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Could live selling be the next big opportunity for indie authors? Adam Beswick shares how organic marketing, live streaming, and direct sales are transforming his author career—and how other writers can do the same. In the intro, book marketing principles [Self-Publishing with ALLi]; Interview with Tobi Lutke, the CEO and co-founder of Shopify [David Senra]; The Writer's Mind Survey; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn; Alliance of Independent Authors Indie Author Lab. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Adam Beswick is a bestselling fantasy author and an expert in TikTok marketing for authors, as well as a former NHS mental health nurse. Adam went full-time as an indie author in 2023 and now runs AP Beswick Publications. 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 Adam scaled from garden office to warehouse, with his wife leaving her engineering career to join the business Why organic marketing (free video content) beats paid ads for testing what resonates with readers The power of live selling: earning £3,500 in one Christmas live stream through TikTok shop Mystery book bags: a gamified approach to selling that keeps customers coming back Building an email list of actual buyers through direct sales versus relying on platform algorithms Why human connection matters more than ever in the age of AI-generated content You can find Adam at APBeswickPublications.com and on TikTok as @a.p_beswick_publications. Transcript of interview with Adam Beswick Jo: Adam Beswick is a bestselling fantasy author and an expert in TikTok marketing for authors, as well as a former NHS mental health nurse. Adam went full-time as an indie author in 2023 and now runs AP Beswick Publications. Welcome back to the show, Adam. Adam: Hi there, and thank you for having me back. Jo: Oh, I'm super excited to talk to you today. Now, you were last on the show in May 2024, so just under two years, and you had gone full-time as an author the year before that. So just tell us— What's changed for you in the last couple of years? What does your author business look like now? Adam: That is terrifying to hear that it was that long ago, because it genuinely feels like it was a couple of months ago. Things have certainly been turbocharged since we last spoke. Last time we spoke I had a big focus on going into direct sales, and I think if I recall correctly, we were just about to release a book by Alexis Brooke, which was the first book in a series that we had worked with another author on, which was the first time we were doing that. Since then, we now have six authors on our books, with a range of full agreements or print-only deals. With that focus of direct selling, we have expanded our TikTok shop. In 2024, I stepped back from TikTok shop just because of constraints around my own time. We took TikTok shop seriously again in 2025 and scaled up to a six-figure revenue stream throughout 2025, effectively starting from scratch. That means we have had to go from having an office pod in the garden, to my wife now has left her career as a structural engineer to join the business because there was too much for me to manage. We went from this small office space, to now we have the biggest office space in our office block because we organise our own print runs and do all our distribution worldwide from what we call “AP HQ.” Jo: And you don't print books, but you have a warehouse. Adam: Yes, we have a warehouse. We work with different printers to order books in. We print quite large scale—well, large scale to me—volumes of books. Then we have them ordered to here, and then we will sign them all and distribute everything from here. Jo: Sarah, your wife, being a structural engineer—it seems like she would be a real help in organising a business of warehousing and all of that. Has that been great [working with your wife]? Because I worked with my husband for a while and we decided to stop doing that. Adam: Well, we're still married, so I'm taking that as a win! And funnily enough, we don't actually fall out so much at work. When we do, it's more about me being quite chaotic with how I work, but also I can at times be quite inflexible about how I want things to be done. But what Sarah's fantastic at is the organisation, the analytics. She runs all the logistical side of things. When we moved into the bigger office space, she insisted on us having different offices. She's literally shoved me on the other side of the building. So I'm out the way—I can just come in and write, come and do my bit to sign the books, and then she can just get on with organising the orders and getting those packed and sent out to readers. She manages all the tracking, the customs—all the stuff that would really bog me down. I wouldn't say she necessarily enjoys it when she's getting some cranky emails from people whose books might have gone missing or have been held up at customs, but she's really good at that side. She's really helped bring systems in place to make sure the fulfilment side is as smooth as possible. Jo: I think this is so important, and I want everyone to hear you on this. Because at heart, you are the creative, you are a writer, and sure you are building this business, but I feel like one of the biggest mistakes that creative-first authors make is not getting somebody else to help them. It doesn't have to be a spouse, right? It can also be another professional person. Sacha Black's got various people working for her. I think you just can't do it alone, right? Adam: Absolutely not. I would have drowned long before now. When Sarah joined the team, I was at a position where I'd said to her, “Look, I need to look at bringing someone in because I'm drowning.” It was only then she took a look at where her career was, and she'd done everything she wanted to do. She was a senior engineer. She'd completed all the big projects. I mean, this is a woman who's designed football stands across the UK and some of the biggest barn conversions and school conversions and things like that. She'd done everything professionally that she'd wanted to and was perhaps losing that passion that she once had. So she said she was interested, and we said, “Look, why don't you come and spend a bit of time working with me within the business, see whether it works for you, see if we can find an area that works for you—not you working for the business, the business working for you—that we maintain that work-life balance.” And then if it didn't work, we were in a position where we could set her up to start working for herself as an engineer again, but under her own terms. Then we just went from strength to strength. We made it through the first year. I think we made it through the first year without any arguments, and she's now been full-time in the business for two years. Jo: I think that's great. Really good to hear that. Because when I met you, probably in Seville I think it was, I was like, “You are going to hit some difficulty,” because I could see that if you were going to scale as fast as you were aiming to— There are problems of scale, right? There's a reason why lots of us don't want a bloomin' warehouse. Adam: Yes, absolutely. I think it's twofold. I am an author at heart—that's my passion—but I'm also a businessman and a creative from a marketing point of view. I always see writing as the passion. The business side and the creating of content—that's the work. So I never see writing as work. When I was a nurse, I was the nurse that was always put on the wards where no one else wanted to work because that's where I thrived. I thrive in the chaos. Put me with people who had really challenging behaviour or were really unwell and needed that really intense support, displayed quite often problematic behaviours, and I would thrive in those environments because I'd always like to prove that you can get the best out of anyone. I very much work in that manner now. The more chaotic, the more pressure-charged the situation is, the better I thrive in that. If I was just sat writing a book and that was it, I'd probably get less done because I'd get bored and I wouldn't feel like I was challenging myself. As you said, the flip side of that is that risk of burnout is very, very real, and I have come very, very close. But as a former mental health nurse, I am very good at spotting my own signs of when I'm not taking good care of myself. And if I don't, Sarah sure as hell does. Jo: I think that's great. Really good to hear. Okay, so you talked there about creating the content as work, and— You have driven your success, I would say, almost entirely with TikTok. Would that be right? Adam: Well, no, I'd come back and touch on that just to say it isn't just TikTok. I would say definitely organic marketing, but not just TikTok. I'm always quick to pivot if something isn't working or if there's a dip in sales. I'm always looking at how we can—not necessarily keep growing—but it's about sustaining what you've built so that we can carry on doing this. If the business stops earning money, I can't keep doing what I love doing, and me and my wife can't keep supporting our family with a stable income, which is what we have now. I would say TikTok is what started it all, but I did the same as having all my books on Amazon, which is why I switched to doing wide and direct sales: I didn't want all my eggs in one basket. I was always exploring what platforms I can use to best utilise organic marketing, to the point where my author TikTok channel is probably my third lowest avenue for directing traffic to my store at the moment. I have a separate channel for my TikTok shop, which generates great traffic, but that's a separate thing because I treat my TikTok shop as a separate audience. That only goes out to a UK audience, whereas my main TikTok channel goes out to a worldwide audience. Jo: Okay. So we are going to get into TikTok, and I do want to talk about that, but you said TikTok Shop UK and— Then you mentioned organic marketing. What do you mean by that? Adam: When I say organic marketing, I mean marketing your books in a way that is not a detriment to your bank balance. To break that down further: you can be paying for, say for example, you set up a Facebook ad and you are paying five pounds a day just for a testing phase for an ad that potentially isn't going to work. You potentially have to run 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ads at five pounds a day to find one ad that works, that will make your book profitable. There's a lot of testing, a lot of money that goes into that. With organic marketing, it's using video marketing or slideshows or carousels on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook—wherever you want to put it—to find the content that does resonate with your readers, that generates sales, and it doesn't cost you anything. I can create a video on TikTok, put it out there, and it reaches three, four hundred people. That hasn't cost me any money at all. Those three, four hundred people have seen my content. That's not TikTok's job for that to generate sales. That's my job to convert those views into sales. If it doesn't, I just need to look at the content and say, “Well, that hasn't hit my audience, or if it has, it hasn't resonated. What do I need to do with my content to make it resonate and then transition into sales?” Once you find something that works, it's just a case of rinse and repeat. Keep tweaking it, keep changing or using variants of that content that's working to generate sales. If you manage to do that consistently, you've already got content that you know works. So when you've built up consistent sales and you are perhaps earning a few thousand pounds a month—it could be five figures a month—you've then got a pool of money that you've generated. You can use that then to invest into paid ads, using the content you've already created organically and tested organically for what your audience is going to interact with. Jo: Okay. I think because I'm old school from the old days, we would've called that content marketing. But I feel like the difference of what you are doing and what TikTok—I think the type of behaviour TikTok has driven is the actual sales, the conversion into sales. So for example, this interview, right? My podcast is content marketing. It puts our words out in the world and some people find us, and some people buy stuff from us. So it's content marketing, but it's not the way you are analysing content that actually drives sales. Based on that content, there's no way of tracking any sales that come from this interview. We are just never going to know. I think that's the big difference between what you are doing with content versus what I and many other, I guess, older creators have done, which is— We put stuff out there for free, hope that some people might find us, and some of those people might buy. It's quite different. Adam: I would still argue that it is organic marketing, because you've got a podcast that people don't have to pay to listen to, that they get enjoyment from, and the byproduct of that is you generate some income passively through that. If you think of your podcast as one product and your video content is the same—these social media platforms—you don't just post your podcast on one platform. You will utilise as many platforms as you can, unless you have a brand agreement where a platform is paying you to solely use their platform because you or yourself are the driver for the audience there. I would say a podcast is a form of organic marketing. I could start a podcast about video marketing. I could start a podcast about reading. The idea being you build up an audience and then when you drop in those releases, that audience then goes and buys that product. For example, if you've got a self-help book coming out, if you drop that into your podcast, chances are you're going to get a lot more sales from your audience that are here to listen to you as the inspirational storyteller that you are from a business point of view than what you would if you announced that you had a new crime novel coming out or a horror story you've written. Your audience within here is generally an author audience who are looking to refine their craft—whether that be the writing or the selling of the books or living the dream of being a full-time author. I think it's more a terminology thing. Jo: Well, let's talk about why I wanted to talk to you. A friend of ours told me that you are doing really well with live sales. This was just before Christmas, I think. And I was like, “Live sales? What does that even mean?” Then I saw that Kim Kardashian was doing live sales on TikTok and did this “Kim's Must Have” thing, and Snoop Dogg was there, and it was this massive event where they were selling. I was like, “Oh, it's like TV sales—the TV sales channel where you show things and then people buy immediately.” And I was like, “Wait, is Adam like the Kim Kardashian of the indie author?” So tell us about this live sale thing. Adam: Well, I've not got that far to say that I have the Kim Kardashian status! What it is, is that I'm passionate about learning, but also sharing what's working for me so that other authors can succeed—without what I'm sharing being stuck behind a paywall. It is a big gripe of mine that you get all these courses and all these things you can do and everything has to be behind a paywall. If I've got the time, I'll just share. Hence why we were in Vegas doing the presentations for Indie Author Nation, which I think had you been in my talk, Jo, you would've heard me talking about the live selling. Jo: Oh, I missed it. I'll have to get the replay. Adam: I only covered a short section of it, but what I actually said within that talk is, for me, live selling is going to be the next big thing. If you are not live selling your books at the moment, and you are not paying attention to it, start paying attention to it. I started paying attention about six months ago, and I have seen constant growth to a point where I've had to post less content because doing one live stream a week was making more money than me posting content and burning myself out every single day for the TikTok shop. I did a live stream at the beginning of Christmas, for example. A bit of prep work went into it. We had a whole Christmas set, and within that one live stream we generated three and a half thousand pounds of organic book sales. Jo: Wow. Adam: Obviously that isn't something that happened overnight. That took me doing a regular Friday stream from September all the way through to December to build up to that moment. In fact, I think that was Black Friday, sorry, where we did that. But what I looked at was, “Right, I haven't got the bandwidth because of all the plates I was spinning to go live five days a week. However, I can commit to a Friday morning.” I can commit to a Friday morning because that is the day when Sarah isn't in the office, and it's my day to pack the orders. So I've already got the orders to pack, so I thought I'll go live whilst I'm packing the orders and just hang out and chat. I slowly started to find that on average I was earning between three to four hundred pounds doing that, packing orders that I already had to pack. I've just found a way to monetise it and engage with a new audience whilst doing that. The thing that's key is it is a new audience. You have people who like to consume their content through short-form content or long-form content. Then you have people who like to consume content with human interaction on a live, and it's a completely different ballgame. What TikTok is enabling us to do—on other platforms I am looking at other platforms for live selling—you can engage with an audience, but because on TikTok you can upload your products, people can buy the products direct whilst you are live on that platform. For that, you will pay a small fee to TikTok, which is absolutely worth it. That's part of the reason we've been able to scale to having a six-figure business within TikTok shop itself as one revenue stream. Jo: Okay. So a few things. You mentioned there the integration with TikTok shop. As I've said many times, I'm not on TikTok—I am on Instagram—and on Instagram you can incorporate your Meta catalogue to Shopify. Do you think the same principle applies to Instagram or YouTube as well? I think YouTube has an integration with Shopify. Do you think the same thing would work that way? Adam: I think it's possible. Yes, absolutely. As long as people can click and buy that product from whatever content they are watching—but usually what it will have to do is redirect them to your store, and you've still got all the conversion metrics that have to kick in. They have to be happy with the shipping, they have to be happy with the product description and stuff like that. With TikTok shop, it's very much a one-stop shop. People click on the product, they can still be watching the video, click to buy something, and not leave the stream. Jo: So the stream's on, and then let's say you are packing one of your books— Does that product link just pop up and then people can buy that book as you are packing it? Adam: So we've got lots and lots of products on our store now. I always have a product link that has all our products listed, and I always keep all of the bundles towards the top because they generate more income than a single book sale. What will happen is I can showcase a book, I'll tap the screen to show what product it is that I'm packing, and then I'll just talk about it. If people want it, they just click that product link and they can buy it straight away. What people get a lot of enjoyment from—which I never expected in a million years—is watching people pack their order there and then. As an author, we're not just selling a generic product. We're selling a book that we have written, that we have put our heart and soul into. People love that. It's a way of letting them into a bit of you, giving them a bit of information, talking to them, showing them how human you are. If you're on that live stream being an absolute arse and not very nice, people aren't going to buy your books. But if you're being welcoming, you're chatting, you're talking to everyone, you're interacting, you're showcasing books they probably will. What we do is if someone orders on the live stream, we throw some extra stuff in, so they don't just get the books, they'll get some art prints included, they'll get some bookmarks thrown in, and we've got merch that we'll throw in as a little thank you. Now it's all stuff that is low cost to us, because actually we're acquiring a customer in that moment. I've got people who come onto every single Friday live stream that I do now. They have bought every single product in our catalogue and they are harassing me for when the next release is out because they want more, before they even know what that is. They want it because it's being produced by us—because of our brand. With the lives, what I found is the branding has become really important. We're at a stage where we're being asked—because I'm quite well known for wearing beanie hats on live streams or video content—people are like, “When are you going to release some beanie hats?” Now and again, Sarah will drop some AP branded merch. It'll be beer coasters with the AP logo on, or a tote bag with the AP logo on. It's not stuff that we sell at this stage—we give them away. The more money people spend, the more stuff we put in. And people are like, “No, no, you need to add these to the store because we want to buy them.” The brand itself is growing, not just the book sales. It's becoming better known. We've got Pacificon in April, and there's so many people on that live stream that have bought tickets to meet us in person at this conference in April, which is amazing. There's so much going on. With TikTok shop, it only works in the country where you are based, so it only goes out to a UK audience, which is why I keep it separate from my main channel. That means we're tapping into a completely new audience, because up until last year, I'd always targeted America—that's where my biggest readership was. Jo: Wow. There's so much to this. Okay. First of all, most people are not going to have their own warehouse. Most people are not going to be packing live. So for authors who are selling on, let's just say Amazon, can live sales still work for them? Could they still go live at a regular time every week and talk about a book and see if that drives sales, even if it's at Amazon? Adam: Yes, absolutely. I would test that because ultimately you're creating a brand, you're putting yourself out there, and you're consistently showing up. You can have people that have never heard of you just stumble across your live and think, “What are they doing there?” They're a bit curious, so they might ask some questions, they might not. They might see some other interactions. There's a million and one things you can do on that live to generate conversation. I've done it where I've had 150 books to sign, so I've just lined up the books, stood in front of the camera, switched the camera on while I'm signing the books, and just chatted away to people without any product links. People will come back and be like, “Oh, I've just been to your store and bought through your series,” and stuff like that. So absolutely that can work. The key is putting in the work and setting it up. I started out by getting five copies of one book, signing them, and selling them on TikTok shop. I sold them in a day, and then that built up to effectively what we have now. That got my eyes open for direct selling. When I was working with BookVault and they were integrated with my store, orders came to me, but then they went to BookVault—they printed and distributed. Then we got to a point scaling-wise where we thought, “If we want to take this to the next level, we need to take on distribution ourselves,” because the profit lines are better, the margins are bigger. That's why we started doing it ourselves, but only once we'd had a proven track record of sales spanning 18 months to two years and had the confidence. It was actually with myself and Sacha that we set up at the same time and egged each other on. I think I was just a tiny bit ahead of her with setting up a warehouse. And then as you've seen, Sacha's gone from strength to strength. It doesn't come without its trigger warnings in the sense of it isn't an easy thing to do. I think you have to have a certain skill set for live selling. You have to have a certain mindset for the physicality that comes with it. When we've had a delivery of two and a half thousand books and we've got to bring them up to the first floor where the office is—I don't have a massive team of people. It's myself and Sarah, and every now and again we get my dad in to help us because he's retired now. We'll give him a bottle of wine as a thank you. Jo: You need to give him some more wine, I think! Adam: Yes! But you've gotta be able to roll your sleeves up and do the work. I think if you've got the work ethic and that drive to succeed, then absolutely anyone can do it. There's nothing special about my books in that sense. I've got a group called Novel Gains where I've actually started a monthly challenge yesterday, and we've got nearly two and a half thousand people in the group now. The group has never been more active because it's really energised and charged. People have seen the success stories, and people are going on lives who never thought it would work for them. Lee Mountford put a post up yesterday on the first day of this challenge just to say, “Look, a year ago I was where you were when Adam did the last challenge. I thought I can't do organic marketing, I can't get myself on camera.” Organic marketing and live selling is now equating to 50% of his income. Jo: And he doesn't have a warehouse. Adam: Well, he scaled up to it now, so he's got two lockups because he scaled up. He started off small, then he thought, “Right, I'm going to go for it.” He ordered a print run of a few of his books—I think 300 copies of three books. Bundled them up, sold them out within a few months. Then he's just scaled from there because he's seen by creating the content, by doing the lives, that it's just creating a revenue stream that he wasn't tapping into. Last January when we did the challenge, he was really engaged throughout the process. He was really analytical with the results he was getting. But he didn't stop after 30 days when that challenge finished. He went away behind the scenes for the next 11 months and has continued to grow. He is absolutely thriving now. Him and his wife—a husband and wife team—his wife is also an author, and they've now added her spicy books to their TikTok shop. They're just selling straight away because he's built up the audience. He's built up that connection. Jo: I think that's great. And I love hearing this because I built my business on what I've called content marketing—you're calling it organic marketing. So I think it's really good to know that it's still possible; it's just a different kind. Now I just wanna get some specifics. One— Where can people find your Novel Gains stuff? Adam: So Novel Gains is an online community on Facebook. As I said, there's no website, there's no fancy website, there's no paid course or anything. It is just people holding themselves accountable and listening to my ramblings every now and again when I try and share pills of wisdom to try and motivate and inspire. I also ask other successful authors to drop their story about organic marketing on there, to again get people fired up and show what can be achieved. Jo: Okay. That's on Facebook. So then let's talk about the setup. I think a lot of the time I get concerned about video because I think everything has to be on my phone. How are you setting this up technically so you can get filmed and also see comments and all of this kind of stuff? Adam: Just with my phone. Jo: It is just on your phone? Adam: Yes. I don't use any fancy camera tricks or anything. I literally just settle my phone and hit record when I'm doing it. Jo: But you set it up on a tripod or something? Adam: Yes. So I'll have a tripod. I don't do any fancy lighting or anything like that because I want the content to seem as real as possible. I'll set up the camera at an angle that shows whatever task I'm doing. For example, if I'm packing orders, I can see the screen so I can see the comments as they're coming up. It's close enough to me to interact. At Christmas, we did have a bit of a setup—it did look like a QVC channel, I'm not going to lie! I was at the back. There was a table in front of me with products on. We had mystery book bags. We had a Christmas tree. We had a big banner behind me. The camera was on the other side of the room, but I just had my laptop next to me that was logged into TikTok, so I was watching the live stream so I could see any comments coming up. Jo: Yes, that's the thing. So you can have a different screen with the comments. Because that's what I'm concerned about—it might just be the eyesight thing, but I'm like, I just can't literally do everything on the phone. Adam: TikTok has a studio—TikTok Studio—that you can download, and you can get all your data and analytics in there for your live streams. At the moment, I'll just tap the screen to add a new product or pin a new product. You can do all that from your computer on this studio where you can say, “Right, I'm showcasing this product now,” click on it and it'll come up onto the live stream. You just have to link the two together. Jo: I'm really thinking about this. Partly this is great because my other concern with TikTok and all these video channels is how much can be done by AI now. TikTok has its own AI generation stuff. A lot of it's amazing. I'm not saying it's bad quality, I'm saying it's amazing quality, but— What AI can't do is the live stuff. You just can't—I mean, I imagine you can fake it, but you can't fake it. Adam: Well, you'd be surprised. I've seen live streams where it's like an avatar on the screen and there is someone talking and then the avatar moving in live as that person's talking. Jo: Right? Adam: I've seen that where it's animals, I've seen it where it's like a 3D person. There's a really popular stream at the minute that is just a cartoon cat on the stream. Whenever you send a gift, it starts singing whoever sent it—it gets a name—and that's a system that someone has somehow set up. I have no idea how they've set it up, but they're literally not doing it. That can run 24 hours a day. There's always hundreds and hundreds of people on it sending gifts to hear this cat sing with an AI voice their name. Yes, AI will work and it will work for different things. But I think with us and with our books, people want that human connection more than ever because of AI. Use that to your advantage. Jo: Okay. So the other thing I like about this idea is you are doing these live sales and then you are looking at the amount you've sold. But are you making changes to it? Or are you only tweaking the content on your prerecorded stuff? Your live is so natural. How are you going to change it up, I guess? Adam: I am always testing what is working, what's not working. For example, I'm a big nerd at heart and I collect Pokémon cards. Now that I'm older, I can afford some of the more rare stuff, and me and my daughter have a lot of enjoyment collecting Pokémon cards together. We follow channels, we watch stuff on YouTube, and I was looking at what streamers do with Pokémon cards and how they sell like mystery products on an app or whatnot. I was like, “How can I apply this to books?” And I came up with the idea of doing mystery book bags. People pay 20 pounds, they get some goodies—some carefully curated goodies, as we say, that “Mrs. B” has put together. On stream, I never give the audience Sarah's name. It's always “Mrs. B.” So Mrs. B has built up her own brand within the stream—they go feral when she comes on camera to say hi! Then there's some goodies in there. That could be some tote socks, a tote bag, cup holders, page holders, metal pins, things like that. Then inside that, I'll pull out a thing that will say what book they're getting from our product catalogue. What I make clear is that could be anything from our product catalogue. So that could be a single book, it could be six books, it could be a three-book bundle. There's all sorts that people can get. It could be a deluxe special edition. People love that, and they tend to buy it because there's so much choice and they might be struggling with, “Right, I don't know what to get.” So they think, “You know what? I'll buy one of them mystery book bags.” I only do them when I'm live. I've done streams where the camera's on me. I've done top-down streams where you can only see my hands and these mystery book bags. Every time someone orders one, I'm just opening it live and showcasing what product they get from the stream. People love it to the point where every stream I do, they're like, “When are you doing the next mystery book bags? When are you doing the next ones?” Jo: So if we were on live now and I click to buy, you see the order with my name and you just write “Jo” on it, and then you put it in a pile? Adam: So you print labels there and then, which I'll do. Exactly. If I'm live packing them—I'm not going to lie—when I'm set up properly, I don't have time to pack them because the orders are coming in that thick and fast. All I do is have a Post-it note next to me, and I'll write down their username, then I'll stick that onto their order. I'll collect everything, showcase what they're getting, the extra goodies that they're getting with their order, and then I'll stick the Post-it on and put that to one side. To put that into context as something that works through testing different things: we started off doing 60 book bags—30 of them were spicy book bags, 30 were general fantasy which had my books and a couple of our authors that haven't got spice in their books—and the aim was to sell them within a month. We sold them within one stream. 60 book bags at 20 pounds a pop. What that also generated is people then buying other products while we're doing it. It also meant that I'd do it all on a Friday, and we'd come in on a Monday and start the week with 40, 50, 60 orders to pack regardless of what's coming from the Shopify store. The level of orders is honestly obscene, but we've continuously learned how best to manage this. We learned that actually, if you showcase the orders, stick a Post-it on, when we print the shipping labels, it takes us five minutes to just put all the shipping labels with everyone's orders. Then we can just fire through packing everything up because everything's already bundled together. It literally just needs putting in a box. Jo: Okay. So there's so much we could talk about, but hopefully people will look into this more. So I went to go watch a video—I thought, “Oh, well, I'll just go watch Adam do this. I'm sure there's a recording”—and then I couldn't find one. So tell me about that. Does [the live recording] just disappear or what? Adam: Yes, it does. It's live for a reason. You can download it afterwards if you want, and then you've got content to repurpose. In fact, you're giving me an idea. I've done a live today—I could download that clip that's an hour and 20 minutes long. Some of it, I'm just rambling, but some of it's got some content that I could absolutely use because I'm engaging with people. I've showcased books throughout it because I've been packing orders. I had an hour window before this podcast and I had a handful of orders to pack. So I just jumped on a live and I made like 250 pounds while doing a job that I would already be having to do. I could download that video, put it in OpusClip, and that will then generate short-form content for me of the meaningful interaction through that, based on the parameters that I give it. So that's absolutely something you could do. In fact, I'm probably going to do it now that you've given me the idea. Jo: Because even if it was on another channel, like you could put that one on YouTube. Adam: Yes. Wherever you want. It doesn't have a watermark on it. Jo: And what did you say? OpusClip? Adam: OpusClip, yes. If you do long-form content of any kind, you can put that in and then it'll pull out meaningful content. Loads of like 20, 30 short-form content video clips that you can use. It's a brilliant piece of software if you use it the right way. Jo: Okay. Well I want you to repurpose that because I want to watch you in action, but I'm not going to turn up for your live—although now I'm like, “Oh, I really must.” So does that also mean—you said it's UK only because the TikTok shop is linked to the UK— So people in America can't even see it? Adam: So sometimes they do pop in, but again, that's why I have a separate channel for my main author account. When I go live on that, anyone from around the world can come in. But if I've got shoppable links in, chances are the algorithm is just going to put that out to a UK audience because that's where TikTok will then make money. If I want to hit my US audience, I'll jump on Instagram because that's where I've got my biggest following. So I'll jump on Instagram and go live over there at a time that I know will be appropriate for Americans. Jo: Okay. We could talk forever, but I do have just a question about TikTok itself. All of these platforms seem to follow a way of things where at the beginning it's much easier to get reach. It is truly organic. It's really amazing. Then they start putting on various brakes—like Facebook added groups, and then you couldn't reach people in your groups. And then you had to pay to play. Then in the US of course, we've got a sale that has been signed. Who knows what will happen there. What are your thoughts on how TikTok has changed? What might go on this year, and how are you preparing? Adam: So, I think as a businessman and an author who wants to reach readers, I use the platforms for what I can get out of them without having to spend a stupid amount of money. If those platforms stop working for me, I'll stop using them and find one that does. With organic reach on TikTok, I think you'll always have a level of that. Is it harder now? Yes. Does that mean it's not achievable? Absolutely not. If your content isn't reaching people, or you're not getting the engagement that you want, or you find fulfilling, you need to look at yourself and the content you are putting out. You are in control of that. There's elements of this takeover in America—again, I've got zero control over that, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I'll focus on areas that are making a difference. As I said, TikTok isn't the biggest earner for my business. My author channel's been absolutely dead for a good six months or so. But that means I get stagnant with the content I'm creating. So the challenge I'm doing at the minute, I'm taking part to create fresh content every day to recharge myself. I've got Instagram and Facebook that generate high volumes of traffic every single day. And usually if they stop, TikTok starts to work. Any algorithm changes—things will change when it changes hands in America—but primarily it still wants to make money. It's a business. If anything, it might make it harder for us to reach America because it will want to focus on reaching an American audience for the people that are buying TikTok shop. But they want it because they want the TikTok shop because of the amount of money that it is generating. It's gone from a small amount of people making money to large volumes of businesses across the entire USA—like over here now—that are reaching an audience that previously you had to have deep pockets to reach, to get your business set up. Now you've got all these businesses popping up that are starting from scratch because they're reaching people. They've got a product that's marketable, that people want to enjoy. They want to be part of that growth. I think that will still happen. It might just be a few of the parameters change, like Facebook does all the time. Jo: Things will always change. That is key. We should also say by selling direct, you've built presumably a very big email list of buyers as well. Adam: Yes. I've actually got a trophy that Shopify sent me because we hit 10,000 sales—10,000 customers. I think we're nearing 16,000 sales on there now. We've got all that customer data. We don't get that on TikTok. We haven't got the customer data. Jo: Ah, that's interesting. Okay. How do you not though? Oh, because—did they ship it? Adam: So if you link it with your Shopify and you do all your shipping direct, the customer data has to come to your Shopify, otherwise you can't ship. When TikTok ship it for you—so I print the shipping labels, but they organise the couriers—all the customer data's blotted out. It's like redacted, so you don't see it. Jo: Ah, see that is in itself a cheeky move. Adam: Yes. But if it's linked to your Shopify, you get all that data and your Shopify is your store. So your Shopify will keep that data. They kept affecting how I extracted the shipping labels and stuff like that, and just kept making life really difficult. So I've just switched it back. I think Sarah has found an app that works really well for correlating the two. Jo: Yes, but this is a really big deal. We carp on about it all the time, but— If you sell direct and you do get the customer data, you are building an email list of actual buyers as opposed to freebie seekers. Which a lot of people have. Adam: Absolutely, and that's the same for you. If you send poor products out or your customer has a poor experience, they're not going to come back and order from you again. If your customer has a really good experience and opens the products and sees all this extra care that's gone in and all the books are signed, then they've not had to pay extra. There was a Kickstarter—I'm not going to name which author it was—but it was an author whose book I was quite excited to back. They had these special editions they'd done, but you had to buy a special edition for an extra 30 quid if you wanted it signed. I was like, “Absolutely not.” If these people are putting their hands in their pockets for these deluxe special editions, and if you're a big name author, it's certainly not them that have anything to do with it. They just have other companies do it all for them. Whereas with us, you are creating everything. Our way of saying thank you to everyone is by signing the book. Jo: I love that you're still so enthusiastic about it and that it seems to be going really well. So we're almost out of time, but just quickly— Tell people a bit more about the books that they can find in your stores and where people can find them. Adam: Yes. So we publish predominantly fantasy, and we have moved into the spicy fantasy world. We have a few series there. You can check out APBeswickPublications.com where you will see our full product catalogue and all of my books. On TikTok shop, we are under a.p_beswick_publications. That's the best place to see where I go live—short-form content. I'll post spicy books on there, but on lives, I showcase everything. I also have fantasy.books.uk, where that's where you'll see the videos or product links for the non-spicy fantasy books. Jo: And what time do you go live in the UK? Adam: So I go live 8:00 AM every Friday morning. Jo: Wow. Okay. I might even have to check that out. This has been so great, Adam. Thanks so much for your time. Adam: Well, thank you for having me.The post Selling Books Live On Social Media With Adam Beswick first appeared on The Creative Penn.

      Saul and Jolene went to a couple conventions in late August and Early September.  In late August they went to Galaxycon in San Jose.  It takes place in downtown San Jose at the McEnery Center.  It is the largest convention center in the South Bay.  Saul was really impressed with all the guest speaker, panels, activities that were available at Galaxycon.  This was Jolenes and Sauls first time attending a Galaxycon.  Both came away impressed with the con and it was a very fun experience for the both of them.      Pacifcon is over Labor Day weekend and Saul and Jolene went on a Saturday once again.   Saul and Jolene met up with old friends and made new ones  playing an RPG called Troika and Boardgames.   Pacificon strengths are War Games and Miniature Games.  They also have full days of boardgames, organized play, and Protospiel.  A nice little con over Labor Day weekend.         Thank you all for listening.   Website Art by Jim Foster Episode Art by Michael Shean-Jones    No music for this episode.  

Josh is at Pacificon and he asked his friends what their favorite ham radio tips are.   Announcements: HRCC Net - https://hrcc.link.   Gigaparts Link (get 10% with code JOSH) - https://www.gigaparts.com/nsearch/?lp=JOSH   The HRCC Coffee Club has arrived! https://hamtactical.coffee/shop   Ham Radio Minute: APRS top tips   Ham Radio Test Study with Leah - Sub element 5 HamStudy: https://hamstudy.org Support by getting something from Signal Stuff: https://signalstuff.com/?ref=622   Gordon West Ham Radio Test Prep Books with HRCC Links  -Technician: https://amzn.to/3AVHGU1 -General: https://amzn.to/4ehQ5zz -Extra: https://amzn.to/4efCqJ2   Free Fastrack to Your Ham Radio License Books on Audible (for new to Audible readers): https://www.amazon.com/hz/audible/mlp/membership/premiumplus?tag=hrccpodcast-20     Join the conversation by leaving a review on Apple Podcast for Ham Radio Crash Course podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ham-radio-crash-course/id1400794852 and/or emailing Leah@hamtactical.com. Leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts will help Ham Radio Crash Course reach more hams and future hams and we appreciate it! No CW Lounge because Leah is studying for her General. We left off at K, M, R, S, U, A, P, T and L.     Show Topic: Best Radio Demonstrations   Hog Wild in the Salted Ham Cellar.    Preparedness Corner - Hurricane Prep Tips https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hurricane-prep-tips_l_6703e7c0e4b006bba4148e9b   HRCC Movie Club    Vote and suggest movies here - https://poll.ly/N7Jt2ACU1Epz5PSJmknw   CJ's Nifty List of HRCC Movie Club movies here - https://letterboxd.com/roguefoam/list/ham-radio-crash-course-podcast-movie-club/ Soylent Green   Likelihood of disaster: 1/5  Preparedness: 1/5 Realistic: 1/5 Characters: 2/5 Plot: 4/5 Entertainment: 3/5  Overall: 12/30   War of the Worlds (2005) 10.5/30   Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy 11/30   Maximum Overdrive 11/30    On The Beach (1959) 12/30   The Postman 12/30   Soylent Green 12/30   San Andreas 13/30   Airplane 14/30   The Day After (1983) 14/30   The Day After Tomorrow Ranked: 14/30   Fall (2022) 14.5/30   Deep Impact 15/30    The Birds 15/30   Twisters (2024): 15/30    Sean of the Dead 16/30   Zombieland 16/30   The Book of Eli Ranked: 16.75/30   Love and Monsters 17/30   Frequency 17/30   2012 17/30   Greenland 17/30   12 Monkeys 17.5/30    Threads 18/30   Contact (1997) 19/30   The Towering Inferno 19/30   Don't Look Up 19.5/30   Twister  19.5/30   Tremors 20/30   The Road 21/30   The Quiet Place 21/30   Red Dawn (1984) 22/30   Wall-E 23/30   Blast From The Past (1999) 23.5/30   I Am Legend 25/30   10 Cloverfield Lane Ranked: 26.5/30   The next movie is The Tomorrow War.  Email Correspondent's Tower: We answer emails with ham radio questions, comments on previous podcasts, T-shirt suggestions and everything in between.   Links mentioned in the ECT:    Prepper Pete Prepares - An Introduction to Prepping for Kids https://amzn.to/4eHxXQ1   Prepper Pete's Son of a Gun - https://amzn.to/4897icn   Radio Rick Relays Relief - https://amzn.to/3BJqjpS   Crisis Response International - https://criout.com   Hazmat HQ https://www.hazmathq.com/   Doug's suggested article about ham radio enduring - https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/how-ham-radio-endures-and-remains-a-disaster-lifeline-in-the-iphone-era/ Thank you all for listening to the podcast.  We have a lot of fun making it and the fact you listen and send us feedback means a lot to us!   Want to send us something? Josh Nass  P.O. Box 5101 Cerritos, CA 90703-5101 Support the Ham Radio Crash Course Podcast: Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/hoshnasi Shop HamTactical: http://www.hamtactical.com Shop Our Affiliates: http://hamradiocrashcourse.com/affiliates/ Shop Our Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/hamradiocrashcourse As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.   Connect with Us: Website...................► http://hamradiocrashcourse.com YouTube..................► https://www.youtube.com/c/HamRadioCrashCourse Podcast...................► https://hamradiocrashcourse.podbean.com/ Discord....................► https://discord.gg/xhJMxDT Facebook................► https://goo.gl/cv5rEQ Twitter......................► https://twitter.com/Hoshnasi Instagram.................► https://instagram.com/hoshnasi (Josh) Instagram.................►https://instagram.com/hamtactical (Leah) Instagram.................►https://instagram.com/nasscorners (Leah)

In Episode #41, we dive into some exciting updates for the ham radio community. We discuss how Solar Cycle 25 is exceeding expectations with its surprising strength. We also celebrate 75 years of the National Traffic System (NTS) Additionally, we cover the pros and cons of ham radio insurance and whether it's something you need. Plus, we talk about upcoming hamfests, including Pacificon 2024,    SHOW NOTES Links mentioned in the podcast   https://amzn.to/4ef8tsB  250 piece survival kit https://ns6t.net/azimuth/     Azimuth map Ham Radio Insurnace Options https://www.hamradioinsurance.com   https://www.arrlinsurance.com   SPONSOR Dakota Lithium. https://dakotalithium.com/ham-radio-backup-emergency-power-lithium-batteries/   NEWS     Affiliate Links Dakota Lithium – LiPo batteries – 11 yr warranty https://dakotalithium.com/?rfsn=7897114.6bcfa3 use Coupon Code: Thehamradioguy https://hamradioprep.com/ Use code HAMRADIOGUY Club Gear Online.  Clubgearonline.com ABR industries – Coax https://abrind.com/?sld=save10hamradioguy County Comms - Every day carry items http://countycomm.com/THEHAMRADIOGUY https://portal.referralcandy.com/FKVKH75/share_redirect?type=referral_link_email_click&location=reminder_email&message_id=1231229231   LINKS http://www.arrl.org/hamfests-and-conventions-calendar   SOCIAL MEDIA   https://twitter.com/TheHamRadioGuy  https://www.patreon.com/TheHamRadioGuy Email: W0MET@thehamradioguy.com Sign up for the newsletter  

PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1332 - Full Version Release Date: September 7, 2024 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This week's edition is anchored by Chris Perrine, KB2FAF, Denny Haight, NZ8D, Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Will Rogers, K5WLR, Marvin Turner, W0MET, Eric Zittel, KD2RJX, William Savacool, K2SAV, Joshua Marler, AA4WX, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Approximate Running Time: 1:44:53 Podcast Download: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1332 Trending headlines in this week's bulletin service 1. FCC: FCC Rule Grants Drone Operators Spectrum Access For Navigation 2. AMSAT: Japanese Company Takes First Step Toward Removing Space Junk 3. AMSAT: The Starliner Spacecraft Has Started To Emit Strange Noises 4. AMSAT: Halibut Electronics Releases New EggNOGS Kit For Satellite Antennas 5. AMSAT: Satellite Shorts From All Over 6. WIA: Wireless Shimano Derailleurs Subject To Hacking 7. BB: Los Angeles Transit Agency Fears Revenue Hit If FCC Approves Spectrum Plan 8. ARRL: ARRL Utah Section Expanding Emergency Communication Capabilities 9. ARRL: Hams Respond As Hawaii Threatened By Three Major Storms 10. ARRL: September Is National Preparedness Month: Have A Go Kit 11. ARRL: Hawaiian Islands Grid Madness 2024 / Pacificon, Hosting The 2024 ARRL Pacific Division Convention 12. Czech Republic Youth On The Air Adventure Camp Winds Down 13. Incident Command System Adopted By ARES Into Its Traning 14. Patricia Nelson KE0QXD, Silent Key 15. Hams In India Reunite A Man With His Family Who Thought He Was Dead 16. $1 Million Payment Made By ARRL To Ransomware Hackers 17. A Spectrum Of Experience Is Provided By A Childrens Museum 18. MIssissippi Emergency Communicator 19. Faster, More Energy Efficient Operation Promised By New Transistor 20. ARRL: ARRL VEC Services Update During Systems Disruption 21. ARRL: Volunteer Monitoring Program Monthly Report 22. ARRL: Pacificon 2024 Convention Announced 23. ARRL: Upcoming RadioSport Contest Listing and Upcoming Conventions 24. AMSAT: Polaris Dawn is set for a historic launch and first commercial space walk 25. WIA: German Astronomer Johanness Kepler drew sunspots without knowing it 26. ITU: International Telecommunications Union updates its global treaty to enhance radio spectrum use worldwide 27. ARRL: ARRL Club Grants will be awarded in November 28. ARRL: Estate planning for hams - What happens to all your stuff? 29. ARRL: New England Vice Director K9HI presented with signed citation from Massachusetts Governor 30. Memorandum of Understanding is signed by the FCC and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Plus these Special Features This Week: * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News - Get an update from AMSAT and what's new with all those amateur satellites in orbit *Australia's own Onno Benshop, VK6FLAB, and Foundations of Amateur Radio finds Onno Implementing the KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid, principle to amateur radio, and takes a look at what happens to a new piece of computer gear when you plug it in * The DX Corner with Bill Salyers, AJ8B with all the latest news on DXpeditions, DX, upcoming Radio Sport contests, and more * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL with Solar Prognosticator Tadd Cook, K7RA in Seattle, Washington * Our own amateur radio historian, Will Rogers, K5WLR, returns with another edition of A Century Of Amateur Radio. This week, Will takes us back to see how the vacuum tube revolutionized radio, changing it more than any other single invention. This week we take a close up look at the invention of The Audion ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net X: https://x.com/TWIAR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari YouTube: https://bit.ly/TWIARYouTube RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 Automated (Full): https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, updated weekly) Automated (1-hour): https://www.twiar.net/TWIAR1HR.mp3 (Static file, updated weekly) ----- This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Thanks to FortifiedNet.net for the server space! Thanks to Archive.org for the audio space.

No quippy exclamation this week, because V and Emily delve into probably the worst, most shameful, most infuriating, just awful pair of people ever to be associated with fandom history: scifi authors and fucking monsters Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen. This is not a lighthearted episode in any way. Please heed the trigger warnings and take care of yourself if you choose to listen. History is not always fun and celebratory and silly Star Trek holidays. Sometimes it's going, "This horrible, ugly thing is part of our architectural foundation. Now what?"  TW: CSA, rape, incest, total institutional failure to safeguard minors. Sources Marion Zimmer Bradley's Child Abuse MZB Gave Us New Perspectives, All Right Timeline of Events MZB on Fanlore Joanna Russ on Fanlore 1960s Fan History Outline, Chapter 8 Vonda N. McIntyre: Darkover Landfall Reviewed (1974) The Guardian comments section (2014) Tor.com Yanks MZB Birthday Tribute Elizabeth Waters Deposition (1997) Breendoggle on Fancyclopedia The Great Breen Boondoggle on Fancyclopedia Breendoggle Wiki Walter Breen on Fanlore This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history! Follow This Week in Fandom History on Tumblr at @thisweekinfandomhistory You can support the show via our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thisweekinfandomhistory.  If you have a fannish company, event, or service and would like to sponsor or partner with TWIFH, please contact us via the Tumblr link above. Please remember to rate the show 5 stars on your listening platform of choice!

Elecraft announced a new pocket-sized HF Transceiver this weekend at Pacificon, so now I wish I had gone to that show! *sadface*But it is already available on their website with details about the specs, accessories and capabilities of this new transceiver that they are calling the KH1. Let's take a look at it and see what we have in store!Link - https://elecraft.com/products/kh1-transceiver

DXer and video producer Bob Allphin K4UEE released the K1N Navssa DXpedition documentary on DVD in 2015, a few months after the highly successful DXpedition itself. HamRadioNow's Gary K4AAQ did the editing and voiceover for the production. DVD sales were good enough, but now it's time to release the program to the world on YouTube, free to watch for everyone. Yep, that's the link, right here.In this episode, Bob and Gary chat about the show, and about some of the DXpeditions Bob has been on, particularly the Bouvet Island attempt he led that had to abort, and the subsequent attempt that was only partially successful. And Bob announces that he'll be offering a clearance sale of his remaining DVDs - 3 for the price of 1 - coming soon to his web site.Before that, though, NorCal Host Jim NO1PC gives us a short tour of this weekend's Pacificon hamfest, which was reduced in size some from the recent past.Links:K4UEE's websiteJames Brooks documentary collection on VimeoClubLog's Most Wanted DX Entity list

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Cockatrice Nuggets #221 show notes Cockatrice Nuggets #221 show notes Episode 221 Published on September 9, 2022 Listen on Anchor.fm Donate to Child's Play Descript Link #e3 #dnd #ttrpg #anchorcast #podcast Thanks for listening! As always you can find me on Patreon, Blogger, Anchor, and the various socials; Facebook, Twitter, --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rich-fraser/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rich-fraser/support

In the first episode of this podcast, Solar Lottery, David said he would someday do this episode. So four years later, in January of this year, he sat down with a couple of colleagues and discussed the lesser-known novel The Big Jump by Leigh Brackett. The pair of talents he was privileged to have here are newcomer to Leigh Brackett writer/music manager/tarot reader Grant Wamack and long time 'Bracketteer' teacher/translator/writer and two time Hugo nominee Cora Buhlert. •Our Patreon ►► www.patreon.com/LanghorneJTweed •Electric Larryland Discord ►► discord.com/channels/557458722268643329 •David's YouTube Channel ►► www.youtube.com/user/Veganrevwithzombies/ •Cora Buhlert Amazon ►► www.amazon.com/Cora-Buhlert/e/B0…ng_rwt_scns_share Cora's Website ►► corabuhlert.com/2021/01/ Galactic Journey ►► galacticjourney.org/february-14-196…obert-e-howard/ •Grant Wamack Goodreads ►► hwttps://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6472400.Grant_Wamack Amazon ►► www.amazon.com/Grant-Wamack/e/B0…ng_rwt_scns_share •Speeches from Pacificon ►► www.youtube.com/watch?v=504j2tU0VZg Music in this episode is from - Valis: An Opera by Tod Machover Check it out here: www.amazon.com/Valis-ANNE-BOGDEN…EMA/dp/B000003GI2 FIND US: Twitter ►► twitter.com/Dickheadspod Facebook ►► www.facebook.com/Dickheadspodcast/ Soundcloud ►► @dickheadspodcast Instagram ►► www.instagram.com/dickheadspodcast/ YouTube ►► www.youtube.com/channel/UC5…UlAAoWtLiCg --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/support

In the midst of having lots of ham fun at the West Coast division ARRL annual ham convention called Pacificon, I remembered at some points to switch on the recorder and capture a few talks. Here I comment and share those clips. We hear Gordon West WB6NOA at Breakfast with Gordo, faster-than-packet Winlink speeds used by Walnut Creek CERT, and a bit of WWII history from Lee WA6IRL. Links: Pacificon 2021: http://pacificon.org Gordon West Radio School: https://www.gordonwestradioschool.com Walnut Creek CERT: https://www.walnut-creek.org/departments/public-safety/emergency-preparedness/cert-community-emergency-response-teams VARA FM: https://rosmodem.wordpress.com/ Winlink: https://www.winlink.org CalQRP forums: https://groups.io/g/CalQRP Limited supply of Hamdom Thoughts stickers available! Buy Me a Coffee in support of this podcast and make sure you're good on QRZ, and I can get one to you! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ad6dm/ If you're using Apple Podcasts, please leave a review of this podcast! Also, please send in your podcast topic ideas! You can send messages back to AD6DM™ Hamdom Thoughts: Visit https://anchor.fm/ad6dm and hit the "Message" button to record your messages right from your computer or phone. Your comments or questions might even end up on the next episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ad6dm/message

PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1178 Release Date: September 25, 2021 Here is a summary of the news trending This Week in Amateur Radio. This week's edition is anchored by Terry Saunders, N1KIN, Dave Wilson, WA2HOY, Don Hulick, K2ATJ, Fred Fitte, NF2F, Will Rogers, K5WLR, Eric Zittel, KD2RJX, George Bowen, W2XBS, and Jessica Bowen, KC2VWX. Produced and edited by George Bowen, W2XBS. Running Time: 1:35:08 Download Podcast here: https://bit.ly/TWIAR1178 Trending headlines in this week's bulletin service: 1. IARU Region 1 Monitoring System Says Radio France International Splatter Untenable 2. Home Computing Pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair Passes 3. Radio Amateurs on Standby Following La Palma Volcanic Eruption 4. The 2021 ARRL Simulated Emergency Test, SET Is Just Ahead 5. Clear Frequencies Requested For Possible Nicaragua Earthquake Traffic 6. Registration Opens For USA Amateur Radio Direction Finding Championships 7. ARRL And RSGB Announce Joint Events To Celebrate Centenary Of Ham Radio Transatlantic Success - Part One 8. ARRL And RSGB Announce Joint Events To Celebrate Centenary Of Ham Radio Transatlantic Success - Part Two 9. Open Source Amateur Satellite Work Not Subject To Export Administration Regulation 10. Upcoming ARRL Learning Network Webinars 11. International Amateur Radio Union Region 3 Considers Significant Expansion Of HF Digital Segments 12. Single Side Band Was Slow To Catch On As A Ham Radio Mode 13. Children At Children's National Hospital In Washington Contact The Space Station 14. Night Sky Pollution Is Blamed On Satellite Constellations Research Claims 15. Hamfests Are occurring Again, But With Cautions In Place 16. National Hurricane Conference Video Is Now Available On YouTube 17. International Amateur Radio Union Region One Honors Amateurs Contributions 18. Locally Owned Radio Shack In Smyrna Is Forced To Close 19. 39th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium 20. Radio amateurs on the island of Bonaire set up a new club 21. Special Event station celebrates 60th Anniversary of The Antarctic Treaty 22. International DX Association (INDEXA) will support the 3Y0J DXpedition to Bouvet Island 23. PACIFICON 2021 Pacific Division Convention is announced 24. Central Arizona DX Association will activate K7UGA former callsign of Senator Barry Goldwater 25. A brief history of amateur radio foxhunting and upcoming events 26. Glow Worm is a new web attack making the rounds. 27. The best and the worse ways to learn morse code 28. Superheterodyne receiver design retrospective video now available Plus these Special Features This Week: * Technology News and Commentary with Leo Laporte, W6TWT, talks about bringing back forums, Leo also will tell us how Google is in the process of shutting down it's wide area ISP experiment called Project Loon. And, he will tell us about a railroad system in Northern China that is running on the now expired Adobe Flash. * Working Amateur Radio Satellites with Bruce Paige, KK5DO - AMSAT Satellite News * Tower Climbing and Antenna Safety w/Greg Stoddard KF9MP, will talk about The Sudden Stop, continued. * Foundations of Amateur Radio with Onno Benschop VK6FLAB, tells us why we need more glue in our hobby. * Weekly Propagation Forecast from the ARRL * Bill Continelli, W2XOY - The History of Amateur Radio. Bill returns with another edition of The Ancient Amateur Archives, this week, Bill takes a look at the 1927 Radio Act which formally ends anarchy on the AM Broadcast Bands, and formalizes amateur radio. ----- Website: https://www.twiar.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/twiari/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/twiar RSS News: https://twiar.net/?feed=rss2 iHeartRadio: https://bit.ly/iHeart-TWIAR Spotify: https://bit.ly/Spotify-TWIAR TuneIn: https://bit.ly/TuneIn-TWIAR Automated: https://twiar.net/TWIARHAM.mp3 (Static file, changed weekly) ----- Visit our website at www.twiar.net for program audio, and daily for the latest amateur radio and technology news. Air This Week in Amateur Radio on your repeater! Built in identification breaks every 10 minutes or less. This Week in Amateur Radio is heard on the air on nets and repeaters as a bulletin service all across North America, and all around the world on amateur radio repeater systems, weekends on WA0RCR on 1860 (160 Meters), and more. This Week in Amateur Radio is portable too! The bulletin/news service is available and built for air on local repeaters (check with your local clubs to see if their repeater is carrying the news service) and can be downloaded for air as a weekly podcast to your digital device from just about everywhere, including Acast, Deezer, iHeart, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, iVoox, Blubrry, Castbox.fm, Castro, Feedburner, gPodder, Listen Notes, OverCast, Player.FM, Pandora, Podcast Gang, Podcast Republic, Podchaser, Podnova, and RSS feeds. This Week in Amateur Radio is also carried on a number of LPFM stations, so check the low power FM stations in your area. You can also stream the program to your favorite digital device by visiting our web site www.twiar.net. Or, just ask Siri, Alexa, or your Google Nest to play This Week in Amateur Radio! This Week in Amateur Radio is produced by Community Video Associates in upstate New York, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. If you would like to volunteer with us as a news anchor or special segment producer please get in touch with our Executive Producer, George, via email at w2xbs77@gmail.com. Also, please feel free to follow us by joining our popular group on Facebook, and follow our daily feed on Twitter! Thanks to FortifiedNet.net for the server space!

     After playing a few session of Call of Cthulhu games run but a couple different GM's, Saul and Jolene decided to talk about their experiences with CoC.  Saul goes to the way back machine to 1980's and how he felt when he first encountered a group of CoC players at the first game con, Pacificon,  he and his friends attended.        Flash forward to the present where Saul and Jolene played in several games and really had a good time with CoC once they realized certain aspects of roleplaying in a CoC game differ from more heroic adventure RPGs like D&D.      As Always Thanks for listening and all we ask is that you Share our Podcast.      Music by SubBass, song Cthulhu and Friends.  Available from Tribeofnoise.com

     In this episode Saul and Jolene talk about Solo and One Player RPGs.  Saul starts with his first sight of Tunnels and Trolls Solo adventures he saw at a Northern California game convention known as Pacificon.  Also Solo adventure rpgs remind Saul of the old "Choose your Own Adventure" series of books.        Jolene was asked by a friend to do a Solo adventure in preparation for a CoC game he was going to run, in order to get her into mood of the game.  Her solo CoC adventure ended with her not being able to escape the town and gets burned on a pyre by cultist.  Yes a proper introduction into the world of CoC.      Saul and Jolene then switch to one player RPG games.  Saul discusses playing one on one sessions with their son when he was 4,  which were more about instilling values than killing monsters and taking their stuff.       As Always we would like to thank you all for listening and please share our podcast.      Music by Solxis, song Solo Orbit, off the album Smooth Jazz Serenade Vol. 3    Available from Tribeofnoise.com

     In this bonus episode Saul and Jolene recorded this episode of Gaming Perspectives at Pacificon on August 31,2019.  In our second day we were joined by Gabriel Vega the producer of the show and we have a very candid talk with "Mondo" about his life running the show and outside the Pacificon Game Expo.  We also get a treat as he sings his song about attending cons.        We were also lucky to talk to Aldo G.  who owned Impressions a game distribution company.  Aldo tells us about in his words the typical gamer story, one of starting with Axis and Allies and D&D and of the games that lead him to be a gamer and how that led him to have a full time 20 year career in the gaming business.         All in all a very good convention for Saul and Jolene.    Thanks for listening and please share with your family and friends.  

      We are at Pacificon a Labor Day weekend gaming convention in Santa Clara California.  We were asked by Gabriel "Mondo" Vega to record our podcast from Pacificon and we gladly agreed.  As with all our bonus "live" episodes this one was not edited.  There is a lot of background noise due to the nature of recording in the middle of the convention.  Still they are a lot of fun to do and we will be back tomorrow with another episode.        As always thanks for listening and please share our podcast with your friends and family.      

     Gabriel Vega the Director of Convention Development and Organizer of Pacificon had some "Breaking News" and wanted to do and interview give Saul and Jolene first dibs on this News.   Gabriel has been organizing Pacificon for the last 15 years here in the SF Bay Area.  Gabriel has also started some smaller specific gaming and interest convention in the Central Valley.  Saul and Jolene have been going to Pacificon since Gabriel bought the convention from previous owners.  Pacificon takes place over the Labor Day weekend at the Santa Clara Mariott which will be the new location for DunDraCon in 2021.      Saul asks about Gabriel's gaming roots and it goes back, way back to 1977 and how a particular set of events led to Gabriel's close connection to gaming and Gaming Conventions.       Gabriel pulled good joke on Saul and literally left him speechless when he joked about what the big news was.  The Breaking News is pretty cool adding another gaming convention to the SF Bay Area coming next year.     Thanks for listening and please share our podcast with family and friends.    

     Continuing our Pre-Kublacon interviews, we got Vern R. to join us this time.  Vern is the RPG Coordinator for Kublacon and Pacificon.   He is a LONG time gamer and has played with many excellent gamers from the SF Bay Area.  A local kid Vern grew up in the heart of what would become Silicon Valley.  His gamer story is filled with long treks to hobby game stores and was even impacted by the Satanic Panic of the late 80's and 90's .  He is a tireless worker at Kublacon, as I see him working and playing at Kublacon at all hours.  Me and Jolene are grateful for taking time to join us and tell us his story.          As all our interviews this is unedited.    As always thanks for listening and all we ask is that you share our podcast with your family and friends.

George KJ6VU is away at Pacificon so Nick KN6NK stops by to deep dive on Solar Power fundamentals.  We talk about understanding your power requirements, sizing your batteries, and how to factor your solar production needs.  We also talk about solar charge controllers to tie it all together. Jeremy KF7IJZ also gives a basic overview of Ubiquiti Unifi networking equipment. Save 10% off of a PowerFilm Solar 30 Watt Panel with Anderson Powerpole Adapter with code WORKBENCH 10 at checkout (through Dec 31, 2018) - 30 Watt Foldable Solar Panel with Anderson Powerpole Adapter Save $100 on the Digilent Analog Discovery 2 Package by using code “HamRadioWorkbench2018” in your cart prior to checkout - https://store.digilentinc.com/ham-radio-workbench-bundle/ Our Website - http://www.hamradioworkbench.com/ Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/hamworkbench Contact us for feedback and ideas - http://hamradioworkbench.com/contact Connect with us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/hamradioworkbench/ BrandMeister Talkgroup 31075 - https://hose.brandmeister.network/group/31075/ Light-weight Portable Rugged Thin Film Solar Panels from PowerFilm Solar - Desoldering Iron Hakko Desoldering Iron uBITx spectral purity fixes D-Link vulnerabilities Solar Exposure Map KWh/m^2/day - https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html Solar Energy Potential Maps in Watt Hours / foot^2 / day - https://www.energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential Great Scott DIY Solar Tracker KN6NK's Solar Charge Controller Genasun Maximum Power Point Tracking Solar Charge Controllers - https://genasun.com/ West Mountain Radio Epic PWRgate and Solar Charge Controller Victron Energeny Battery Monitor Turnigy Power Monitor West Mountain Radio PWRCheck Power Monitor - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-011155 Welding Cable MC4 Solar Pannel Connectors Managing 12 Volts Achieving Energy Independence Home Power magazine Jehu Garcia Commsprepper Charging and Discharging Batteries at the Same Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA_WEykbGE4&t=1s KN6NK's Trailer Build - https://imgur.com/a/M3iHdet

The Junk Drawer - a random collection of useful and invaluable items.  This week George and Jeremy bring you a veritable hodge podge of exciting ham radio content!  PowerFilm Solar shares an exclusive offer for HamRadio360 listeners.  George gives a preview of progress on build projects.  He then shares interviews with SteppIR, Flex Radio, and Novexcomm from Pacificon.  Our friends at the ICQ Podcast share an exciting announcement about G8BBC, the official BBC Ham Radio Station. Exclusive 10% discount onPowerfilm Solar 30 watt panel (Expires Dec 7, 2017)! (Promo code is HamRadio on Amazon) - http://www.powerfilmsolar.com/products/workbench Elecktor article on Android function generator - https://www.elektormagazine.com/news/review-function-generator-in-the-pocket RF Analyzer for Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mantz_it.rfanalyzer SDR Touch for Android - http://sdrtouch.com/ EveryCircuit for Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.everycircuit.free&hl=en EveryCircuit for iOS - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjc5fnt-KPXAhUGMyYKHeVFBSoQFggoMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Feverycircuit%2Fid797157761%3Fmt%3D8&usg=AOvVaw1O1cL6FCmTfREJ-BNPT8Z8 Airspy HF+ - https://airspy.com/airspy-hf-plus/ Airspy Groups.io - https://airspy.groups.io/g/main/topics SDR# / SpyServer Changelog - https://airspy.com/downloads/changelog.txt SpyServer Directory - https://airspy.com/spy-servers/ Flex Radio - http://www.flexradio.com/ SteppIR Urban Beam - https://www.steppir.com/shop/horizontal-antennas/urbanbeam/ NovexComm Radio Mounts - http://www.novexcomm.com/ G8BBC - https://www.icqpodcast.com/download-the-show/2017/10/22/icq-podcast-episode-251-g8bbc  

Continuing the discussion of digital technologies in Ham Radio, George and Jeremy invite Kenneth Finnegan W6KWF back to do a very deep dive on Packet Radio, AX.25, and KISS modes.  We talk TNCs, equipment, and practical applications of Packet Radio this week on The Workbench. Kenneth Finnegan - https://twitter.com/KWF http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com MMDVM Zumboard - http://mmdvm.blogspot.com/ DStar Registration - http://www.dstargateway.org/D-Star_Registration.html DMR Registration - https://www.dmr-marc.net/cgi-bin/trbo-database/register.cgi New Elecraft AX1 Antenna - https://va2ss.com/2017/10/19/elecraft-ax1-ultraportable-1720-meter-antenna-system/ Pacificon - http://www.pacificon.org/ Microwave Update 2017 - http://www.microwaveupdate.org/ Sierra Radio Systems - http://www.sierraradio.net/ Motrolla CDM1250 - https://www.motorolasolutions.com/en_us/products/two-way-radios/analog-business-radios/discontinued/cdm1250.html#tabproductinfo Motrola CDM1550 - https://www.motorolasolutions.com/en_us/products/two-way-radios/analog-business-radios/discontinued/cdm1550.html#tabproductinfo eMMC to SD Card adapter - https://ameridroid.com/products/emmc-adapter Raspberry Pi Compute Module - https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-3/ http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2017/08/building-stand-alone-raspberry-pi.html TAPR - https://www.tapr.org/packetradio.html Bell 202 Modem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_202_modem TNC - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_node_controller Nationwide Packet Network of BBS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system AMPRNet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet AX.25 - https://www.tapr.org/pub_ax25.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AX.25 TNC-X Raspberry Pi - https://tnc-x.com/TNCPi.htm Kantronics TNCs - http://www.kantronics.com/ Soundcard Packet - https://www.soundcardpacket.org/ Direwolf - http://info.aprs.net/index.php?title=Dire_Wolf AGWPE - https://www.sv2agw.com/downloads/ UZ7HO Soundcard Modems - http://uz7.ho.ua/packetradio.htm OSI Model - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model AFSK - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-shift_keying HDLC - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Level_Data_Link_Control KISS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_(TNC) Outpost Software - http://www.outpostpm.org/index.php Alinco - http://alinco.com/Products/ham/mbl/DR-135/ http://www.scc-ares-races.org/freqs/packet-freqs.html HR360 APRS Shows - http://hamradio360.com/index.php/2017/01/24/ham-radio-360-all-about-aprs-with-w6kwf/ http://hamradio360.com/index.php/2017/03/07/ham-radio-360-aprs-follow-up-listener-qa/  

We are re-releasing the early episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast on iTunes. This was our second podcast (and we were still trying to figure out the technical aspects) with Kiki Zhao, formerly of the New York Times Beijing Bureau. For China, Donald Trump is one of the most dramatic and unusual US presidents in recent memory. His bold statements — sorry, Twitter posts — and capacity for courting controversy have made him popular fodder for the Chinese media. What do people in China think as they watch this American political tragicomedy unfold across the Pacific? On our podcast today, we have invited Kiki Zhao, a former researcher for the Financial Times and New York Times Beijing bureaus. Zhao has reported on a variety of topics in China, including politics, business, foreign policy, social issues, and many others. She recently moved on from her journalism career and is headed to New Haven in August to pursue a Master’s at Yale University’s East Asian Studies. This episode was recorded a few months ago when Kiki was still working for the New York Times. She explained to us the thinking behind her organization’s so-called “failing” coverage of Trump and shared her personal observations on what her Chinese friends, including friends from the Chinese Christian community, thinks about the Trump phenomenon.

In this episode Cathy and Sarah discuss the PacifiCon Game Expo 2016; Mark tells us about the new World of Warcraft Expansion; Nicole tells us about “Life is Strange”, and Xanthe talks about getting through rulebooks.

Continuing the conversation with Alan Wolke W2AEW on Oscilloscopes.  This time we focus on digital oscilloscopes and how they compare with analog oscilloscopes. Alan W2AEW's Test Equipment YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew Alan W2AEW on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlanAtTek Packtenna:  http://www.packtenna.com Pacificon 2016:  http://pacificon.org Don W6GPS Videos on the Kenwood TH-D74:  https://www.youtube.com/user/w6gps Interview with Don W6GPS on the Kenwood TH-D74:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIlLnll6TGc TH-D74 Manual (from Japan) Here KF7IJZ’s Raspberry Pi Cluster Setup Part 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ5uX-JJbyY Einstein@Home:  https://einsteinathome.org

George visits with friends at Pacificon 2014. You'll enjoy these interesting topics and interviews. 1:14:06

George visits with friends at Pacificon 2014. You’ll enjoy these interesting topics and interviews. 1:14:06

We find time at Pacificon to chat with Ken Hite and Good Omens GM Sean Knittner, and chat about Sean’s My Life with Joker game, Ken’s myriad of projects, impressions of Pacific and Gencon, and more.  Now with less food and more live studio audience!   Liner Notes [0:36] Introductions [6:35] Sean’s “My Life with Joker” […]