genre.In this spoiler-lite review, Jim dives deep into why Demon's Rise not only delivers gripping storytelling and richly built worlds, but shows just how much Sanders has leveled up as a fantasy author. From the mysterious powers at play to the character growth and ever-expanding lore, this is one saga you'll want to be following.If you've read A Path of Blades, Tann's Last Stand, or Demon's Tear, you already know this world has depth—and Demon's Rise takes it even further.

My guy Jaden Schubert of Fox River Blades is back. Jaden has incredible character, good nature and a can do attitude that is hard to beat. We had a great time catching up about work, our mutual love of Menard's in Wisconsin and we even hit up some weird news. Always great talking with Jaden. We'll definitely do it again. All the best, GFFollow Fox River Blades on Instagram :https://www.instagram.com/fox_river_blades?igsh=eTd5cnJrcm1wbWw1Go to Jaden's Website:https://www.foxriverblades.com/homeThe Full Blast Podcast on Instagram:https://instagram.com/thefullblastpodcast?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=If you want to support my race for the NYC Marathon as I raise money for Parkinson's Research please do here:https://give.michaeljfox.org/fundraiser/6151559 If you want to support Full Blast Support  Feder Knives - ( go buy a shirt )https://www.federknives.com/Go to CMA's website and check out the opportunities: https://centerformetalarts.org/Take a class: https://centerformetalarts.org/Follow CMA on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/centerformetalarts/?hl=enPlease subscribe, leave a review and tell your friends about the show. it helps me out a lot! Welcome aboard Phoenix Abrasives!Phoenixabrasives.com Phoenix abrasives supplies superior abrasive products for every application. Knifemaking, Metal fabrication, glass fab, floor sanding and Crankshaft! Belts, grinding and cutting discs, Flap Discs, surface conditioning FB10 at checkout gets 10% off your order at Check out.Welcome back! Nordic Edge:@nordic_edge on IG Nordicedge.com.auNordic Edge is about the joy of making something with your own hands. our one stop shop for tools, supplies and help when it comes to knife making, blacksmithing, leatherworking, spoon carving and other crafts where you get to take some time out for yourself and turn an idea into something tangible. Nordic Edge also holds hands-on workshops in the “lost arts” of blacksmithing, knife making and spoon carving. Come spend a day with us and go home with new skills and something you made with your own hands. They have the  guidance to help accelerate your creativity and the  Tools, products, supplies to help you manifest your ideas. NordicEdge.com.auThank you Baker Forge & Tool for your beautiful Steel. Go to Bakerforge.com to see all the incredible steels they offer. ‘FullBlast' gets you 10% off your order. CHECK OUT THE NEW ADDITIONS TO THE GATOR PISS LINE - GATOR PISS MAX & GATOR PISS HEAVYWelcome to our new Sponsor- EVENHEAT- Manufacturers of the best heat treating ovens available.  To find your next oven go to Evenheat-kiln.comFollow them on Instagram: Welcome aboard Texas Farrier Supply! For all your forging and knife making supplies go to www.texasfarriersupply.com   and get 10% off your order with PROMOCODE Knifetalk10Brodbeck Ironworks Makers of an Incredibly versatile grinder, with Many different attachmentsLeather sewing equipment and even abrasives Check out Brodbeck Ironworks for yourself:https://brodbeckironworks.com/“Knifetalk10” gets you 10% off Follow Brodbeck Ironworks on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/brodbeck_ironworks/Trojan Horse Forge Get your THF Stabile Rail knife finishing vise at https://www.trojanhorseforge.com/And when you use the promo code “FULLBLAST10 you get 10%off everything on the site.Follow them on instagram:https://www.instagram.com/trojan_horse_forge/ TotalBoatAdhesives, paints, primers and polishing compounds.Go to http://totalboat.com/FULLBLASTTo support the podcastG.L. Hansen & Sons On Instagramhttps://instagram.com/g.l._hansenandsons?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Gcarta.bigcartel.comG-Carta is unique composite of natural fibers and fabrics mixed with epoxy under pressure and heat Boofa, ripple cut, Tuxini, by Mikie, Mahi Mahi, Radio worm g-cartaPheasant by MikieColorama by MikieHoopla by MikeAmazing colors and razzle dazzle for your project. MARITIME KNIFE SUPPLIESMaritimeknifesupply.CAAll your knifemaking needs, belts abrasive, steals, kilns forges presses, heat treating ovens anvils and everything you need to get started or resupply. Including Dr. Thomas's book:“Knife Engineering”They're in Canada but ship to the US with ease and you can take advantage of the exchange rate The steel selection is always growing and Lawrence just got 3900 lbs. of steel in.10% off on abrasive belt packs of 10 get a hold of https://www.instagram.com/maritimeknifesupply/ and see what the fuss is about.Welcome Tormek as a sponsor to the show. Take your sharpening to a new level. I love these sharpening machines. Waterfed, easy to use. Jigs included. Definitely check out what they have to offer. If you need it sharpened, Tormek is definitely something for you:https://tormek.com/en/inspiration/woodworking--craftsVisit Tormek's website: https://tormek.com/enFollow Tormek on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tormek_sharpening/?hl=enFollow Tormek on TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@tormek_sharpening?lang=enGo look at the course curriculum at CMA:https://centerformetalarts.org/workshops/** Taking classes from some of the best in forging at one of the best facilities in the country is an excellent opportunity to propel yourself as a blacksmith. Not to be missed. And with housing on the campus it's a great way to get yourself to the next level. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode the 7th tower gang goes after the fortune of Sargent Velk and the Fighting Men's earnings...Cast- Reza- LenaThe Magnificent Figaro- Danny DelucaGamemaster- Jared WitkofskyAl Key- Chris FrenchPerberton- Andrew Collins-AndersonKevin- Morgan JustTony 'The Toe' Tito- Chris ThielFeaturing music by Pressure Highway, Jordan Fickel,  Danny Deluca and Motoshi Kosako  This work is based on Blades in the Dark (found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). 

Picking up right after our last session, we're starting our first of what we plan on being a regularly-recurring new themed episode format for the show. GM John from Real Play Games again joins us to kick off what we're calling "The Glitterbois Set the Scene," a series of episodes that show how the Palladium system functions at the table, with single scenes that could be played in their game worlds. Instead of an ongoing campaign narrative, these will be all over the place, and hopefully feature characters and settings from all over the entire Megaverse. We hope you enjoy this! Please drop by our Discord and share your feedback and ideas! And if you haven't done so already, check out Real Play Games using the links in these show notes, too! Drop us a line! You can follow us (sporadically) on Facebook, and we'd love to see you on our Discord Channel too. And let us know your thoughts by leaving a review on iTunes or any other podcast aggregate sites. For even more info and options, check out our main website or our low-bandwidth alternative feed site. Links of Note: Real Play Games Podcast After the Bomb RPG 2nd Edition, Digital Road Hogs, Digital A Cloak of Blades, by Isaac Sher Credits: Hosts: NPC, Just Jacob, and Matt Buckley Guests: GM John from Real Play Games Podcast Music: Opening is "8-Bit bass & lead" by Furbyguy, Closing is "Caravana" by Phillip Gross Episode Length (We support chapters!): 1:38:18 Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse, and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games! You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at Drive-Thru RPG as well. We release all of our public episodes simultaneously on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuc8KbdMqx8ajWfm2OUTs7A Audio RSS: https://breakfastpuppies.com/feed/glitterbois Want to help us pay for hosting? We have a few options: Drop us a one-time donation or a recurring membership at our Ko-Fi page Follow this link to our Pinecast Tip Jar We've got a merch store if you're looking for some sweet Glitterbois swag. Check out our affiliate store and buy some of the various products we endorse. Support The Glitterbois by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-glitterbois Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/the-glitterbois/f74ea1db-735a-4e5f-8d78-64ac01787ee2 This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-66e5ee for 40% off for 4 months, and support The Glitterbois.

Sam! returns to the clubhouse to help your nice hosts decide that Lakitu is no longer a savoir that comes down from the clouds, but since he has a job as a referee, should therefore be wearing a little ref shirt.Sam Baeseman is a member of the IDGATC board, the Nice Games Alliance board, and founding member of JAMA Jam.Nice Games AllianceIDGATCJAMA JamSam! joined us last week to talk about:Creative Peer CommunitiesBlippo+ (Mark's game) released, and you can buy it:Blippo+ on SteamBlippo+ on SwitchBlippo+ on itch.ioLydia:Why Learning Is So Hard for Adults (And How Games Can Help) - ELB Learning, YouTubeBefore becoming a host, Lydia joined the clubhouse as a guest to talk about:Digital Escape RoomsStephen is:not going to talk about his fishing gamedoing a game jam, Ludem Dare0:15:30HealthCalculate your pet's HPPolygonYouTubeYour nice hosts talked about these health systems:Subnautica - oxygen/food/waterDave the Diver - oxygenPEAK - staminaGauntlet - timeSuper Smash Bros. - percentagesStar Trek Adventures (TTRPG) - stressDoom (1993) - health packsDoom (2016) - enemy damageSuper Mario Bros. - mushrooms (2D) / coins (3D)Bloodborne - dignitySonic the Hedgehog - ringsCall of Duty - regenerating healthBlades in the Dark - "harm"42:31Developing for Speed RunnersWe talked about normal players vs. speedrunners in:Ladder Game

No it's not the sequel to the 1998 hit Blade where they add another Wesley Snipes; it's the golf course lawnmower parody of Jaws. Brought into homes by Troma, of course, and inflicted upon this show by Bigfoot Ben. Brian and Steve suffer through this no-Pro, only Am joke that should've been a 3 minute fake trailer instead of full length film over 90 minutes. Plus our November Showdown topic announced! Find Us Online- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/halloweenisforever/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/halloweenisforever Twitter: https://twitter.com/HallowForever Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@halloweenisforeverpod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HalloweenIsForeverPod E-Mail: Halloweenisforeverpod@gmail.com