Podcasts about Kickstarter

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Why do some romance authors build decades-long careers while others vanish after one breakout book? What really separates a throwaway pen name and rapid release strategy from a legacy brand and a body of work you're proud of? How can you diversify with trad, indie, non-fiction, and Kickstarter without burning out—or selling out your creative freedom? With Jennifer Probst. In the intro, digital ebook signing [BookFunnel]; how to check terms and conditions; Business for Authors 2026 webinars; Music industry and AI music [BBC; The New Publishing Standard]; The Golden Age of Weird. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Jennifer Probst is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over 60 books across different kinds of romance as well as non-fiction for writers. Her latest book is Write Free. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How Jennifer started writing at age 12, fell in love with romance, and persisted through decades of rejection A breakout success — and what happened when it moved to a traditional publisher Traditional vs indie publishing, diversification, and building a long-term, legacy-focused writing career Rapid-release pen names vs slow-burn author brands, and why Jennifer chooses quality and longevity Inspirational non-fiction for writers (Write Naked, Write True, Write Free) Using Kickstarter for special editions, re-releases, courses, and what she's learned from both successes and mistakes – plus what “writing free” really means in practice How can you ‘write free'? You can find Jennifer at JenniferProbst.com. Transcript of interview with Jennifer Probst Jo: Jennifer Probst is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over 60 books across different kinds of romance as well as non-fiction for writers. Her latest book is Write Free. So welcome, Jennifer. Jennifer: Thanks so much, Joanna. I am kind of fangirling. I'm really excited to be on The Creative Penn podcast. It's kind of a bucket list. Jo: Aw, that's exciting. I reached out to you after your recent Kickstarter, and we are going to come back to that in a minute. First up, take us back in time. Tell us a bit more about how you got into writing and publishing. Jennifer: This one is easy for me. I am one of those rarities. I think that I knew when I was seven that I was going to write. I just didn't know what I was going to write. At 12 years old, and now this will kind of date me in dinosaur era here, there was no internet, no information on how to be a writer, no connections out there. The only game in town was Writer's Digest. I would go to my library and pore over Writer's Digest to learn how to be a writer. At 12 years old, all I knew was, “Oh, if I want to be a famous writer, I have to write a book.” So I literally sat down at 12 and wrote my first young adult romance. Of course, I was the star, as we all are when we're young, and I have not stopped since. I always knew, since my dad came home from a library with a box of romance novels and got in trouble with my mum and said, basically, “She's reading everything anyway, just let her read these,” I was gone. From that moment on, I knew that my entire life was going to be about that. So for me, it wasn't the writing. I have written non-stop since I was 12 years old. For me, it was more about making this a career where I can make money, because I think there was a good 30 years where I wrote without a penny to my name. So it was more of a different journey for me. It was more about trying to find my way in the writing world, where everybody said it should be just a hobby, and I believed that it should be something more. Jo: I was literally just going back in my head there to the library I used to go to on my way home from school. Similar, probably early teens, maybe age 14. Going to that section and… I think it was Shirley Conran. Was that Lace? Yes, Lace books. That's literally how we all learned about sex back in the day. Jennifer: All from books. You didn't need parents, you didn't need friends. Amazing. Jo: Oh, those were the days. That must have been the eighties, right? Jennifer: It was the eighties. Yes. Seventies, eighties, but mostly right around in the eighties. Oh, it was so… Jo: I got lost about then because I was reminiscing. I was also the same one in the library, and people didn't really see what you were reading in the corner of the library. So I think that's quite funny. Tell us how you got into being an indie. Jennifer: What had happened is I had this manuscript and it had been shopped around New York for agents and for a bunch of publishers. I kept getting the same exact thing: “I love your voice.” I mean, Joanna, when you talk about papering your wall with rejections, I lived that. The only thing I can say is that when I got my first rejection, I looked at it as a rite of passage that created me as a writer, rather than taking the perspective that it meant I failed. To me, perspective is a really big thing in this career, how you look at things. So that really helped me. But after you get like 75 of them, you're like, “I don't know how much longer I can take of this.” What happened is, it was an interesting story, because I had gone to an RWA conference and I had shopped this everywhere, this book that I just kept coming back to. I kept saying, “I feel like this book could be big.” There was an indie publisher there. They had just started out, it was an indie publisher called Entangled. A lot of my friends were like, “What about Entangled? Why don't you try more digital things or more indie publishers coming up rather than the big traditional ones?” Lo and behold, I sent it out. They loved the book. They decided, in February of 2012, to launch it. It was their big debut. They were kind of competing with Harlequin, but it was going to be a new digital line. It was this new cutting-edge thing. The book went crazy. It went viral. The book was called The Marriage Bargain, and it put me on the map. All of a sudden I was inundated with agents, and the traditional publishers came knocking and they wanted to buy the series. It was everywhere. Then it hit USA Today, and then it spent 26 weeks on The New York Times. Everybody was like, “Wow, you're this overnight sensation.” And I'm like, “Not really!” That was kind of my leeway into everything. We ended up selling that series to Simon & Schuster because that was the smart move for then, because it kind of blew up and an indie publisher at that time knew it was a lot to take on. From then on, my goal was always to do both: to have a traditional contract, to work with indie publishers, and to do my own self-pub. I felt, even back then, the more diversified I am, the more control I have. If one bucket goes bad, I have two other buckets. Jo: Yes, I mean, I always say multiple streams of income. It's so surprising to me that people think that whatever it is that hits big is going to continue. So you obviously experienced there a massive high point, but it doesn't continue. You had all those weeks that were amazing, but then it drops off, right? Jennifer: Oh my goodness, yes. Great story about what happened. So 26 weeks on The New York Times, and it was selling like hotcakes. Then Simon & Schuster took it over and they bumped the price to their usual ebook price, which was, what, $12.99 or something? So it's going from $2.99. The day that they did it, I slid off all the bestseller lists. They were gone, and I lost a lot of control too. With indies, you have a little bit more control. But again, that kind of funnels me into a completely different kind of setup. Traditional is very different from indie. What you touched on, I think, is the biggest thing in the industry right now. When things are hot, it feels like forever. I learned a valuable lesson: it doesn't continue. It just doesn't. Maybe someone like Danielle Steel or some of the other big ones never had to pivot, but I feel like in romance it's very fluid. You have genres hitting big, you have niches hitting big, authors hitting big. Yes, I see some of them stay. I see Emily Henry still staying—maybe that will never pause—but I think for the majority, they find themselves saying, “Okay, that's done now. What's next?” It can either hit or not hit. Does that make sense to you? Do you feel the same? Jo: Yes, and I guess it's not just about the book. It's more about the tactic. You mentioned genres, and they do switch a lot in romance, a lot faster than other genres. In terms of how we do marketing… Now, as we record this, TikTok is still a thing, and we can see maybe generative AI search coming on the horizon and agentic buying. A decade ago it might have been different, more Facebook ads or whatever. Then before that it might have been something else. So there's always things changing along the way. Jennifer: Yes, there definitely is. It is a very oversaturated market. They talk about, I don't know, 2010 to 2016 maybe, as the gold rush, because that was where you could make a lot of money as an indie. Then we saw the total fallout of so many different things. I feel like I've gone through so many ups and downs in the industry. I do love it because the longer you're around, the more you learn how to pivot. If you want this career, you learn how to write differently or do whatever you need to do to keep going, in different aspects, with the changes. To me, that makes the industry exciting. Again, perspective is a big thing. But I have had to take a year to kind of rebuild when I was out of contract with a lot of things. I've had to say, “Okay, what do you see on the horizon now? Where is the new foundation? Where do you wanna restart?” Sometimes it takes a year or two of, “Maybe I won't be making big income and I cut back,” but then you're back in it, because it takes a while to write a few new books, or write under a pen name, or however you want to pivot your way back into the industry. Or, like you were saying, diversifying. I did a lot of non-fiction stuff because that's a big calling for me, so I put that into the primary for a while. I think it's important for authors to maybe not just have one thing. When that one thing goes away, you're scrambling. It's good to have a couple of different things like, “Well, okay, this genre is dead or this thing is dead or this isn't making money. Let me go to this for a little while until I see new things on the horizon.” Jo: Yes. There's a couple of things I want to come back to. You mentioned a pen name there, and one of the things I'm seeing a lot right now—I mean, it's always gone on, but it seems to be on overdrive—is people doing rapid-release, throwaway pen names. So there's a new sub-genre, they write the books really fast, they put them up under whatever pen name, and then when that goes away, they ditch that pen name altogether. Versus growing a name brand more slowly, like I think you and I have done. Under my J.F. Penn fiction brand, I put lots of different sub-genres. What are your thoughts on this throwaway pen name versus growing a name brand more slowly? Jennifer: Well, okay, the first thing I'm goign to say is: if that lights people up, if you love the idea of rapid release and just kind of shedding your skin and going on to the next one, I say go for it. As long as you're not pumping it out with AI so it's a complete AI book, but that's a different topic. I'm not saying using AI tools; I mean a completely AI-written book. That's the difference. If we're talking about an author going in and, every four weeks, writing a book and stuff like that, I do eventually think that anything in life that disturbs you, you're going to burn out eventually. That is a limited-time kind of thing, I believe. I don't know how long you can keep doing that and create decent enough books or make a living on it. But again, I really try not to judge, because I am very open to: if that gives you joy and that's working and it brings your family money, go for it. I have always wanted to be a writer for the long term. I want my work to be my legacy. I don't just pump out books. Every single book is my history. It's a marking of what I thought, what I put out in the world, what my beliefs are, what my story is. It marks different things, and I'm very proud of that. So I want a legacy of quality. As I got older, in my twenties and thirties, I was able to write books a lot faster. Then I had a family with two kids and I had to slow down a little bit. I also think life sometimes drives your career, and that's okay. If you're taking care of a sick parent or there's illness or whatever, maybe you need to slow down. I like the idea of a long-term backlist supporting me when I need to take a back seat and not do frontlist things. So that's how I feel. I will always say: choose a long, organic-growth type of career that will be there for you, where your backlist can support you. I also don't want to trash people who do it differently. If that is how you can do it, if you can write a book in a month and keep doing it and keep it quality, go for it. Jo: I do have the word “legacy” on my board next to me, but I also have “create a body of work I'm proud of.” I have that next to me, and I have “Have you made art today?” So I think about these things too. As you say, people feel differently about work, and I will do other work to make faster cash rather than do that with books. But as we said, that's all good. Interestingly, you mentioned non-fiction there. Write Free is your latest one, but you've got some other writing books. So maybe— Talk about the difference between non-fiction book income and marketing compared to fiction, and why you added that in. Jennifer: Yes, it's completely different. I mean, it's two new dinosaurs. I came to writing non-fiction in a very strange way. Literally, I woke up on New Year's Day and I was on a romance book deadline. I could not do it. I'll tell you, my brain was filled with passages of teaching writing, of things I wanted to share in my writing career. Because again, I've been writing since I was 12, I've been a non-stop writer for over 30 years. I got to my computer and I wrote like three chapters of Write Naked (which was the first book). It was just pouring out of me. So I contacted my agent and I said, “Look, I don't know, this is what I want to do. I want to write this non-fiction book.” She's like, “What are you talking about? You're a romance author. You're on a romance deadline. What do you want me to do with this?” She was so confused. I said, “Yes, how do you write a non-fiction book proposal?” And she was just like, “This is not good, Jen. What are you doing?” Anyway, the funny story was, she said, “Just send me chapters.” I mean, God bless her, she's this wonderful agent, but I know she didn't get it. So I sent her like four chapters of what I was writing and she called me. I'll never forget it. She called me on the phone and she goes, “This is some of the best stuff I have ever read in my life. It's raw and it's truthful, and we've got to find a publisher for this.” And I was like, “Yay.” What happened was, I believe this was one of the most beautiful full circles in my life: Writer's Digest actually made me an offer. It was not about the money. I found that non-fiction for me had a much lower advance and a different type of sales. For me, when I was a kid, that is exactly what I was reading in the library, Writer's Digest. I would save my allowance to get the magazine. I would say to myself, “One day, maybe I will have a book with Writer's Digest.” So for me, it was one of the biggest full-circle moments. I will never forget it. Being published by them was amazing. Then I thought I was one-and-done, but the book just completely touched so many writers. I have never gotten so many emails: “Thank you for saying the truth,” or “Thank you for being vulnerable.” Right before it published, I had a panic attack. I told my husband, “Now everybody's going to know that I am a mess and I'm not fabulous and the world is going to know my craziness.” By being vulnerable about the career, and also that it was specifically for romance authors, it caused a bond. I think it caused some trust. I had been writing about writing for years. After that, I thought it was one-and-done. Then two or three years later I was like, “No, I have more to say.” So I leaned into my non-fiction. It also gives my fiction brain a rest, because when you're doing non-fiction, you're using a different part of your brain. It's a way for me to cleanse my palate. I gather more experiences about what I want to share, and then that goes into the next book. Jo: Yes, I also use the phrase “palate cleanser” for non-fiction versus fiction. I feel like you write one and then you feel like, “Oh, I really need to write the other now.” Jennifer: Yes! Isn't it wonderful? I love that. I love having the two brains and just giving one a break and totally leaning into it. Again, it's another way of income. It's another way. I also believe that this industry has given me so much that it is automatic that I want to give back. I just want to give as much as possible back because I'm so passionate about writing and the industry field. Jo: Well, interestingly though, Writer's Digest—the publisher who published that magazine and other things—went bankrupt in 2019. You've been in publishing a long time. It is not uncommon for publishers to go out of business or to get bought. Things happen with publishers, right? Jennifer: Yes. Jo: So what then happened? Jennifer: So Penguin Random House bought it. All the Writer's Digest authors did not know what they were going to do. Then Penguin Random House bought it and kept Writer's Digest completely separate, as an imprint under the umbrella. So Writer's Digest really hasn't changed. They still have the magazine, they still have books. So it ended up being okay. But what I did do is—because I sold Write Naked and I have no regrets about that, it was the best thing for me to do, to go that route—the second and the third books were self-published. I decided I'm going to self-publish. That way I have the rights for audio, I have the rights for myself, I can do a whole bunch of different things. So Write True, the second one, was self-published. Writers Inspiring Writers I paired up with somebody, so we self-published that. And Write Free, my newest one, is self-published. So I've decided to go that route now with my non-fiction. Jo: Well, as I said, I noticed your Kickstarter. I don't write romance, so I'm not really in that community. I had kind of heard your name before, but then I bought the book and joined the Kickstarter. Then I discovered that you've been doing so much and I was like, “Oh, how, why haven't we connected before?” It's very cool. So tell us about the Kickstarters you've done and what you know, because you've done, I think, a fiction one as well. What are your thoughts and tips around Kickstarter? Jennifer: Yes. When I was taking that year, I found myself kind of… let's just say fired from a lot of different publishers at the time. That was okay because I had contracts that ran out, and when I looked to see, “Okay, do we want to go back?” it just wasn't looking good. I was like, “Well, I don't want to spend a year if I'm not gonna be making the money anyway.” So I looked at the landscape and I said, “It's time to really pull in and do a lot more things on my own, but I've got to build foundations.” Kickstarter was one of them. I took a course with Russell Nohelty and Monica Leonelle. They did a big course for Kickstarter, and they were really the ones going around to all the conferences and basically saying, “Hey guys, you're missing out on a lot of publishing opportunities here,” because Kickstarter publishing was getting good. I took the course because I like to dive into things, but I also want to know the foundation of it. I want to know what I'm doing. I'm not one to just wing it when it comes to tech. So what happened is, the first one, I had rights coming back from a book. After 10 years, my rights came back. It was an older book and I said, “You know what? I am going to dip my foot in and see what kind of base I can grow there. What can I do?” I was going to get a new cover, add new scenes, re-release it anyway, right? So I said, “Let's do a Kickstarter for it, because then I can get paid for all of that work.” It worked out so fantastically. It made just enough for my goal. I knew I didn't want to make a killing; I knew I wanted to make a fund. I made my $5,000, which I thought was wonderful, and I was able to re-release it with a new cover, a large print hardback, and I added some scenes. I did a 10-year anniversary re-release for my fans. So I made it very fan-friendly, grew my audience, and I was like, “This was great.” The next year, I did something completely different. I was doing Kindle Vella back in the day. That was where you dropped a chapter at a time. I said, “I want to do this completely different kind of thing.” It was very not my brand at all. It was very reality TV-ish: young college students living in the city, very sexy, very angsty, love triangles, messy—everything I was not known for. Again, I was like, “I'm not doing a pen name because this is just me,” and I funnelled my audience. I said, “What I'm going to do is I'm going to start doing a chapter a week through Kindle Vella and make money there. Then when it's done, I'm going to bundle it all up and make a book out of it.” So I did a year of Kindle Vella. It was the best decision I made because I just did two chapters a week, which I was able to do. By one year I had like 180,000 words. I had two to three books in there. I did it as a hardback deluxe—the only place you could get it in print. Then Vella closed, or at least it went way down. So I was like, “Great, I'm going to do this Kickstarter for this entire new thing.” I partnered with a company that helps with special editions, because that was a whole other… oh Joanna, that was a whole other thing you have to go into. Getting the books, getting the art, getting the swag. I felt like I needed some help for that. Again, I went in, I funded. I did not make a killing on that, but that was okay. I learned some things that I would have changed with my Kickstarter and I also built a new audience for that. I had a lot of extra books that I then sold in my store, and it was another place to make money. The third Kickstarter I used specifically because I had always wanted to do a writing course. I go all over the world, I do keynotes, I do workshops, I've done books, and I wanted to reach new writers, but I don't travel a lot anymore. So I came up with the concept that I was going to do my very first course, and it was going to be very personal, kind of like me talking to them almost like in a keynote, like you're in a room with me. I gathered a whole bunch of stuff and I used Kickstarter to help me A) fund it and B) make myself do it, because it was two years in the making and I always had, “Oh, I've got this other thing to do,” you know how we do that, right? We have big projects. So I used Kickstarter as a deadline and I decided to launch it in the summer. In addition to that, I took years of my posts from all over. I copied and pasted, did new posts, and I created Write Free, which was a very personal, essay-driven book. I took it all together. I took a couple of months to do this, filmed the course, and the Kickstarter did better than I had ever imagined. I got quadruple what I wanted, and it literally financed all the video editing, the books, everything that I needed, plus extra. I feel like I'm growing in Kickstarter. I hope I'm not ranting. I'm trying to go over things that can help people. Jo: Oh no, that is super useful. Jennifer: So you don't have to go all in and say, “If it doesn't fund it's over,” or “I need to make $20,000.” There are people making so much money, and there are people that will do a project a year or two projects a year and just get enough to fund a new thing that they want to do. So that's how I've done it. Jo: I've done quite a few now, and my non-fiction ones have been a lot bigger—I have a big audience there—and my fiction have been all over the place. What I like about Kickstarter is that you can do these different things. We can do these special editions. I've just done a sprayed-edge short story collection. Short story collections are not the biggest genre. Jennifer: Yes. I love short stories too. I've always wanted to do an anthology of all my short stories. Jo: There you go. Jennifer: Yes, I love that for your Kickstarter. Love it. Jo: When I turned 50 earlier this year, I realised the thing that isn't in print is my short stories. They are out there digitally, and that's why I wanted to do it. I feel like Kickstarter is a really good way to do these creative projects. As you say, you don't have to make a ton of money, but at the end of the day, the definition of success for us, I think for both of us, is just being able to continue doing this, right? Jennifer: Absolutely. This is funding a creative full-time career, and every single thing that you do with your content is like a funnel. The more funnels that you have, the bigger your base. Especially if you love it. It would be different if I was struggling and thinking, “Do I get an editor job?” I would hate being an editor. But if you look at something else like, “Oh yes, I could do this and that would light me up, like doing a course—wow, that sounds amazing,” then that's different. It's kind of finding your alternates that also light you up. Jo: Hmm. So were there any mistakes in your Kickstarters that you think are worth sharing? In case people are thinking about it. Jennifer: Oh my God, yes. So many. One big thing was that I felt like I was a failure if I didn't make a certain amount of money because my name is pretty well known. It's not like I'm brand new and looking. One of the big things was that I could not understand and I felt like I was banging my head against the wall about why my newsletter subscribers wouldn't support the Kickstarter. I'm like, “Why aren't you doing this? I'm supposed to have thousands of people that just back.” Your expectations can really mess with you. Then I started to learn, “Oh my God, my newsletter audience wants nothing to do with my Kickstarter.” Maybe I had a handful. So then I learned that I needed longer tails, like putting it up for pre-order way ahead of time, and also that you can't just announce it in your newsletter and feel like everybody's going to go there. You need to find your streams, your Kickstarter audience, which includes ads. I had never done ads either and I didn't know how to do that, so I did that all wrong. I joined the Facebook group for Kickstarter authors. I didn't do that for the first one and then I learned about it. You share backer updates, so every time you go into your audience with a backer update, there's this whole community where you can share with like-minded people with their projects, and you post it under your updates. It does cross-networking and sharing with a lot of authors in their newsletters. For the Write Free one, I leaned into my networking a lot, using my connections. I used other authors' newsletters and people in the industry to share my Kickstarter. That was better for me than just relying on my own fanbase. So definitely more networking, more sharing, getting it out on different platforms rather than just doing your own narrow channel. Because a lot of the time, you think your audience will follow you into certain things and they don't, and that needs to be okay. The other thing was the time and the backend. I think a lot of authors can get super excited about swag. I love that, but I learned that I could have pulled back a little bit and been smarter with my financials. I did things I was passionate about, but I probably spent much more money on swag than I needed to. So looking at different aspects to make it more efficient. I think each time you do one, you learn what works best. As usual, I try to be patient with myself. I don't get mad at myself for trying things and failing. I think failing is spectacular because I learn something. I know: do I want to do this again? Do I want to do it differently? If we weren't so afraid of failingqu “in public”, I think we would do more things. I'm not saying I never think, “Oh my God, that was so embarrassing, I barely funded and this person is getting a hundred thousand.” We're human. We compare. I have my own reset that I do, but I really try to say, “But no, for me, maybe I'll do this, and if it doesn't work, that's okay.” Jo: I really like that you shared about the email list there because I feel like too many people have spent years driving people to Kindle or KU, and they have built an email list of readers who like a particular format at a particular price. Then we are saying, “Oh, now come over here and buy a beautiful hardback that's like ten times the price.” And we're surprised when nobody does it. Is that what happened? Jennifer: Exactly. Also, that list was for a non-fiction project. So I had to funnel where my writers were in my newsletter, and I have mostly readers. So I was like, “Okay…” But I think you're exactly right. First of all, it's the platform. When you ask anybody to go off a platform, whether it's buy direct at your Shopify store or go to Kickstarter, you are going to lose the majority right there. People are like, “No, I want to click a button from your newsletter and go to a site that I know.” So you've got that, and you've got to train them. That can take some time. Then you've got this project where people are like, “I don't understand.” Even my mum was like, “I would love to support you, honey, but what the heck is this? Where's the buy button and where's my book?” My women's fiction books tend to have some older readers who are like, “Hell no, I don't know what this is.” So you have to know your audience. If it's not translating, train them. I did a couple of videos where I said, “Look, I want to show you how easy this is,” and I showed them directly how to go in and how to back. I did that with Kindle Vella too. I did a video from my newsletter and on social: “Hey, do you not know how to read this chapter? Here's how.” Sometimes there's a barrier. Like you said, Joanna, if I have a majority that just want sexy contemporary, and I'm dropping angsty, cheating, forbidden love, they're like, “Oh no, that's not for me.” So you have to know whether there's a crossover. I go into my business with that already baked into my expectations. I don't go in thinking I'm going to make a killing. Then I'm more surprised when it does well, and then I can build it. Jo: Yes, exactly. Also if you are, like both of us, writing across genres, then you are always going to split your audience. People do not necessarily buy everything because they have their preferences. So I think that's great. Now we are almost out of time, but this latest book is Write Free. I wondered if you would maybe say— What does Write Free mean to you, and what might it help the listeners with? Jennifer: Write Free is an extremely personal book for me, and the title was really important because it goes with Write Naked, Write True, and Write Free. These are the ways that I believe a writer should always show up to the page. Freedom is being able to write your truth in whatever day that is. You're going to be a different writer when you're young and maybe hormonal and passionate and having love affairs. You're going to write differently when you're a mum with kids in nappies. You're going to write differently when you are maybe in your forties and you're killing your career. Your perspective changes, your life changes. Write Free is literally a collection of essays all through my 30 years of life. It's very personal. There are essays like, “I'm writing my 53rd book right now,” and essays like, “My kids are in front of SpongeBob and I'm trying to write right now,” and “I got another rejection letter and I don't know how to survive.” It is literally an imprint of essays that you can dip in and dip out of. It's easy, short, inspirational, and it's just me showing up for my writing life. That's what I wish for everybody: that they can show up for their writing life in the best way that they can at the time, because that changes all the time. Jo: We can say “write free” because we've got a lot of experience at writing. I feel like when I started writing—I was an IT consultant—I literally couldn't write anything creative. I didn't believe I could. There'll be people listening who are just like, “Well, Jennifer, I can't write free. I'm not free. My mind is shackled by all these expectations and everything.” How can they release that and aim for more freedom? Jennifer: I love that question so much. The thing is, I've spent so many years working on that part. That doesn't come overnight. I think sometimes when you have more clarification of, “Okay, this is really limiting me,” then when you can see where something is limiting you, at least you can look for answers. My answers came in the form of meditation. Meditation is a very big thing in my life. Changing my perspective. Learning life mottos to help me deal with those kinds of limitations. Learning that when I write a sex scene, I can't care about my elderly aunt who tells my mother, “Dear God, she ruined the family name.” It is your responsibility to figure out where these limitations are, and then slowly see how you can remove them. I've been in therapy. I have read hundreds of self-help books. I take meditation courses. I take workshop courses. I've done CliftonStrengths with Becca Syme. I don't even know if that's therapy, but it feels like therapy to me as a writer. Knowing my personality traits. I've done Enneagram work with Claire Taylor, which has been huge. The more you know yourself and how your brain is showing up for yourself, the more you can grab tools to use. I wish I could say, “Yes, if everybody meditates 30 minutes a day, you're going to have all blocks removed,” but it's so personal that it's a trick question. If everybody started today and said, “Where is my biggest limitation?” and be real with yourself, there are answers out there. You just have to go slowly and find them, and then the writing more free will come. I hope that wasn't one of those woo-woo answers, but I really do believe it. Jo: I agree. It just takes time. Like our writing career, it just takes time. Keep working on it, keep writing. Jennifer: Yes. And bravery, right? A lot of bravery. Just show up for yourself however you can. If “write free” feels too big, journal for yourself and put it in a locked drawer. Any kind of writing, I think, is therapeutic too. Jo: Brilliant. So where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Jennifer: The best place to go is my website. I treat it like my home. It's www.JenniferProbst.com. There is so much on it. Not just books, not just free content and free stories. There's an entire section just for writers. There are videos on there. There are a lot of resources. I keep it up to date and it is the place where you can find me. Of course I'm everywhere on social media as Author Jennifer Probst. You can find me anywhere. I always tell everybody: I answer my messages, I answer my emails. That is really important to me. So if you heard this podcast and you want to reach out on anything, please do. I will answer. Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jennifer. That was great. Jennifer: Thanks for having me, Joanna.The post Writing Free: Romance Author Jennifer Probst On A Long-Term Author Career first appeared on The Creative Penn.

SummaryIn this week's episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Daniel Koonce and Caleb Talley sat down with Andrew Gibbs-Dabney, founder of LIVSN Designs, a Bentonville-based outdoor apparel company with a mission to create high-quality, versatile clothing for outdoor enthusiasts who value experiences over possessions. Andrew's vision for LIVSN is clear: make products that last, fit into multiple situations, and help customers "own less, live more."Andrew traced the company's roots back to a personal journey focused on simplifying life, which ultimately inspired LIVSN's commitment to durability and versatility. The business was initially jump-started via Kickstarter, leveraging community support to raise production funds and validate market fit. Andrew emphasized how in-person events and local connections, like pop-ups and startup crawls, have been vital for the tactile nature of their apparel.Sustainability and community drive every aspect of LIVSN, from rigorous dedication to responsible sourcing and transparency in the supply chain, to innovative repair and resale programs. Andrew explained that true sustainability goes beyond labels; it's about continual improvement and extending product life cycles. The company's recent B Corp certification stands as a testament to its holistic approach, valuing people, planet, and profit equally.LIVSN's story is also one of community ownership, with hundreds of customers investing through campaigns like WeFunder. With intentional product expansion and ongoing partnerships, Andrew's team is proving that responsible business practices and building trust can compete head-to-head with industry giants. Tune in today!Show Notes(00:00) Introduction(02:59) LIVSN's Kickstarter Experience (07:18) Designing by a Set of Principles(12:25) Holistically Building a Business(15:05) Sustainability Through Product Longevity(16:54) Community-Owned Business Vision(21:30) Intentional Growth and Expansion(26:11) 2025 Achievements: B Corp Certification & New Store Opening(28:35) Closing ThoughtsLinksDaniel KoonceCaleb TalleyStartup JunkieStartup Junkie YouTubeAndrew Gibbs-DabneyLIVSN Designs

J.M. Brandt joins the Dads to dive into Steven Kostanski's remake of the swords-and-sorcery cult classic Deathstalker. Be sure to check out the Kickstarter for his charity horror anthology Horror Not Hate—every dollar raised goes directly to charities fighting for LGBTQIA and immigrant rights.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jmbrandt/horror-not-hateSong of the day by "Castle Rat"!!!Follow Dads From the Crypt! Threads: @dadsfromthecryptTikTok: Dads From The Crypt-TokInstagram: @dadsfromthecrypt Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DadsFromTheCrypt

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – PAX Unplugged is when we get to catch up with friends in the boardgame industry, see new games, and meet some of YOU! 00:00 Fact for 411 If you’re a Millenial, you know that 411 was (is) a phone number to call for general information. Did you know there are other X11 codes? https://www.networkworld.com/article/956606/beyond-911-other-n-1-1-codes-you-should-know.html Sponsor Message How do you know if you’re ready to retire? There’s the financial aspect, but don’t forget about the emotional and physical as well. If you want help reviewing the financial part of preparing for retirement, set up a time to talk to First Move for free by going to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers today. 0:05:10 What We’ve Been Playing INK – review out today of this race to place all your ink bottles.Odin – review coming next week. Best at 3-4 players.Chit Chat – had our best game ever at 9 points! Check out the review.Stroop – still breaks our brain, but fun.Bouba/Kiki – a cooperative party game about matching shapes with nonsense words.(We talk at length about Stroop and Bouba/Kiki in episode 370.)Tropichaos – a fruit-selling push-your-luck game from Oink Games.Person Do Thing – a simple word party game. Try it yourself at PersonDoThing.comLeaders – we will talk a lot about this later. 0:18:00 The Family Gamers Community Welcome to our newest community members on Facebook! Stop in and say hello. #Backtalk We asked what your favorite thing to do at a convention – if you’ve ever been to one. A few of you answered on the #backtalk channel on the Discord and in our Facebook community. PAX Unplugged 2025 Interviews 0:25:35 SnapShips Tactics with Micah “X-wing crossed with Galaxy Trucker, and you’re trying to kill each other.” Make your ship look like you want, and make it play like you want. Starter set for two players is about $65. www.snapshipstactics.com 0:29:00 Kess with Court A game based on OnePiece! www.kessentertainment.co 0:32:30 Outset Media with David Guildlands – “if Carcassonne met Root“ Karak – a favorite for kids, with lots of upgrades over the version we reviewed years ago. And Karak II for a more challenging game! Shadow Ninjas – cats sneaking into the dojo to eat the koi, and one dog trying to eliminate them all. outsetmedia.com 0:36:10 Fight in a Box with Seppy Yoon Puppies or Poop – build a doggie land-mine field under the leaves. Try to survive without poop on your shoes! A cute and more memorable re-implementation of Squirrel or Die. Kaiser Cucumber – evil geniuses trying to out-steal each other. A sort of sequel to Mouse Cheese Cat Cucumber. www.fightinabox.com 0:40:15 SRG Universe with Steve Supershow – a wrestling card game – and Super Lucha which is a crossover with luchadors. Rummy Gummies – a set-playing card game. “Rummy with Uno-like effects” supershowthegame.com 0:45:00 Envy Born Games with Matthew Sirens – 1-2 player tiny game. Draft cards to make a song and lure sailors. Hercules and the 12 Labors – solo game. Battle your way through Hercules’s famous 12 labors and choose rewards to help you with future labors. envyborngames.com 0:48:20 Kids Table Board Gaming / Burnt Island Games with Sean River Market – now available!Sea Shells – set collection by Bruno Faiduitti, coming summer 2026Pack & Paddle – Kickstarter in 2026Treeline – recover the landscape. Also coming summer 2026. Fans of Diced Veggies and Endeavor: Deep Sea. www.kidstablebg.com and www.burntislandgames.com 0:52:50 Jason Anarchy Games Trombone Champ – yes, like the video game. Full of hotdogs, baboons, and silly fake trombone facts. 0:55:00 Wonderful World Board Games with Ariel Dragonarium – go check out the Kickstarter before December 11! Last Lantern – coop polyomino game. Silently build a path across the board. www.wonderfulworldbg.com 1:00:25 Bezier Games with Jay Zombie Princess – a sequel to Rebel Princess. “Save” the zombies by chopping off their heads. Trick-taking game that’s best with partners. Haunted Mouse – a ladder-climbing/shedding card game that lets you use your opponents’ cards. Game Makers – heavier game with a rondel. You step into the role of a game publisher – very meta. Recommendations for this holiday: Seers Catalog and Xylotar (we reviewed the expansion) beziergames.com Bonus: Jay is also @CardboardEast – he reviews games from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, etc. Check out his Youtube channel! 1:04:50 Play to Z Games with Zev Animal Rescue Team – with Matt Leacock Twisted Trumpets – route-building, sort of. You’re building out very weird, twisty trumpet pipes. Soothsayers – engine-building card game using traditional tarot. www.playtozgames.com 1:09:55 Doomlings with Eric Mokoko Village expansion Nightflower Island Gold pack, and a 15-pack Gold Box (by popular demand!) “We wanted to trick our moms into playing Magic: The Gathering with us” TFG has really enjoyed Doomlings – easy to learn, with a lot of luck, but also some depth. Our review. www.doomlings.com 1:14:45 Capstone Games with Chris Sanctuary – an Ark Nova game, a bit lighter than Ark Nova.Up or Down?Rowdy Partners – trick taking for 1-4 players. Wrestling theme with characters, each who has their own powersWandering Towers – a TFG favorite.Forestry – harvest a forest while replanting to manage it. Heavier game.Galileo Galilei – heavier gameAquariaStick ‘Em refreshWandering Towers expansion coming soon! capstone-games.com 1:19:00 Moon Crab Games with Justin Leviathan Wilds – cooperative boss-battling game that uses a spiral-bound book for the gameboard. “Climb together. Save Leviathans.” leviathanwilds.com 1:24:30 PAX Unplugged takeaways Andrew: PAX Enforcers (volunteers) and employees do an awesome job. And it’s really cool to see the same folks year after year. Love the culture of PAX Unplugged and its family friendliness. Anitra: We waited in line as a family to get in and see Jacques Ze Whipper. Waiting in line, even for over an hour, was incredibly pleasant: mostly because the people around us were patient and friendly. We hope to see you at PAX Unplugged 2026, December 4-6! 1:30:30 New Backtalk Question We’ve been listening to records. What is your favorite thing to do with your family that is NOT playing board games? Tell us on the #backtalk channel on our Discord, or in our Facebook community. Find Us Online: Facebook: @familygamersaa and thefamilygamers.com/communityTwitter (X): @familygamersaaInstagram: @familygamersaaTikTok: @familygamersaaBluesky: @familygamersaaThreads: @familygamersaaYoutube: TheFamilyGamers or join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord! thefamilygamers.com/discord Or, for the most direct method, email us! andrew@thefamilygamers.com and anitra@thefamilygamers.com. PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re also on Amazon Music, TuneIn, and Spotify. You can also now find us on YouTube Music! So pull it up and give us a listen while you’re toiling away at work :) The Family Gamers is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to learn how the team at First Move Financial can help you pile up the victory points. The post Episode 411 – PAX Unplugged 2025 appeared first on The Family Gamers.

Lords: * Esper * Cort Topics: * Building your identity around a thing that you're kind of not as excited about lately * Stateless procedural music * Hulu can't decide whether it has X-Files * Offering, by Ursula K Le Guin * https://fleurmach.com/2016/09/28/ursula-k-le-guin-offering-2012/ Microtopics: * Figuring out new ways to make video games more expensive. * Puzzled Pint. * Oh man, this one's a real quart! * Puzzled Pint getting you through to the next MIT Mystery Hunt. * Blippo Plus. * If you're going to watch TV, why not watch TV from another dimension? * Capturing broadcast artifacts and CRT fuzz on a 1-bit display. * An amateur DSPist. (Such as myself.) * Whether Lucas Pope took time away from his busy life as a pirate actuary to make a video about temporally-stable dithering. * Dr. Richard Garfield, who loves lasagna and hates Mondays. * Final Fantasy espers vs. Magic the Gathering espers. * All the different licenses Wizards of the Coast is using to fuck up Magic the Gathering. * How to play Magic the Gathering without getting your ass kicked by a SpongeBob deck. * Splitbeard, my nemesis. * The Kickstarter backer tier that nobody pledged to get. * Jim's beard braids, still floating around in a Ziploc bag somewhere. * Electroswing Jackson. * Trying to continue to evolve as an artist after you named yourself Chrono Trigger Remix DJ. * A sci-fi weird constructed zone. * The guy on the team who comes up with names like "banalia" * Fake scam Oxford English Dictionaries. * A Finn named Viznut. * The C program on Viznut's business card. * Recognizing the twelfth root of two in an obfuscated C program. * Bytebeat. * Generating audio in ShaderToy. * A closed form function of T that produces the Terminator theme. * Learning how to put GLSL into the GPU. * Needing the preceding 200 samples to produce the current sample so you just start at T-200 and start crunching numbers. * The oldest film on Netflix. (From 1987.) * Trying to finish X-Files before it leaves your streaming service. * Esper's power over the Futurama production schedule. * Why would you attack and dethrone God when you could summon God to help you fight a slime? * Trying to summon your god in a tough JRPG battle and she's like "not right now I'm editing a podcast." * Trying to describe a vocal sample without saying what the voice is saying. * The bitrate itself shaping new phonemes. * Wahoo vs. wahey vs. waheh. * The great darkness where sleep goes and farther death goes. * The gods choking on all the dreams you forget. * The dump trucks of tasteless gruel keep coming. * How to prevent the data miners determining exactly how far the mystery goes. * You Can't Data Mine Fallen London. * The character who doesn't exist in the game, only the game data files, because he erased himself. * Media where you can predict how much longer the story goes and media where you can't. * The forty second episode of Topic Lords. * The episode of Game Changer that had the fake "end of video" screen before the episode continues. * Hitting tab to switch to the next field. * Hitting tab to highlight the secret clickable button. * Bittorrenting all eight hours of Bandersnatch and watching every scene in random order. * How many names does a Seaman know? * Escaping the internet. * Binge watching the PiCoSteveMo development thread.

NFL KickStarter Jets Win and Syracuse Signs a Rapper?!

This time... On City On A Hill...Welcome back, and welcome to DarkSpace! We are playing a new Sci-Fi TTRPG, courtesy of DMing the World Press, called DarkSpace. You can find their website and Kickstarter down below. Join us as we get into nonsense almost immediately!DarkSpace - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dmingtheworld/darkspace-sci-fi-rules-for-shadowdarkhttps://www.dmingtheworld.com/Derek - http://geekpreacher.org/https://linktr.ee/thegeekpreacherJustin - Saving the Game Discord or City On A Hill DiscordGreg - https://bsky.app/profile/taos777.bsky.socialShanna - Saving the Game Discord or City On A Hill DiscordGrant - https://linktr.ee/vaguegrantBig thanks to our supporters! Grizzly Rich, JD, Bryan, Sir Lord Epicname, Andrew, Christina, Tonyhttps://www.patreon.com/cityonahillgamingCheck us out at @cityonahillgaming.bsky.social on BlueSky or email us at cityonahillgaming@gmail.comUs on the Discord - https://discord.gg/N2Qj8fk5wELeave us a rating/review on iTunes or whatever awesome podcast app you use. And tell us where you listen to the fun!

FOX on Games continues its holiday gift guide, focusing on the rapidly growing mobile segment. We review the innovative, Kickstarter-funded Ohsnap! MCON Controller, which uses a magnetic, foldable design for secure phone connectivity and protection. Plus, we revisit our conversation with Dylan Burgess (@PUKGaming), the creator of the PUK Gaming silicon add-on, who explains how his simple device makes touchscreen games "feel more natural" and transforms the screen into a traditional joystick plane. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

!!!Please subscribe!!! Hosted by Daniel Coolbaugh For this episode of Season 5, I had the pleasure to chat with Adrian M. Gibson and Frasier Armitage about their Kickstarter Project-Book of Spores Anthology! We had a great chat about their process in creating their anthology, what they learned from the process, and their future projects. Make sure to check out their Kickstarter at this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fanfiaddict/the-book-of-spores-a-fungal-sff-anthology?ref=discovery&term=book%20of%20spores%20anthology&total_hits=1&category_id=324 Check out both FanFiAddict and SFF Addicts channels below: FanFiAddict: https://fanfiaddict.com/ SFF Addicts: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSRMtzayhbWxPFjIxNqcE3MYzCQZsK1F3 Adrian M. Gibson: Email: adrian.marc.gibson@gmail.com Website: https://adrianmgibson.com SFF Addicts Podcast: https://linktr.ee/SFFAddicts Buy Mushroom Blues HERE: https://amzn.to/3PxREzp Frasier Armitage: https://frasierarmitage.com/ Podcast Channel Links: Patreon: patreon.com/TFSFP Website: https://thefantasyandscififanaticspod.com/ Youtube Channel Subscription: https://youtube.com/@thefantasyandsci-fifanatic2328 Rss.com: https://media.rss.com/thefantasyandsci-fifanaticspodcast/feed.xml Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aCCUhora9GdLAduLaaqiu?si=cl-8VWgaSrOGDwJg-cKONQ Facebook Group join link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/402724958101648/?ref=share

This Week on Toy Power Podcast; we once again have Canadian local: Colin Betts present in the studio!! Leaning on Colin's expertise around all things G.I. Joe; we are having another Fun round of THE TEAM! This round specifically targeting The Enemy: Cobra! Narrowing our selection even further, Toy characters released only between the years of 1982 & 1987. Highlighting the Classic Team tributes of: Leader, Muscle, Specialist, Wheelman & of course a Vehicle too. Voting on who makes the cut once all submissions are shouted out. Then we attack our next topic; Toy Catalogues! Another one of Colin's passion projects; & Ben presents him with his own small collection of only Two Australian Catalogues; that funnily enough Colin doesn't own!! A fun discussion around Catalogues in general & what makes them so appealing!Support the show: http://patreon.com/toypowerpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever chased a glowing orb through three dungeons, only to find out it's just... a really fancy paperweight? Congratulations, you've met a MacGuffin! This week, the RPGBOT crew dissects the mysterious art of the object that drives your players forward, whether it's the One Ring, the Orb of Shiny Plot Device, or the legendary Sandwich of Ultimate Power. Grab your notes, your dice, and your vague sense of purpose, because we're going beyond the plot twist. Randall James' Melancon Before you roll for insight, roll on over to Amazon and grab Randall James' novella Melancon—a hauntingly beautiful story that pairs perfectly with a rainy game night and a cup of something strong. Support an indie author, dive into a darkly poetic world, and show Randall some love. Show Notes In this episode of the RPGBOT.Podcast, Tyler, Randall, and Ash dive deep into the narrative tool that keeps players moving: the MacGuffin. Whether it's a cursed relic, a kidnapped noble, or a mysterious prophecy, MacGuffins are storytelling fuel for Dungeon Masters and Game Masters across systems like Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder 2e. The hosts unpack what makes a good MacGuffin (and what makes a lazy one), explore how player agency and motivation interact with narrative devices, and share practical tips for integrating MacGuffins into campaigns without making them feel hollow or forced. Expect examples from movies, famous campaigns, and some spicy opinions on whether The Deck of Many Things is secretly the best—or worst—MacGuffin ever written. Key Takeaways A MacGuffin isn't the story—it's the spark. It gets the party moving, but your players should define what it means. Player motivation matters. Tie your MacGuffin to personal stakes or relationships to avoid "fetch quest fatigue." Use narrative misdirection wisely. A twist should feel earned, not like a reroll on your own plot. Every system benefits from good pacing. Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e, or your favorite indie TTRPG—MacGuffins can unify a campaign arc when used thoughtfully. Don't overcomplicate it. Sometimes, the shiny rock is just a shiny rock… until the players make it legendary. Support Indie Creators This holiday season, put your gold pieces where your heart is: support independent tabletop roleplaying game creators. Buy a zine, back a small Kickstarter, gift a module, or leave a review for your favorite indie game. Every little gesture helps the storytellers who keep our tables full of wonder, chaos, and laughter. Welcome to the RPGBOT Podcast. If you love Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and tabletop RPGs, this is the podcast for you. Support the show for free: Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app. It helps new listeners find the best RPG podcast for D&D and Pathfinder players. Level up your experience: Join us on Patreon to unlock ad-free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT Podcast, chat with us and the community on the RPGBOT Discord, and jump into live-streamed RPG podcast recordings. Support while you shop: Use our Amazon affiliate link at https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ and help us keep building tools and guides for the RPG community. Meet the Hosts Tyler Kamstra – Master of mechanics, seeing the Pathfinder action economy like Neo in the Matrix. Randall James – Lore buff and technologist, always ready to debate which Lord of the Rings edition reigns supreme. Ash Ely – Resident cynic, chaos agent, and AI's worst nightmare, bringing pure table-flipping RPG podcast energy. Join the RPGBOT team where fantasy roleplaying meets real strategy, sarcasm, and community chaos. How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra BlueSky: @rpgbot.net TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games BlueSky: @GravenAshes YouTube: @ashravenmedia Randall James BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG Amateurjack.com Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link) Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati

Well be going through our favorite games on the go with the GameBoy. Jay NES Addict will be joining us as well ⁨@TigerChainsawVideoGames⁩ Joins for a little bit as well to talk about his NEW Gameboy he is developing on Kickstarter.

Comic Crusaders is thrilled to welcome back indie comics creator Dewayne Dority to the podcast! Known for building bold, imaginative stories in his Wakeverse, Dewayne returns to share updates on his creative journey and to unveil his latest Kickstarter project: LIAR. In this high-energy interview, host Al Mega dives into the inspiration behind LIAR, the challenges of running a Kickstarter, and how this new book expands on Dewayne's vision. Expect plenty of laughs, behind-the-scenes stories, and the raw truth about the indie comic grind. Whether you're a long-time supporter or new to Dewayne's work, this episode will inspire you to support indie storytelling and check out LIAR before the campaign ends!

In Part II of our conversation, Nick Schwellenbach, a Senior Investigator at the Project on Government Oversight, shares his insights from his time in the U.S. Office of Special Counsel–a government agency set up after Watergate, meant to protect us from the next Nixon. So, what happened?  In this week's bonus show, we're looking for checks-and-balances. With a grifter-in-chief enriching himself and his family, following in the footsteps of overthrown Kremlin-backed kleptocrat Viktor Yanukovych, we're especially curious about the Hatch Act–whatever happened to that? This Thanksgiving, we're grateful for our Gaslit Nation listeners with us in the fight of our lives, for a livable future for our families and the world. We wish you all a restful holiday season, as we charge up for battle in the 2026 Midterms–building another blue tsunami together. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit! Art is a big source of our power. We're proud to share with you a Kickstarter by longtime Gaslit Nation listener Leslie Nuss to help her release her next album, Ride at Dawn. Check out and support her work here!: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leslienuss/ride-at-dawn-the-new-12-track-vinyl-lp-cd-by-leslie-nuss/posts   EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION: December 1st 4pm ET – Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky + Total Resistance by H. Von Dach – Poetry and guerrilla strategy: tools for survival and defiance. Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: join on Patreon.  Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: join on Patreon.  Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect, join on Patreon.  Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join, join on Patreon.  Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group, join on Patreon.  Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community  

Celebrate a Celtic Thanksgiving with music full of blessings, homecoming, and heartfelt gratitude. From Irish blessings to Scottish toasts, this episode is a warm table filled with the musicians who've made this community thrive. Fill your cup. Let's give thanks together on show  #736 of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast  -  -  Subscribe now! Clanna Morna, Adam Agee & Jon Sousa, Irishtown Road, The Friel Sisters, The Fire, The Gothard Sisters, Marys Lane, Brobdingnagian Bards, Ironwood, Ogham, Charlene Adzima, Tallymoore, Heather Dale, Clare Cunningham, Wolf Loescher, Eclectic Revival, Bealtaine GET CELTIC MUSIC NEWS IN YOUR INBOX The Celtic Music Magazine is a quick and easy way to plug yourself into more great Celtic culture. Enjoy seven weekly news items with what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Subscribe now and get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. VOTE IN THE CELTIC TOP 20 FOR 2025 This is our way of finding the best songs and artists each year. You can vote for as many songs and tunes that inspire you in each episode. Your vote helps me create this year's Best Celtic music of 2025 episode. You have until December 4 to vote for this episode. Vote Now! You can follow our playlist on YouTube to listen to those top voted tracks as they are added every 2 - 3 weeks. THIS WEEK IN CELTIC MUSIC 7:41 - Clanna Morna "Otter's Holt / Sweeney's Buttermilk" from From The Lowlands To The High Seas 3:49 - WELCOME 5:27 - Adam Agee & Jon Sousa "Runs in the Family / Angry Birds" from Suantraí 7:41 - Irishtown Road "Irish Blessing" from On the One Road 12:38 - The Friel Sisters "Miss Johnstone's/The Ladies' Pantalettes/The Virginia/The Road to Lisdoonvarna (Hop Jig/Reels)" from Northern Sky 16:32 - The Fire "Auld Lang Syne" from The Fire's Very Scottish Christmas 20:04 - FEEDBACK 22:58 - The Gothard Sisters "Follow the Wind" from Moment in Time 26:31 - Marys Lane "Gypsys Dance / The Kesh Jig" from Wild Unknown 29:10 - Brobdingnagian Bards "Slainte Mhaith" from Another Faire to Remember 31:19 - Ironwood "Planxty Caper Set" from Gretna Green 35:14 - Ogham "Her Long Dark Hair Flowing Down her Back / The Home Ruler" from The Gold Ring 39:44 - Charlene Adzima "An Cailin Rua" from The Initiation 43:28 - THANKS 45:33 - Tallymoore "Home to Donegal" from Drive 51:58 - Heather Dale "Weaver" from The Green Knight 55:22 - Clare Cunningham "Home Again" from ON MY WAY (AR MO BHEALACH) 59:37 - Wolf Loescher "At Home with the Exiles" from Immigrant Songs 1:04:24 - Eclectic Revival "Come Back Home" from Life & Love 1:08:34 - CLOSING 1:09:47 - Bealtaine "The Parting Glass" from Factories & Mills, Shipyards & Mines 1:13:19 - CREDITS Support for this program comes from Cascadia Cross Border Law Group, Creating Transparent Borders for more than twenty five years, serving Alaska and the world. Find out more at   www.CascadiaLawAlaska.com Support for this program comes from Hank Woodward. Support for this program comes from Dr. Annie Lorkowski of Centennial Animal Hospital in Corona, California. Support for this program comes from International speaker, Joseph Dumond, teaching the ancient roots of the Gaelic people. Learn more about their origins at Sightedmoon.com The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast was produced by Marc Gunn, The Celtfather and our Patrons on Patreon. The show was edited by Mitchell Petersen with Graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs. Visit our website to follow the show. You'll find links to all of the artists played in this episode. Todd Wiley is the editor of the Celtic Music Magazine. Subscribe to get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. Plus, you'll get 7 weekly news items about what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Best of all, you will connect with your Celtic heritage. Please tell one friend about this podcast. Word of mouth is the absolute best way to support any creative endeavor. Finally, remember. Clean energy isn't just good for the planet, it's good for your wallet. Solar and wind are now the cheapest power sources in history. But too many politicians would rather protect billionaires than help working families save on their bills. Real change starts when we stop allowing the ultra - rich to write our energy policy and run our government. Let's choose affordable, renewable power. Clean energy means lower costs, more freedom, and a planet that can actually breathe. Promote Celtic culture through music at http://celticmusicpodcast.com/. WELCOME THE IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST * Helping you celebrate Celtic culture through music. I am Marc Gunn. I'm a Celtic musician and also host of Pub Songs & Stories. Every song has a story, every episode is a toast to Celtic and folk songwriters. Discover the stories behind the songs from the heart of the Celtic pub scene. This podcast is for fans of all kinds of Celtic music. We are here to build a diverse Celtic community and help the incredible artists who so generously share their music with you. If you hear music you love, please email artists to let them know you heard them on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. Musicians depend on your generosity to release new music. So please find a way to support them. Buy a CD, Album Pin, Shirt, Digital Download, or join their community on Patreon. You can find a link to all of the artists in the shownotes, along with show times, when you visit our website at celticmusicpodcast.com. Or email follow@bestcelticmusic to learn how to subscribe to the podcast. I will send you a free music - only episode. If you're in a Celtic band, you will also learn how to get your music played on the podcast and get a free eBook called Celtic Musicians Guide to Digital Music. It's 100% free. Again email follow@bestcelticmusic Thanksgiving reminds us how good it feels to pause, breathe, and say thanks. Today, we celebrate the music and the musicians who bring joy to our lives. You'll hear jigs, reels, blessings, toasts, and songs about coming home. If you discover new music you love, support the artists. Every download, every follow, every share…those are acts of gratitude too. Thank you for being a part of our musical journey. CELTIC CHRISTMAS MUSIC PODCAST FOLLOW OUR KICKSTARTER PRE - LAUNCH PAGE I just setup a pre - launch page for our next Kickstarter in January. Once again, this will be for funding a Best of 2025 compilation album on CD or Album Pin or even as a Shirt. Follow the link in the shownotes, so you can be the first to get a copy of our next compilation. Only 100 CDs and 100 album pins will be made. Follow the Kickstarter. HAVE YOU HEARD OF ALBUM PINS? Just like this podcast, they are changing the way we hear Celtic music. There were several folks who showed at the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast booth at IrishFest Atlanta. Several people were confused about the album pins I talk about on this show. So I thought I'd share details. An album pin is a lapel pin. Each pin is themed to a particular album I've released. You get a digital download of the album. And then you can wear your help. It's fashion and music combined as one. My pins are beautifully designed and wood burned locally. This makes them better for the environment. If you want to learn more about Album Pins, you can read more about them on my celtfather.Substack.com or just buy one at magerecords.com THANK YOU PATRONS OF THE PODCAST! Your support makes the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast possible, nearly every week of the year. You're not just funding a show. You're fueling a movement that shares the magic of Celtic music with thousands around the world. Your generosity covers everything from audio engineering and artwork to the Celtic Music Magazine, show promotion, and buying music from independent Celtic artists. If you're not a patron yet? You're missing out! You get ✨ Early access to episodes

Jamie Buckner's filmmaking journey is one built on passion, persistence, and pure creative drive. After exploring careers in music, architecture, and art, he realized filmmaking combined everything he loved into one pursuit. Starting as a production assistant, Jamie worked his way through Hollywood's ranks on major films like Seabiscuit, The Departed, and John Wick: Chapter Two. But while learning from industry giants, he continued writing his own scripts — most notably Split, a romantic comedy centered around bowling. Determined to bring his vision to life, Jamie self-financed the project, ran a successful Kickstarter campaign, and transformed a short proof-of-concept into a full feature film.His experience on Split became a masterclass in independent filmmaking — from balancing day jobs to managing budgets, post-production challenges, and distribution. The result was a feel-good movie that found audiences on multiple streaming platforms. Through his story, Jamie reminds aspiring filmmakers that creativity must be paired with discipline, resourcefulness, and an unshakable belief in your own ideas. His message is simple but powerful: if storytelling is in your blood, keep writing, keep filming, and never stop creating — because that's what makes you a true filmmaker.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Our hosts return to the Podcave and are joined by returning special guest Mathew Valencia, the voice of Robin, to review his favourite episode, GROWING PAINS. Mathew shares memories of making this Emmy Award–winning episode and explains why it remains so special to him. He highlights his time working with Ron Perlman and Francesca Marie Smith, and how collaborating with them elevated his performance and pushed him to take on a more serious approach for this episode.Alex and Will also discuss the redesign of Clayface, the episode's continuity following his last appearance in MUDSLIDE, and the movie that inspired Annie's look. Also, Batman finds out who Daddy is...Thumbnail Art by George CaltsoudasTip Jar: https://buymeacoffee.com/batmantaspodOutbreaks Issue 4 Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/speechcomics/outbreaks-1-4-an-ongoing-zombie-anthology-seriesMobster Mash 1-2 Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/speechcomics/mobster-mash-1-2-classic-movie-monsters-as-mobstersJoin Our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/bQF76V3nUsFollow us on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.tiktok.com/@batmantaspod?_t=8zn1yhsgnfz&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.youtube.com/@batmantaspodFollow the Pod on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.instagram.com/batmantaspod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow the Pod on Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.facebook.com/BatmanTASPod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow the Pod on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://twitter.com/batmantaspod1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Will's Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.patreon.com/willrobsonSpeech Comics Website⁠: https://www.speechcomics.com/Will's WhatNot Page⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.whatnot.com/user/speechcomics

Today's episode journeys into the heart of 14th-century West Africa as we explore the upcoming comic Musa: Lion of Mali. Join as we talk with Adeatoyshe Heru and TJ Sterling about reimagining the rise of Mansa Musa—the richest man in history—as a sweeping heroic saga filled with intrigue, battles, loyalty, legacy, and destiny.We discuss how the comic combines historical authenticity with high-energy action, the artistic vision shaping ancient Mali through the lens of historical fantasy, and the importance of telling epic stories rooted in Black history.TJ and Ade also give us a first look at what's inside the Kickstarter, speaking on the creative team ranging from industry veterans to passionate interns who wanted to be a part of the project. If you love powerful origin stories and stunning comic artistry, step into the world of Musa: Lion of Mali.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-faqs-project-hosted-by-james-grandmaster-faqs-boyce/donations

Send us a textIn Episode 97 of Playin' and Slayin', Ty and Troy settle in for a cozy, late-year catch-up: games played, hobby progress, Kickstarters backed, and a little Adepticon/DepthCon narrative plotting. They also expand the library segment into a mini year-end reading chat, talking Malazan, Primal Hunter, Critical Role's Mighty Nein animated series, and more of their favorite books and media from the year.There is also a video version of the podcast: https://youtu.be/A_gxT7qQejQOur theme music is by *FADEBACK*

Join the Three of Seven Project team as they discuss important topics.   BARBELL APPAREL Check out our favorite clothes that we wear everyday at BARBELL APPAREL WEBSITE Barbell Apparel was founded with a simple vision: clothing should be better. Founded by a team of friends and athletes, we started our story by launching our Athletic Fit Jeans on Kickstarter. That campaign grew past our wildest expectations, becoming the 2nd most funded fashion project of all time, and sparking a change across the fashion industry to bring "Athletic Fit" mainstream. https://barbellapparel.com/products/adapt-carry-short   Check out 3 of 7 Project https://www.3of7project.com Apply for Rite of Passage at: https://www.3of7project.com/train Thank you for supporting Three of Seven Podcast on Patreon at: www.patreon.com/threeofseven Three of Seven Project Store https://3of7project.myshopify.com/pages/shop Apply for The Basic Course at: https://www.3of7project.com/train Check out the Three of Seven Project Youtube channel at: Three of Seven Project Youtube  Nuff Said.

Jamie and Don, freshly back from PAX Unplugged 2025 in Philadelphia, have been getting into some board, card, and dice rumbles lately, and they wanted to dig into the many styles of combat systems in board games. Deterministic versus random, complex versus streamlined, dice versus cards - there's a lot of ground to cover. Also, our yearly fundraiser is currently running on Kickstarter! Support us now at https://www.thesecretcabal.com/kickstarter

Send us a textIt's all about indie horror on this episode as we welcome actors Brett Wagner (The Crazies) and John Fiore (Sopranos) along with producer Jeff Descoteaux to discuss the indie horror project Shiver: Slaying All Night which also stars Martin Klebba, Warrington Gillette, and Vincente DiSanti. This Christmas/winter themed horror is one that promises to bring some fun, 80's homage horror set in modern times.To get in on the action, check out the Kickstarter with tons of perks at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shiver/shiver-slaying-all-night?ref=discovery&term=shiver&total_hits=105&category_id=297Follow us on Social Media: @pvdhorror Instagram, X, TikTok, FacebookWatch us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@pvdhorrorSpecial thanks to John Brennan for the intro and outro music. Be sure to find his music on social media at @badtechno or the following:https://johnbrennan.bandcamp.com

The History  I started my shopify store around the 10th December 2023 after a viral video on TikTok on December 8th. So I integrated with Bookvault and stayed with POD shipping until February 2025. Since February 2025, I've been distributing and fulfilling all orders from my website in my own warehouse. These are the lessons I've learned from the last ten months of running my own website sales and distribution. And yes, I will talk numbers, but I'm making you wait till the end! Please note, I will talk about finances, systems and the occasional legal thing. Absolutely nothing I say is financial, legal or tax advice. You must seek advice from professionals in your own countries and tax territories. I recognise that this model is not for 99% of authors. It's a LOT of work. It's a lot of logistics, a lot of peopling, team building, paperwork and problem solving. This is as far removed from sitting behind a desk and writing 24/7 as you can get.  Do not listen to this with an open heart. Be skeptical, that will keep you on the right track for creating a business you love. But know that I do love this and I am framing these lessons learned from that perspective. Why Direct? I'd always had a transactional website for Sacha Black work but it barely did £20 a month. So I knew the work I was about to scramble to do for Ruby may be for nothing. But I didn't want to be beholden to TikTok the way I'd been beholdened to other sources of income and I knew if I'd gone viral once, I could do it again and that would lead to relying on TikTok. What do I mean why? Two reasons: why should you as an author have a direct store but also why should readers come to you? For you, you can earn more per sale. POD companies integrating with shopify automatically give you more as there are no hidden fees. But when you shift to print runs you more than half the cost of printing each book. Of course you also give yourself a host of other problems like fulfillment and overheads, but you gain a lot more product flexibility and potential meaning you have the opportunity to make bigger profit. BUT and this is a big but, you have to work out what you want your business to look like. That said, there are consequences. I usually write and publish 3 books a year and this year I've dropped to 2 published. Though I will have written a 3rd and a short story by the end of the year. But I wasn't able to get that third one published. Despite that, this is going to be my biggest year ever for income. It already beat last year in 7 months. Which goes to show that you don't have to be rapid releasing anymore to make good money. The fact I've not published three, is a direct consequence of the warehouse and also the increasing team size and the need to train staff. Thankfully due to the Kickstarter, some rights deals an big increase in direct sales of products and merch, I haven't seen a dip in income. Which goes to show that you don't have to be rapid releasing anymore to make good money. There are other benefits like reader loyalty because you're treating them better, you are able to provide higher quality books and with extra goodies and sign all the books for example. And that's really the heart of the mindset shift you need to have and how you should frame thinking about a direct store. Why should a reader bother coming to you when they can get next day shipping for free on Amazon? Can you answer that before you set up your store? For me this looks like three promises: Every book that leaves the warehouse is handsigned by me (I do this in batches and sign for 4-5 hours and get several thousand books signed in one go so it doesn't disturb writing time.) They get extra bonuses for ordering directly like stickers, bookmarks and character art. Last, if they preorder a book in any format I have for sale on the website, it will get shipped BEFORE the public release date. We aim for delivery a couple of weeks prior but it depends on print runs and me hitting deadlines. Things to consider before leaving POD direct and moving to self fulfillment: Where are you going to stock your books? Do you have local warehousing facilities or somewhere you own you can use? Stock requires more space than you think. Because it's not just books you need space for, it's packaging, and space for parcels before collection and space for a computer and printer etc. What is your cash flow like? Do you have the capital that you can risk losing to spend on investing in this? Thanks to great advice from one of my closest author pals, I didn't buy shipping containers for conversion to put on family land which was a circa 40k investment. Instead I rented a warehouse so that I was only risking the cost of one year's rent circa 9k and I'd also be able to up and leave and close everything down if it went wrong. What's your problem solving resiliency like? Solving problems, if it's not your bag, is relentlessly exhausting. Problems arise in all areas of this business, from shipping to label printing to packaging to import and export paperwork, to sourcing products, VAT, pricing, website, delivery issues. Etc. The list is long. Honestly? There's rarely a day without some kind of issue that needs resolving. How does that make you feel? Excited or horrified? Pay attention to those emotions. The only business you should be building is one that brings you joy. Last, is the reality that if you want to fulfill direct yourself you *will* need staff—if you want to continue to write that is. If you think about it, POD direct staff your website for you. They have teams packing the boxes, printing labels and shipping everything for you. So no matter which way you cut it, whether it's you organising staff or your printers, someone has to do the leg work. Mindset shifts eCommerce  Yes I'm an author, but running your own fulfillment from website sales means you also run an eCommerce business. And over and above that, I now run a physical product business because we have merchandise. Those combined make for a very, very different business structure and set of problems compared to the old school models of being an indie author. Traffic Direction First of all and most basic of all. I direct all traffic to my website without exception. My primary links on social media are my website. If people ask where they can buy my books, it's my website. If they say they can't then I'll direct them online to a more well known store.   Schedules are a bitch.  When you're writing in a solo business and uploading your books online, your schedule is essentially your own. When you then bring on a team, they are reliant on you delivering on time to make sure they can do their job. How does that make you feel? Knowing you *have* to deliver for someone else? For a long time I really hated being beholden to deadlines—probably a corporate spill over. But being responsible for a team and needing to deliver for them is very different. I adore my team, I love them and care about them and I *want* to deliver on time for them. This is a total re-framing for me. It's the right kind of pressure and responsibility attached to a deadline. Does that mean my creativity needs to show up on time? Sure, but I find this motivating because it's the right people around me. However, the first book post warehouse opening, we were all still learning and mistakes were made. I delivered one book late. That pushed everything and made a lot of the timelines difficult including getting the printed books delivered on time. For Architecti there were two main problems: a solid 20% of the order arrived damaged by rain. But we'd already sold almost all the initial print run so we couldn't spare 20% and thus didn't have enough stock to cover our preorders. So this caused a lot of anxiety. Under ordering stock is a terrifying prospect. As is over ordering because do you have enough space for it and what if you then don't sell it?  The second mistake was releasing a book without checking the diaries of the warehouse team who happened to be on holiday during the fulfillment process. Which in a bout of shit timing, my mum then got sick in the crucial week. Meaning I had to stop writing and fulfill 1000 preorders single handedly. It was grueling physically, mentally and emotionally doing it on my own. We're never having that cluster fuck again.  So we've produced a heat map style document with everyone's leave, delivery dates, deadlines for me, product ordering dates, prepping dates and fulfillment periods etc. This was an enormous lesson in logistics of both a warehouse and people. Exclusivity Kindle Unlimited works for a reason. It has books exclusive to Amazon, you literally cannot get them anywhere else. Meaning you're forced to get them there. If that worked for Amazon, you can bet you're arse it works for others.  So I stole the idea. I have four novellas /short stories that I publish exclusively on my website. Does that mean a huge risk for loss of visibility and potential sales? Absolutely. No rank, no visibility in the biggest algorithm machine in the world. But it is also one of the key sales tactics I've used to get readers over to me. And boy has it worked. I make sure it's content I know they'll want, I flash the extra books on my reels and videos and then the questions flood in — how do I get those books… Well I'll tell you…! Preorders Preorders are both a gift and a logistical nightmare. How to get them? We ran an enormous campaign for Architecti. Ending up with 1027 paperbacks, 323 hardbacks and 193 ebooks. For a total 1543 preorders on my website. Plus over 1000 ebooks on Amazon. So the total preorders were in excess of 2500 preorders. Firstly you have to ask why should readers preorder direct to you? As mentioned earlier we make three promises: Everything is signed They get extras and goodies including a Roe-Mantics popsocket, series sticker and bookmark and an art print. As well as a Ruby Roe reading tracking and reading order and some stickers. They get the books delivered early (ebook and physical) We promoted the shit out of these three facts and I do believe this is the reason we did so well. That, plus almost two years of pushing direct sales and building reader trust. I won't go into all the marketing we did as this is a podcast about the warehouse. But we pushed HARD. We made a couple of mistakes: We didn't order enough books. We ordered 1000 paperbacks and ended up having to do a second print run because we sold over 1000 and obviously knew we needed stock on hand for general sales — a good problem to have obviously. But if we had ordered a higher quantity from the start we would have had a better price per book and saved ourselves some money and increased profit. That's a tough lesson to learn as we're always having to balance cashflow. The second mistake was packaging. We pride ourselves on making sure the books arrive in pristine condition. The consequence of that is how long it takes to package. The primary damage a book can fall prey to is the rain, or being dropped. We were individually wrapping each book in foam or bubble wrap before putting them inside bookwraps with the goodies to ship. This took me almost two weeks to do for circa a thousand parcels. I spoke to my warehouse neighbour who is a book box subscription company and discovered that they ship 1000 parcels in a couple of days because they uses origami boxes with packing peanuts and a plastic exterior envelope bag for water protection. This results in them working at a significantly faster rate than us. And has led us to get boxes designed and we're in the process of ordering 10k boxes. Customer Communication Customer communication has been an absolute maelstrom. The more products we create, the more complex everything gets. Becca used to be primarily a scheduler for me. Now, she's moved to be a customer services manager. Major issues include: when they preorder a book and put a published book into the same order. This is a means we have to email them to let them know they have two options: either we refund and they order separately or they wait for both their books. This is a huge problem as there are a number of preorders live at any one time and thus a ton of customer communication needed. It has gotten better as we have educated our repeat customers, put messages and labels on the site. But it is an ever present problem. We have decided to commission a coder to write some code for shopify so that we can charge two lots of shipping and split ship. We've also had so many communications about the tariffs. This has been so difficult because we are not the ones charging but we are the first point of call. It is in large part due to the team being incredible that we got through this. Last, I still receive an email for every single order. So I do one additional thing. I make a point to keep an eye on when someone has ordered multiple times in short succession and then send them to the team to refund duplicate postage.  Protecting Writing Time This is so vital. And has been the hardest part of having a warehouse. I definitely feel like I lost 6 months of writing time. It's the reason I barely managed to get Architecti done, and the reason I didn't meet my primary goal of getting ahead of production this year. Staffing means interruptions. But more than that, having the discipline to put my phone on do not disturb or muting team chats while I write. Now that we're up to speed, refining processes and we have SOPs in place, I am finding it easier and easier to not go to the warehouse. We also stopped having the smaller deliveries sent to my house and instead they're going to my team's houses or direct to the warehouse. Regulations and Tariffs  With a physical product business there are so many more regulations and acronyms and pieces of law that you have to deal with. The level of bureaucracy is quite astonishing and has caused a number of headaches. These headaches are not the type of headaches that most authors would want to deal with. You have to choose the poison you want to drink and I genuinely recognise that 99% of authors would not want this headache. The other matter here is that the regulations have required a colossal amount of time spent on them. More time than we anticipated. Something new is always being thrown at us and usually things that we do not have knowledge on. So we're constantly in a state of adapting and learning. This is both wonderful and also a little gruelling.  As there's not many people doing this we don't have many options for checking we're on the right path, so having to trust ourselves that we've done the best we can with the knowledge we have. And also recognise that it's okay to not know everything. Logistics There's been a lot of logistic lessons learned too. Firstly, that shipping providers are a nightmare. They're massive organisations and that means corporate bureaucracy. Lots of being passed between departments and having to wait for responses. You're probably going to need additional app integrations some of which will cost. Just pay for the apps because it will make your life simpler. We have a DPD integration app that makes handling and managing preorders and labels considerably easier. Batch as much as you can: like signing books, preparing freebie packets, cutting foam and pre-building boxes. Batch packaging, in particular for preorders. For example, all the UK paperbacks then all the UK hardbacks etc. It's easier to do the same thing over and over and then task switch than it is to do it higgledy piggledy. Timelines  Understanding the timelines for launches has been quite the challenge. When you're a solo indie you are in charge of your own time. When you have a team, and other people do parts of the publishing process, you're no longer working on your own schedule. Combined with the fact that a huge percentage of my turnover comes from physical book sales. This means we have to do print runs. Instead of loading up to KDP or the POD services and knowing it will be live the next day or a few days later after a proof copy. Print runs take a couple of days to finalise the files (up to several months for international printers) and then 2-3 weeks to print and deliver to the warehouse for UK printers, and several weeks to months for international. We then have to unpack them and check the quality and then I have to sign them. I am pretty fast at signing now and choose to sign in long batches 4-5 hours at a time and usually manage 1-2000 books in that time. The other timelines that need to be considered are how long things take to pack. But I've already talked about that. But it is something that needs to be considered when planning preorder fulfillment. The more preorders we get, the more significant the time it takes, that or we need more people to help pack. The Money This is the bit everyone is interested. All costs are in GBP.  Set up costs for the warehouse were approximately £4-5000. This included the deposit, racking, furniture etc. In total, I've spent 100k on printing this year. However a significant portion of that was on the Kickstarter. So I don't count that in the costs for the warehouse. Those sit at £61,171. We are still holding a huge amount of stock in the warehouse so this spend should start to even out. In December 2023 I started the shop around 10th December, I made just shy of £1700 which I think was mostly due to the viral TikToks. In the month of May 2024 I broke £5000. November 2024 I broke 10k for the first time and in December 2024 I broke 15k. That was the month I knew I needed to take advantage of what I was building. I knew I wanted to do more for readers who were clearly willing to buy direct. In 2024, the website turned over £73.5k. I collected keys for the warehouse of January 31st. It took a couple of weeks to set the warehouse up and then we had print runs delivered around the 17th and started shipping on Feb 20th 2025. That was a £16k month, and the first time my Shopify sales beat my Amazon, only by a couple hundred pounds, but it still beat it. It wasn't lost on me that it was the first month I had taken control of distribution. April eclipsed Amazon at 29k and I've stayed between 15 and 29k a month since — Finally in November 2025, I surpassed 30k. As of 21st November we're standing at 222k for the year. I suspect we will end up with turnover somewhere between 230 and 250k for 2025.  Creating definitive turnover and net profit calculations are difficult. What I can tell you is that between the warehouse, staff for the warehouse, utilities and insurances I spend approximately 18-1900 a month (21-23k per year). Shipping varies between 500 and 1500 a week on average but on preorder weeks it can spike to 8k. The highest month for shipping was 11k. I suspect for the year it will be roughly 45-55k.  So for print costs, staffing, rent and shipping the total is approximately £133,971. I estimate 4-7k on other costs like packaging and freebies. So let's estimate £140k spend for £222k turnover. So I estimate approximately £82,000 in profit - to which I'll then have to pay tax. That's a 36% profit. Not as high as I'd like, but also it's year one and spend is always higher in year one because of set up. I expect that as we move into year two that will grow and my aim is to reach 45% but the ultimate goal will be 50% I'm not sure if this is possible but we will try. We have a lot of stock that we can sell without having to spend out anymore.  In terms of granular costs to give you an idea of profit on the detail level: The cost of each book is loosely £2.20 per paperback for which we charge £10.99 on average. We allow for £1 of that to cover packaging and freebies. Meaning £3.20 of costs. Though this doesn't include a % for warehouse overheads. I don't have any advertising costs. I have bought all customers in from my mailing list, TikTok and Instagram. On average my returning customer rate is 35%. However, in months where I set up a new product preorder, that rate shoots up. For November 2025 it's 56%. Similarly, my average conversion rate is 5.83% conversion rate. What's interesting is that in those early months my conversion rate was 3.18%. This month it's 8.53%. I think this increase is twofold. First, I have a high returning customer rate, this automatically increases the conversion rate as your customers want what you're providing. Second, I think my marketing has gotten better and better. We're providing more books, stories and products that my audience wants and we're also getting better at marketing to market. Cash Flow One of the best things I did was create multiple pots and accounts. For a long time I'd lived under the assumption you could only have one business bank account. That was bad advice from an accountant. I have since left them and now have an excellent accountant. I've also had lots of advice from a dear friend who knows far more about money and systems than me.  Cash flow can either sky rocket or cripple a business. And when you run a physical business the numbers you run with are so much higher that you can easily crush your company. One of my favourite tactics is to create mini pots and split money up. For every preorder we run I create a pot in my bank, like a mini bank and every week I put the amount earned for that preorder product into the pot. If the product requires a print run, I pay for it out of that pot. If we have to buy wholesale merch, I take it from that pot etc. I also set aside money for tax each month. I move both personal tax money and corporation tax money and set it aside in a high interest savings account. The biggest outflows for running a distribution warehouse are staffing, warehouse rent, shipping and print runs.  For Architecti specifically, we had to do two print runs because we under ordered books. Meaning I had to outflow huge amounts of money twice. The print runs totalled £11,630. Plus 11,000 in shipping fees for that month. If I didn't have the money set aside for this, it could easily have pushed me into debt. One of the main things I did to help prevent cashflow issues, is have dozens of pots inside my bank accounts.  Every week the team calculates the income for orders and shipping for each product we have on preorder (there are always usually 2 to 3) and then I transfer that money to individual pots. Meaning I save all the money from preorders right up until launch. I then take the money for the print runs from this pot and for the shipping. What's left is the profit which is taxable so I move the tax money into my tax pot and then keep the rest. This is the safest way I've found for managing cashflow and ensuring I don't spend money that needs to be saved for specific things. I also have an entirely separate account for my shopify. So all print runs are paid for out of the shopify account. All shipping payments go out of that account. All printing for freebies etc comes from that account. It becomes totally self managing and over time it increases. Then if I want to take out chunks of profit, I do and keep the account at 20k. This is the equivalent of the average monthly turnover for the shopify. So should cover all bills or worst case scenarios.  I also have a tax pot where I move money each month. My accountants have a report that generates each month and estimates my tax. I then place my tax in a high interest account and leave it to earn some money before I have to pay it. Next Steps Business infrastructure. I recently visited Author Nation – the Las Vegas conference that was once 20books. There are so many areas for growth and improvement and I realised that I have essentially brut forced my way to the position I'm in. Upsell app Integration with better email upsell marketing system Possibly advertising Branded packaging

On today's new episode we talk to writer/publisher Dirk Manning about all things Source Point Press and his new comic on Kickstarter right now Tales of Mr. Rhee Vol. 6: Blood for BloodBack Tales of Mr. Rhee Vol. 6 on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dirkmanning/tales-of-mr-rhee-volume-6-blood-for-bloodNew episodes every THURSDAYFollow us on social media! Bluesky // Instagram // Twitter // TikTok :⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@comicsnchronic⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.youtube.com/channel/UC45vP6pBHZk9rZi_2X3VkzQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠E-mail: comicsnchronicpodcast@gmail.comCodyInstagram // Bluesky:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@codycannoncomedy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter: @Cody_CannonTikTok: @codywalakacannonJakeInstagram // Bluesky:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@jakefhaha⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AnthonyBluesky // Instagram // Threads // Twitter // TikTok:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mrtonynacho⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

The Final Sacrifice is one of the all-time great Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. But little is known about the behind the scenes stories of the film, the thoughts on the MST3K episode, and the cultural impact of ROWSDOWER. Launching on Kickstarter on Thanksgiving Day, The Making of The Final Sacrifice promises clarity on some of the mystery around the movie and its history. Director Tjardus Greidanus and composer Rob Skeet sits down with B-Movie Enema and Film Seizure's Geoff Arbuckle to talk about the movie, and the campaign. Donate to the Kickstarter campaign at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/realrowsdower/the-making-of-the-final-sacrifice

Talk To Your Cat About Gun Safety Zachary Auburn is on the show to deliver an important message. He wants you to know how to talk to your cat about gun safety, abstinence, drugs, Satanism, and other dangers that threaten their nine lives. Zach believes we can make our cats - and America - great again. Listen Now Music for Cats Topping Charts A special music album created just for cats is being lapped up by humans too, and has topped two classical music charts on Amazon and iTunes. Despite being allergic to cats, American cellist David Teie released "Music for Cats," featuring five instrumental compositions, after raising more than $200,000 on Kickstarter. On the album, bird chirping accompanies his cello playing, along with purring noises based on his theory, which he researched for two years, that mammals have an intuitive response to sounds present in their early development. Listen Now Drive-Thru Restaurant For Dogs Bane and Vader are a couple of gentle, barrel-shaped bulldogs. They're also the namesakes of a unique new business in Easton, Pennsylvania, "Bane and Vader's Drive-Thru Restaurant," exclusively for dogs. Pull up and order a FreshPet meal with your choice of add-ins, including fruits, vegetables, eggs, and peanut butter. You might even want to take home some doggie ice cream for dessert. Their mom, 30-year-old Amanda Brown, left her job as a pharmaceutical sales representative, but she's back to work making what she calls Yappy Meals and Bow-Wow Bowls for motorists who want to treat the pooches to something special. Her idea came from a survey that found one in six restaurant drive-thru customers pick up something for a dog, too. While some restaurants offer special menu items for dogs, In-N-Out Burger has a special unseasoned Pup Patty served in a doggy bag, and Starbucks offers a small cup of whipped cream called a Puppuccino. Bane & Vader's is strictly for the dogs. It has no special menu items for humans. Listen Now Airport Hires Therapy Dogs With the crowds and the lines, flying can be stressful. So, the Albuquerque, New Mexico, airport has come up with a way to calm you down when you travel. More than a dozen therapy dogs are joining the thousands of passengers at the airport. One of them is known as "Turbo," and he loves people. He especially loves to lick guys with beards. Turbo is one of 15 certified therapy dogs and K-9 ambassadors now giving peace to stressed-out travelers. Thanks to the 70 volunteers who handle the dogs, the program will soon expand the number of therapy dogs. Listen Now Read more about this week's show.

See what happens when women founders build together. RSVP and join us for the Dear FoundHer Forum Virtual Open House + Networking Session on December 9th!Natalie Holloway reveals how a simple idea sparked during a frustrating yoga class grew into a fitness brand that reshaped an entire category.Joining Lindsay Pinchuk, Natalie traces Bala's beginnings from a gut-level insight to a Kickstarter launch and then to the turning point that came with Shark Tank. She talks openly about rapid growth, the reality of running out of inventory, and the tough moment when she realized their team had grown faster than the business itself. Natalie explains how scaling back helped Bala regain clarity and why a lean structure now drives their strongest year yet. She also offers practical direction for early founders who want a business that can last. How do you know when to trust an idea that feels small? What protects a young company when momentum hits faster than expected? Natalie's answers land with experience and honesty, and this episode will leave you with a clearer sense of what sustainable growth really looks like.Episode Breakdown:00:00 Why Community And Support Matter For Women Founders Over 4005:17 Who Is Natalie Holloway And What Is Bala Fitness06:11 Leaving Advertising Burnout, Traveling Asia And Discovering The Bala Bangles Idea11:34 From Side Hustle To Kickstarter Funding Bala's First $40K Production Run14:19 Grassroots Marketing On Shopify, Social Media And In Studios To Prove Product Market Fit17:43 Shark Tank Appearance, Pandemic Fitness Boom And Bala's Explosive Growth21:47 Building Then Shrinking The Team: Lessons In Hiring Fast And Scaling Smarter26:44 Expanding Beyond Bangles: Volifying Dumbbells, Power Rings And The Fitness Category27:50 Best Year Yet: How Bala Became A Lean Profitable Business With Trusted Agency Partners30:51 Natalie's Top Three Lessons For Female Founders On Profit, Hiring And Passion35:33 Three Immediate Action Steps For New Entrepreneurs: Research, P&L And Documenting On SocialConnect with Natalie Holloway:Follow Natalie on InstagramFollow Bala on InstagramLinks:Check out our gift guide!Join us for our virtual networking and Forum Open HousePodcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Screenwriting is like a puzzle that the writers are putting together." When a television screenwriter who loves puzzles and immersive experiences turns her attention to creating a boxed puzzle game, the result is beguiling and thoroughly engrossing. The Morrison Game Factory has a deeply intimate and emotional story that pulled at my heartstrings while still engaging my puzzle brain. Screenwriter Lauren Bello created The Morrison Game Factory as puzzle challenge during the pandemic. It would have remained a small one-off game played only by her friends until Rita Orlov of PostCurious played it. She fell in love with the game, and worked with Lauren to produce the game under the PostCurious brand. We originally interviewed Rita of PostCurious on REPOD S2E7 when her award winning game Light in the Mist had just come out. Since then, PostCurious has continually produced hit after hit, including the charming puzzle-focused Ministry of Lost Things series, along with longer epics like Emerald Echoes and Threads of Fate which is a remake of the first game that Rita became known for. PostCurious games are impeccably produced. All the games have authentic-feeling props, heavyweight paper, and a beautiful artistic flair. The puzzles are intriguing, and range from light and playful to complex and layered. The storylines are always interesting and tie into the gameplay. Rita Orlov and Lauren Bello talk about their collaboration. We also spend some time dissecting all the new PostCurious games to hit the market since we last had Rita on Reality Escape Pod. I really enjoyed learning about Lauren's writing process, especially when she described it as a series of waveforms, layering the different plots, storylines, and vibe that she's trying to achieve. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to check out The Morrison Game Factory and PostCurious' newest game on Kickstarter, Ministry of Lost Things - Case 2: Finders Keypers.   Full Show Notes   Episode Sponsors We are immensely grateful to our sponsors this season: REA Patreon Backers, PG's Playhouse, Buzzshot, and COGS. We truly appreciate your support of our mission to promote and improve the immersive gaming community.   Support Us On Patreon Today Love escape rooms as much as we do? At Room Escape Artist, we've been analyzing, reviewing, and exploring the world of immersive games since 2014. We help players find the best experiences, and push the industry forward with well-researched, rational, and reasonably humorous escape room and immersive gaming content and events. By becoming a Patreon supporter, you're not just backing a blog — you're fueling a mission to make the escape room and immersive gaming community stronger, more thoughtful, and more connected. Access exclusive Patreon content such as: The Bonus Aftershow The Spoilers Club Early access to escape room Tour tickets and REA articles. Your Patreon support goes toward our mission: paying our contributors, funding our infrastructure, and supporting deep research and industry advocacy.   PG's Playhouse If you love wordplay, puzzles, and trivia, this is the podcast for you! PG's Playhouse recreates a fun game night, all in a short, 30-minute format. Of course, what's game night without making new friends? We bring on different guests for the different episodes. Each episode features a puzzle packed with wordplay and trivia, a short chat with the guest, and a segment exploring an interesting topic. I hope you'll take a listen and play along with us at PG's Playhouse.   Buzzshot Buzzshot is Escape Room Software, Powering Business Growth, Player Marketing, and improving the Customer Experience. They offer an assortment of pre and post game features including robust waiver management, branded team photos, and streamlined review management for Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google Reviews, and Morty. Buzzshot now has integration with the other REPOD sponsors: Morty and COGS. Special Offer for REPOD Listeners: REPOD listeners get an extended 21-day free trial plus 20% off your first 3 months, with no set-up fees or hidden charges. Visit buzzshot.com/repod to learn more about this exclusive offer.   COGS COGS by Clockwork Dog is an easy to use software/ hardware platform for running interactive events, including escape rooms, and other immersive experiences. They have plug & play hardware that seamlessly integrates with their software so you can create a show with lighting and sound cues without having to write a single line of code. Map all kinds of inputs to outputs by building up simple logic steps which determine what you want to happen and when. Special Offer for REPOD Listeners: REPOD listeners can get the COGS Starter Set for only $130 + free shipping to the USA. This bundle is usually valued at $257. You can learn more and purchase your Starter Set at cogs.show. Use code REPOD at checkout.   Production Credits Hosted by David Spira & Peih-Gee Law Produced by Theresa Piazza Supported by Lisa Spira Edited by Steve Ewing Music by Ryan Elder Logo by Janine Pracht  

Tyler James interviews Adam Freeman, founder of Prana Direct Market Solutions in a free-wheeling discussion about the present and future of the direct market, insights into the current comic book landscape, including the impact of the new generation of readers and the importance of quality and engagement. This episode is a must listen as it delves into interplay of Kickstarter, marketing, and building a brand in the comic book world.

What a great time to be a Star Wars fan and collector! SH Figuarts coming out with probably the most anticipated figures to date! We have our Star Wars Black Series and Vintage Collection updates and what to expect this Black Friday... Black Series Most Wanted Launches Dec 1st and Cube Squadron is the Kickstarter talk of the town!!!! Micro Galaxy Squadron environments? Come on!!! PLUS So much more on this episode of the TOYCHEST! Episode 45 Sarlacc Digest Podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/FQWEEra77C If you are interested in being a Patreon we will be indebted to you... https://www.patreon.com/sarlaccdigestpodcast Grab Merchandise Here: https://www.teepublic.com/user/sarlacc-digest-store For all your action figure stand needs and more: http://www.toschestationemporium.com use promo code for 10% off!: sarlaccdigestpodcast Formerly Tosche Station Emporium Youtube: Moocher's 3D Printing Lab: https://www.youtube.com/@Moochers3dprintinglab Check out Tommy at: https://www.youtube.com/@BlitzTransmissions Black Series Most wanted: https://www.instagram.com/blackseriesmostwanted/ Check out Alex at: https://www.youtube.com/@ShadoweKnowsNetwork Cube Squadron: https://www.instagram.com/p/DPquG4GDQTK/ Intro Music By: Michael Patsos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patsosm Contact us at: sarlaccdigestpodcast@gmail.com #starwarsfans #starwarsnews #starwarspodcast #sarlaccdigestpodcast

Jason and folks from the cast chat about Episodes 26-28 of Frostbourne and more! // CATCH UP ON FROSTBOURNE: • Find the Frostbourne Recap: Ep. 1-20 in our feed, right there between Episodes 20 and 21. It takes over forty hours of adventure and chaos and boils it down to just one. Perfect to catch up and share with friends, family, enemies—whoever! // FIND US: • Support the show on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/dandr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • Explore the world of Theria: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dandrpodcast.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠ • Join our Discord community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/DandR⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • Grab official D&R merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dandrpodcast.dashery.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠ // PARTNERS & PLUGS: • Check out LobStar, a graphic novel by our very own Jamieson Alcorn and Very Big Comics. Kickstarter ends early December 2025! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/verybigcomics/lobstar-0⁠⁠ • Play the Level Up A5E ruleset: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.levelup5e.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠(use code DANDR for a 5% discount) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we talk about being on the creator side of a Kickstarter launch (6:00), finding those pockets of time in the day be creative (10:30), how to convey story time without burning your story's real estate (17:15), and field notes from Fresno Comic Expo (27:00) before this week's topic: things to consider while drawing (33:15).

As the colder months arrive, I love leaning into warm, comforting herbal teas that are simple to prepare yet deeply supportive. In this video, I share some of my favorite quick and effective autumn tea blends that rely on the convenience of tea bags—perfect for those moments when we want herbal wellness without extra preparation.While I often work with loose herbs, I also appreciate the practicality and accessibility of high-quality tea bags, especially during busy fall and winter days. These blends offer nurturing support for the nervous system, digestion, and overall seasonal wellness.

Ever wondered how to elevate your podcast game and marketing strategy? In Episode 259 of the Crowdfunding Nerds, your hosts Andrew and Sean take you behind the scenes as they embark on a journey to upgrade both the audio and video quality of their show. Why is authenticity the secret sauce in marketing, and how can a simple AI-generated ad go hilariously wrong? We dive into these questions and more! Discover the importance of having a guiding principle, or "lonely mountain," to navigate through the ever-evolving marketing landscape. Learn why building an email list is more reliable than solely depending on Kickstarter followers, and explore the potential pitfalls of the $1 VIP pledge strategy. Join us as we chat about the power of diverse guest perspectives and the continuous learning needed to thrive in the crowdfunding world. Whether you're a seasoned creator or just getting started, this episode is packed with insights to boost your marketing game.   Links to Check Out: Table Tone App: https://www.tabletone.app/ Thank you to our sponsors! HeroTime1.com - Get a 3% discount off your Hero Time Manufacturing order using code: CrowdfundingNerds101 BridgeDist.com - We recommend Bridge Distribution & Fulfillment for US fulfillment and Amazon fulfillment. We use them for our own projects, too! Hive Interactive Pledge Manager - http://crowdfundingnerds.com/hive We recommend Mailerlite for building your community [Affiliate] - https://www.mailerlite.com/a/6K95GNejWHMV CrowdfundingNerds.com/Academy - If you are looking to DIY your crowdfunding, we have highly impactful courses that teach you how to build, excite, and prepare a crowd to fund you on Launch Day! Check out our website at crowdfundingnerds.com and join our bustling community on Facebook. Stay Nerdy!

KickStarter Giants Collapse Again and Levack Rants on Raiders

Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupConnor Swegle co-founded Priority Bicycles to build bikes that look good, ride great, and don't require you to be a mechanic. From a Kickstarter that sold 1,500 bikes to 25,000/year today, he's grown a DTC brand that rides differently — literally and strategically.For DTC founders scaling from ~$5–50M looking to tighten marketing funnels, reduce wasted spend, and build real community.Launched with a $565K Kickstarter campaign that validated product and storyBuilt a brand around low-maintenance belt drive bikes — a real differentiator in a crowded marketWhy they ignore most attribution data and focus on 3 things: product views → add to cart → purchasesSlimmed down Meta spend and saw ROAS increase by tightening targetingHow community-led R&D helped launch the Bruiser with built-in demandWho this is for: founders and marketers growing DTC product brands with real AOVWhat to steal:Don't run campaigns unless your audience is already in a buying mindsetMeasure funnel performance with just 3 steps: view → add → buyInvolve customers in product development, but don't let them pick the color Timestamps00:00 Why Priority Cycles was created03:00 Launching on Kickstarter and early traction06:00 The low-maintenance bike differentiator09:00 Building DTC trust through customer service12:00 Simplifying brand positioning and wayfinding15:00 Crowdsourcing product ideas and community involvement18:00 Using customer insight vs platform data21:00 Meta downshifts and rethinking paid efficiency24:00 Incrementality, ROAS traps, and smarter funnel design27:00 Understanding real customer motivations and tradeoffs30:00 Entering the mountain bike market33:00 Working with creators to co-develop products35:00 Growth outlook and category expansionHashtags#dtcpodcast #prioritybicycles #ecommercegrowth #marketingstrategy #dtcbrands #digitalmarketing #customeracquisition #growthmarketing #brandstrategy #directtoconsumer #bicycleindustry Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouseFollow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

Deadvault is officially funded and will available to buy in 2026! You have TWO DAYS left to get the whole series at the earlybird discounted rate as well as buy limited edition artwork and other goodies which will never be available again...support our Kickstarter now before it closes at 7pm on 25th November!   

GI Joburg is joined by Josh and Gary of the After Action Report book series to discuss the latest Kickstarter initiative: TRIVIA AND ACTIVITY - A fun Resource of Q&As for G.I. Joe comics A Real American Hero continuity from Marvel, DDP, IDW & Skybound. Back the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/afteractionreport/after-action-report-trivia-and-activity-gi-joe-comics-arah?ref=creator_tab Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0W3wPhykE4Z6NDF5WgdGew/join Got something to say to GI Joburg? We can be reached at arealsouthafricanhero@gmail.com We have an official Patreon page! Go to  https://www.patreon.com/GIJOBURG?fan_landing=true Want some of the most unique GI Joe apparel out there? Check out our official GI JOBURG merch at: https://teespring.com/stores/gi-joburg-the-merch

This Week on Toy Power Podcast; we welcome Canadian local: Colin Betts to our home town; as he celebrates his overseas Holiday trip! Kicking off the episode, we chat towards the Tron HasLab project - that obliviously is drowning. An exciting expansion to our Powers Of Grayskull - Masters Of The Universe Collection - with the addition of the Wolf Character: Red Shadow. Plus an incredible achievement from the crew of 'Yes Have Some' / 'Toy Anxiety' Podcast; as they reveal their much anticipated Kickstarter: Cryptoids - Mothman. The first of hopefully many figures in this unique Toyline. Then we hear directly from Colin about his travels thus far. A interesting comparison on the Retail front of what offerings one finds outside of their own Country too! Then, its a flurry of Gift-Giving! It feels like Christmas Day; with the amount of gifts shared around the table; and we are all incredibly thankful for the genorosity! Thankyou Colin!!Support the show: http://patreon.com/toypowerpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Far too long has passed since we've talked with Kyle Hester. Join us for a magnificent conversation about the upcoming release of his latest film Preacher 6, his documentaries, the evolution of Indie filmmaking, and more. Kyle talks about the ups and downs of the journey of making Preacher 6, battling the pandemic, and how Just Keep Going is the key phrase we should all practice. We also talk about his wife Tracy's new book release and Kickstarter for her next novel. Look below for links to Kyle and Tracy's sites, socials, and so on. Sit back and listen to one of the most upbeat and genuine people in the business. We loved this conversation, and think you will as well. Support the Podcast Visit our website Kyle’s Links https://bsky.app/profile/kylehester.bsky.social https://pickrelay.com/t/8gkr-id6r/haunted-lake-lanier Tracys kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/msdshollywood/magic-spells-delivery-service-book-one-hollywood 13 short Horror Stories for Bedtime. https://a.co/d/ijcqBy7

We have an exciting interview with the creatives behind the comic Hellbreaker now on Kickstarter. Legendary writer Pat Mills and master artist Ian Ashcroft give us a look into their new book along with their process in creating a new sprawling world. In this interview, we discuss religious iconography, art deco London, European vs American comics publishing, and SO much more. After or during the podcast, please check out and consider backing Hellbreaker on Kickstarter and check out Pat and Ian's other work as well using the links below: Hellbreaker Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/patmills/hellbreaker-fire-in-the-blood Pat's Website: https://www.millsverse.com/about/ Pat's Substack: https://iconoblast.substack.com/ Ian's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IanAshcroftArt?utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan Ian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ian.ashcroft.art/

Who gives more side-eye? The Parson's Chameleon or Andy Lawrence when his brothers won't let him speak? Matt is back from Madagascar and he's got the full breakdown. Tune in for some incredible stories and some mindblowing footage from his journey!It was the trip of a lifetime, but life is short! SEED Madagascar, Josh's Frogs and Hertfordshire Zoo are all doing INCREDIBLE work to preserve the native life on this magical island. Links below!We're all happy Matt made it back safely and the only casualty was Joe's face! (skincare secrets pending)Happy Friday everyone!https://madagascar.co.uk/ https://joshsfrogs.com/ https://hertfordshirezoo.com/ Support our pod with our official merch!https://bropodmerch.bigcartel.com

Episode 195: In Conversation with Rob Rowe and Von Hertzog (VH x RR) – New EP "101" Brian and Sarah are interrupting their current effort of looking back at Depeche Mode home video concert releases to bring you a terrific chat with Von Hertzog and Rob Rowe. Von and Rob comprise the excellent synth duo VH x RR, who Brian has declared to be his "favorite new band of the 2020s." Since the completion of The Cosmos Trilogy—a series of three EPs that you should definitely check out, if you haven't already—VH x RR has released a couple of singles here and there. But in this discussion, we learn that a new EP is set for an imminent release! The EP is titled "101," so of course the first question our hosts have for Von and Rob is regarding the title. That question is answered, along with many others—and along the way, there's a lot of interesting discussion about science fiction movies, the current state of technology, which is the best Rocky movie, and recent music projects that both Von and Rob have been involved with, outside of VH x RR. The revelation of the upcoming new EP should be reason enough to listen, but in case it's not, there's a minor announcement at the beginning of the episode, and another major announcement towards the end of the episode, that should surely entice you to download this episode immediately! Don't delay; listen today! Visit https://vhxrr.com for information and access to their music.   Also, be sure to visit Blaklight on Kickstarter to grab a copy of "The Haunting of Us"!  It's going to be a fantastic release!! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blaklightband/blaklight-the-haunting-of-us   Read more at http://www.permanentrecordpodcast.com/ Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/permrecordpodcast You can also find us on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@permanentrecordpodcast Check out some pictures at https://www.instagram.com/permanentrecordpodcast/ Join the ever-growing crowd on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/permrecordpod.bsky.social Leave a voicemail for Brian & Sarah at (724) 490-8324 or https://www.speakpipe.com/PermRecordPod  - we're ready to believe you!

This week, we travel from Ireland to Canada to California. Hear Gerry O'Connor, The Gothard Sisters, The Irish Rovers, and new music from May Will Bloom. Discover heartfelt songs and driving reels that keep Celtic traditions alive, on the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast  #735  -  -  Subscribe now! Gerry O'Connor, Eloise & Co., The Gothard Sisters, Elizabeth Sutherland, The Irish Rovers, May Will Bloom, The McDades, Celia Farran, Faoileán, Piskey Led, Larkin & Moran Brothers, Derina Harvey Band, Caliceltic, Callán, Ashley Davis Band GET CELTIC MUSIC NEWS IN YOUR INBOX The Celtic Music Magazine is a quick and easy way to plug yourself into more great Celtic culture. Enjoy seven weekly news items with what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Subscribe now and get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. VOTE IN THE CELTIC TOP 20 FOR 2025 This is our way of finding the best songs and artists each year. You can vote for as many songs and tunes that inspire you in each episode. Your vote helps me create this year's Best Celtic music of 2025 episode. You have until December 4 to vote for this episode. Vote Now! You can follow our playlist on YouTube to listen to those top voted tracks as they are added every 2 - 3 weeks. THIS WEEK IN CELTIC MUSIC 6:45 - Gerry O'Connor "O'Connor4 (Reels)" from Last Night's Joy 5:01 - WELCOME 6:40 - Eloise & Co. "Janet's/Angel Rocks" from avec Elodie 10:22 - The Gothard Sisters "Golden Secrets" from Moment in Time 13:55 - Elizabeth Sutherland "Evening Reflection" from Forest Dreams 17:16 - May Will Bloom "Star of the County Down" from Single 21:11 - FEEDBACK 26:25 - The Irish Rovers "Oh Dear Me" from No End in Sight 29:49 - The McDades "November 8th" from The Empress 33:36 - Celia Farran "California Ireland" from The Bard of Armagh:  A Tribute to Tommy Makem 36:44 - Faoileán "Far Hills of Canada" from Far Hills 42:36 - Piskey Led "Blackbird of Mullaghmore" from Piskey Led 47:27 - THANKS 49:37 - Caliceltic "Stumbling Distance" from Paddy Paradise 52:09 - Larkin & Moran Brothers "Muirsheen Durkin" from Éistigí 54:12 - Derina Harvey Band "The Fallen Man's Daughter" from Waves of Home 58:30 - Callán "Road From Donegal" from Bloody Callán 1:03:31 - CLOSING 1:04:38 - Ashley Davis Band "Not Today (feat. Mick McAuley)" from When the Stars Went Out 1:08:15 - CREDITS Support for this program comes from International speaker, Joseph Dumond, teaching the ancient roots of the Gaelic people. Learn more about their origins at Sightedmoon.com Support for this program comes from Cascadia Cross Border Law Group, Creating Transparent Borders for more than twenty five years, serving Alaska and the world. Find out more at   www.CascadiaLawAlaska.com Support for this program comes from Hank Woodward. Support for this program comes from Dr. Annie Lorkowski of Centennial Animal Hospital in Corona, California. The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast was produced by Marc Gunn, The Celtfather and our Patrons on Patreon. The show was edited by Mitchell Petersen with Graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs. Visit our website to follow the show. You'll find links to all of the artists played in this episode. Todd Wiley is the editor of the Celtic Music Magazine. Subscribe to get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. Plus, you'll get 7 weekly news items about what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Best of all, you will connect with your Celtic heritage. Please tell one friend about this podcast. Word of mouth is the absolute best way to support any creative endeavor. Finally, remember. Clean energy isn't just good for the planet, it's good for your wallet. Solar and wind are now the cheapest power sources in history. But too many politicians would rather protect billionaires than help working families save on their bills. Real change starts when we stop allowing the ultra - rich to write our energy policy and run our government. Let's choose affordable, renewable power. Clean energy means lower costs, more freedom, and a planet that can actually breathe. Promote Celtic culture through music at http://celticmusicpodcast.com/. WELCOME THE IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST * Helping you celebrate Celtic culture through music. I am Marc Gunn. I'm a Celtic musician and also host of Pub Songs & Stories. Every song has a story, every episode is a toast to Celtic and folk songwriters. Discover the stories behind the songs from the heart of the Celtic pub scene. This podcast is for fans of all kinds of Celtic music. We are here to build a diverse Celtic community and help the incredible artists who so generously share their music with you. If you hear music you love, please email artists to let them know you heard them on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. Musicians depend on your generosity to release new music. So please find a way to support them. Buy a CD, Album Pin, Shirt, Digital Download, or join their community on Patreon. You can find a link to all of the artists in the shownotes, along with show times, when you visit our website at celticmusicpodcast.com. Or email follow@bestcelticmusic to learn how to subscribe to the podcast. I will send you a free music - only episode. If you're in a Celtic band, you will also learn how to get your music played on the podcast and get a free eBook called Celtic Musicians Guide to Digital Music. It's 100% free. Again email follow@bestcelticmusic FOLLOW OUR KICKSTARTER PRE - LAUNCH PAGE I just setup a pre - launch page for our next Kickstarter in January. Once again, this will be for funding a Best of 2025 compilation album on CD or Album Pin or even as a Shirt. Follow the link in the shownotes, so you can be the first to get a copy of our next compilation. Only 100 CDs and 100 album pins will be made. Follow the Kickstarter. HAVE YOU HEARD OF ALBUM PINS? Just like this podcast, they are changing the way we hear Celtic music. There were several folks who showed at the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast booth at IrishFest Atlanta. Several people were confused about the album pins I talk about on this show. So I thought I'd share details. An album pin is a lapel pin. Each pin is themed to a particular album I've released. You get a digital download of the album. And then you can wear your help. It's fashion and music combined as one. My pins are beautifully designed and wood burned locally. This makes them better for the environment. If you want to learn more about Album Pins, you can read more about them on my celtfather.Substack.com or just buy one at magerecords.com THANK YOU PATRONS OF THE PODCAST! Your support makes the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast possible, nearly every week of the year. You're not just funding a show. You're fueling a movement that shares the magic of Celtic music with thousands around the world. Your generosity covers everything from audio engineering and artwork to the Celtic Music Magazine, show promotion, and buying music from independent Celtic artists. If you're not a patron yet? You're missing out! You get ✨ Early access to episodes

Viral Brick Lady: Remember Viral Brick Lady? Well she is facing comeuppance for conning people out of money with a Gofundme for a fake attack. Timbaland's AI Artist: Timabaland has embraced AI by releasing tracks through his new AI artist Tata Taktumi. Dancing With The Stars: While covering Andy's journey on DWTS we look back on Whitney Leavitt's social media controversies. THE BEAR!, FUCK YOU, WATCH THIS!, PAPA ROACH!, SCARS!, TEAR MY HEART OPEN!, LAND IT!, FRONT FLIP!, CATCH UP!, OBAMNA!, ORIGIN!, LVL UP EXPO!, PASSES!, PANEL!, LIVE!, JIM AND THEM!, ADVERTISED!, VAMPIRES BALLAD!, COVER!, METAL!, REAL!, ADRIEN SKYE!, BRICK LADY!, GOFUNDME!, MONEY!, ARRESTED!, FRAUD!, STITCHES!, BEE!, THEFT BY DECEPTION!, HAIRSTYLE!, CRAZY HAIR!, BUSINESS!, KICKSTARTER!, PRODUCTION!, HAIRCUT!, PROBATION!, SOCIAL MEDIA!, FINSTA!, TIMBALAND!, JABBOWOCKEEZ!, AI MUSIC!, AI ARTIST!, TATA TAKTUMI!, GLITCH!, DETROIT!, STYLE!, SOUL!, PULSE!, FLAVOR FLAV!, DANCING WITH THE STARS!, ANDY RICHTER!, GUEST JUDGE!, ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME!, SUNGLASSES!, TIMELESS!, CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!, GLEB!, MORMON WIVES!, WHITNEY LEAVITT!, ER DANCE!, BABY!, EMERGENCY!, POURING WATER!, DUNKED!, CRACKED UP!, COREY'S TWITTER!, CLAPPED CHEEKS!, RAT FINK!, DUNE BUGGY!, BIG BRO!, UNC!  You can find the videos from this episode at our Discord RIGHT HERE!

Heroes! We're currently running the Kickstarter campaign for 'Paul London: Hero of the Prophecy' issue 2! So it's my honor to introduce you to our series artist Tom Hoskisson, who knocked the second issue out of the park and is excited to start on issue 3! Broadcasting in from the other side of the globe (Australia), Tom will talk art, comics, his inspirations, working on Geekscape's newest comic, and more! You won't want to miss it! You can also subscribe to the Geekscape podcast on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3H27uMH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://apple.co/3BVrnkW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonnit gets a dire vision of a possible future before a new path opens before him. Gable finds out something special about Travis. Braith and his parents egress the Feather Vault with Travis, looking for a path through the maelstrom overhead. CONTENT NOTE Main Show:  Fire Dear Uhuru: It's fine! IMPS & IMPROV @ iO December 10th 7:30 PM ⁠Get tickets!⁠ COSMIC CENTURY KNIGHTS ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get the game on Kickstarter!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the mailing list for James' game design projects⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Order now!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Leave a review!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ THE ULTIMATE RPG PODCAST ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen Here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SKYJOUST FIGHT WITH SPIRIT EXPANSION ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get it now!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SKYJACKS: COURIER'S CALL IS BACK! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen on Spotify (or any other podcatcher app)!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ STARWHAL PUBLIC FEED: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen on Spotify (or any other podcatcher app)!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ JOIN OUR MAILING LIST ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Right Here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey Now Cabalists! The 2025 Secret Cabal fundraiser is live on Kickstarter now! Jump over and snag volume 2 of the zine, some Secret Cabal swag, the new Steve-Boy, and support the show while you're doing it. Today the gang dives into some of the great games they've been playing, including Atlas Lost Rise of the New Sovereigns, Slay the Spire, Leaders, Magical Athlete, Dice Miners, and feature Phoenix New Horizon from Jorge J. Barroso and Devir. Then after Tony T lays down his award-winning tabletop gaming news segment, the gang discusses the importance of player interaction in board gaming. Atlas Lost: Rise of the New Sovereigns: 00:09:26, Slay the Spire: 00:20:11, Dice Miners: 00:36:58, Leaders: 00:46:10, Magical Athlete: 00:56:03, Phoenix New Horizon Review: 01:03:23, News with Tony T: 01:38:23, Player Interaction: 02:33:07. Check out our sponsors Restoration Games at https://restorationgames.com/ and Game Toppers at https://www.gametoppersllc.com/. Support the Cabal on Kickstarter now! https://www.thesecretcabal.com/kickstarter