Podcasts about super summer

Super Summer may be over, but we're not quite done with the Family of Steel. For our first Comic Catch Up we're covering what might be THE definitive Supergirl story, and they're turning it into a movie! How is it, and how do we think they're going to adapt it? Listen and find out!

It's finally here! All summer we have been covering stories about the Big Blue Boy Scout and we have finally gotten a look at the film that's kicking off James Gunn's take on the DC Universe. We're kicking off with a little spoiler free review before a big warning that SPOILERS ARW AHEAD! AHOY!

In this week's episode, we look at five ways writers can avoid the self-destructive mindset trap of "comparisonitis", and five ways that comparing oneself to other writers can be useful. Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week! This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: WOLVES50 The coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 259 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 11th, 2025, and today we are looking at why comparing yourself to other writers is a bad idea. Before that, we will do Coupon of the Week and have an update on my current writing progress. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store, and that is WOLVES50. This coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook to listen to during your travels this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Shield of Power is 100% done, completing the Shield War series. You can get Shield of Power at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords and my own Payhip store. It's been selling briskly and it's gotten good reviews so far, so thank you very much to everyone who has bought and enjoyed the book. Now that Shield of Power is done, the first third of my Super Summer of Finishing Things is complete. So what's next? My next main project is Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest. It was originally going to be named Reactant, but I changed the title to Final Quest to emphasize really and truly and definitively that this is the final book in the trilogy. In fact, I'm already done with the rough draft and I am done with the first phase of editing it as of this recording. If you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know how I frequently say that if you keep chipping away the novel over a long enough time, sooner or later you'll finish it. That is exactly what happened here. Since October of 2024, I've been writing 500 words a day on Final Quest, and this piled up over time enough so that after Shield of Power came out, I only had 3,000 more words to write to finish Final Quest, and I did that in an afternoon. One more phase of editing on that and then I would like to have Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest out before July 22nd, if all goes well. I'm also 21,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which will be my main project once Final Quest is finished. Ghost in the Siege will be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series and will hopefully cap off my Super Summer of Finishing Things. In audiobook news, Shield of Battle (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is now out. You can get it at Audible, Amazon, Apple, and Google Play as of this recording. Because of some difficulties with Findaway Voices, it's going to take a little bit longer to get into the other stores, but I'm working on a way to do that and as I mentioned before, Ghost in the Corruption (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy ) is done and just has to finish processing on the various stores, and so hopefully that should be out before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects. 00:02:52 Main Topic: Comparison Now let's move right on to our main topic, The Dangers of Comparison. In Episode 257, we started a series on mindset for writers. In some of the previous series I've talked about some of the practical ways to help with distractions, procrastination, and managing time wasters. In this series, we're going to focus on things that derail writers from a mindset perspective because as we know with any endeavor in life, mindset is something like three quarters of the battle where if you convince yourself that you're going to fail before you start, you're probably going to fail. So that's why it's important to have an appropriate mindset to the task at hand. Today we're going to focus on comparing yourself to others, and I will share five reasons it's not a great idea to compare yourself to others aimlessly and how to shift your focus to five more constructive ways to compare your work to other authors. Comparisons are a constant of the reading world. Librarians and Goodreads reviewers talk constantly about “readalikes” or finding books that have similar themes or settings. Book displays and shops and libraries love to group similar books or authors together. People look at the bestseller lists like they're sports scores. Dollar amounts in publishing deals are a constant source of gossip and jealousy. Sometimes comparison is useful, especially when creating ads or finding the right demographics to market to. Other times, it can lead to limiting or self-destructive thoughts. So let's start off with five reasons not to compare yourself to others. #1: It can limit you creatively. It can be easy to look at the bestseller list and try to think of ways to write a similar book. Following publishing trends keeps you from your most creative work and frankly isn't as enjoyable to write and most likely for your readers to read. Also, unless you're a fast writer, the publishing world might have moved on by the time you finished that book. In fact, I just saw a thread on social media about that where the commenter was bemoaning the fact that she used to enjoy what's now called cozy fantasy, but that as the genre has evolved, it's developed established tropes and the writers of it are not willing to variate from those tropes. So you have what she said in her words were dozens of clones of Lattes and Legends and Bookshops and Bone Dusts floating around, which is a tricky thread to balance, I do admit, because you want something that'll appeal to the reader, but then the readers like familiarity. What they really seem to like is familiarity presented to them in a way they've never seen before, which can be a challenge when you are trying to look at the bestseller list and limit yourself creatively. #2: What other people are doing is out of your control. You can't control if a book you think isn't as good as yours is suddenly the runaway hit of the year or an author who isn't experienced as you suddenly gets a movie deal. You can't control their success, so don't worry about it or get upset by it. You can control if you're wasting time online mocking those people or complaining about it, for example. That's a waste of your time and energy and doesn't actually make you feel better in the long run (and possibly in the short run as well). I believe in psychology and in military theory for that matter, there's something called the locus of control where you identify the things that you can control and then you drill in and focus in on the things you can control rather than worrying about the things you can't control. As we said, if an author who wrote a book you don't think is very good or you don't personally like has had a massive amount of success, there's nothing you can do about that and worrying about it is a waste of time and comparing yourself to that writer is also a waste of time. So that's why it's a better idea to focus in on what you can control. #3: You're not being fair to yourself. Comparing yourself to other authors, especially as an aspiring or new author, isn't being fair to yourself. They have years (if not decades) of experience that you don't have. It's like comparing yourself to an ultra-marathoner when you're someone who's just starting to jog and struggling to get all the way around the block, which is some of the tricky parts of someone like me giving advice to new writers because Shield of Power was my 163rd book and Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest will be my 164th. I've been doing this for a long time, which means I probably know what I'm talking about, but that not everything I do is immediately reproducible by someone who hasn't been doing it as long as I have. If you're writing something that's not as marketable or in a smaller genre, it's not fair to compare yourself to people in the biggest genre or even your own previous work. For example, I can't compare the amount one of my technical books earns to one of my fantasy books. If I did that, it'd be a disappointment. But in reality, my technical books have had steady success and have even been used as textbooks at times (which is always surprising when I discovered that's happened because my Windows Command Line book and my Linux Command Line book have both been used as textbooks at various times, which was a surprise to me because that's not what I expected when I set out to write them, but I'm glad that they've been able to be useful for people). #4: And point number four, which I think is a really important one, someone's online life is only the highlight reel of someone's actual life. Looking at someone's social media accounts isn't a great way to know what they're actually doing or how they're actually doing. Just because they're posting pictures of tropical vacations, speaking at conferences, or showing off shiny new stuff doesn't mean you're seeing the full picture of how they're actually doing. As I said in a recent episode that when I was applying for disability insurance (just in case I need it someday), I learned that writers are actually one of the hardest professions to insure due to their high rates of mental illness and substance abuse. You might see the good stuff, but they might not be posting the challenges that come with their success: increased stress and anxiety, more criticism, the need to hire people and how much time it takes to manage them, more complicated taxes, increased business expenses, and relationship problems from the demands of success. These are all things that can accompany success. You're not getting the whole picture. You need to keep that in mind when you compare yourself to people online. The best fictional example out of this that applies to so many situations is Lord Denethor and the Palantir from Return of the King. If you read the book, Denethor has been using the Palantir for years to spy on Sauron and give advantages to his forces and the soldiers of Gondor. But Sauron is able to manipulate what Denethor sees in the Palantir and has been gradually using this to create an edited version of what Denethor sees in the Palantir, and that drives Denethor to despair and eventual suicide. People talk about the increased rates of mental illness related to social media. Sauron did that deliberately to Denethor through the Palantir. It's a sign of how good J.R.R. Tolkien was a writer that he managed to anticipate the effects that Facebook would have on some people by like 60 years. So always bear that in mind when you're looking at someone online and feeling jealous of them. You are not getting the whole picture and there are more than likely things going on that are difficulties in their life that they just don't talk about. #5: Your time is better spent writing than comparing yourself to other writers. And this is back to our old friend, the locus of control. Looking at other authors' sales ranks and reviews is not a productive use of your time. As I mentioned in the writing adjacent activities series, you need to be purposeful in non-writing tasks that take up your time and make sure you're not pretending they're writing related. If you need to compare sales ranks or some other data point with other authors or something you're actively working on like ad targeting, schedule that time and don't let it turn into an Internet spiral of time wasting. And now to avoid those Internet spirals of time wasting, here are five ways to use comparisons positively and constructively. #1: Number one, getting keywords or demographics for marketing purposes. For sites like BookBub or when creating keyword ads, knowing authors who are similar to you is incredibly helpful and can help you structure your ads. And this doesn't even necessarily require you to read the other author's books to see if they actually compare. There are tools that let you expedite this process. For example, if you look on Amazon at the Also Boughts, you can scroll through some of that and see which other authors and which other books people have bought in addition to your own and then you can test using those for keyword targeting. On Goodreads, people put books in lists or compare books. You can use that data to generate keywords for ad targeting. You can test them very easily. With BookBub ads in particular, if you build a campaign around just a single author and keywords and test the results. You can quickly see whether a specific author generates an appropriate click-through rate for you to use or not. #2: A second way is to find authors you might want to do a promo with. Some authors, especially in the romance genre, do really well with group promotions. Finding other authors that write similar books and are at a similar level of success may be a way to take advantage of that. I've never actually set up a group promo, but I have participated in several of them from time to time with pretty good results. #3: A third way is to better understand reader preferences in a genre. My best story for this is I've gone through six different variations of cover design for the Silent Order series. When I started out, I was using GIMP and stock photo images. GIMP is the free Linux version of Photoshop essentially. After I learned Photoshop, I upgraded to characters on the covers, but they never quite sold quite as well until finally I saw a Penny Arcade comic where they were commenting how they just want to buy books where they have spaceships in close proximity to planets on the covers. And I thought, huh, that makes a lot of sense. So I redesigned all the covers to have a spaceship in close proximity to a planet, and the series immediately started selling a fair bit better with those covers. I would say that was not so much a comparison thing, just a genre preference I stumbled across and then had sort of the moment of enlightenment that I did. But if I had looked at the bestseller list for various science fiction categories, I would have realized that most of the bestsellers had spaceships and planets in close proximity to each other on the cover. So I redesigned all the covers. It was just that I was too fond of the character based covers to give them up until I had that moment of revelation. So all the main books in the series were redesigned to have the spaceship covers, though for the free short stories, I did keep the character covers just because I was giving away the free short stories and I did like the character covers, so I got to have my cake and eat it too, which was nice. #4: Learn from the successes and failures of others. You can learn from what another author does well. For example, Brandon Sanderson is very good at communicating his writing progress and other updates to his fans through weekly video messages on YouTube. Other authors are good at collaborating with other authors, while others make engaging and funny videos that make people more interested in their work. Knowing your own strengths is an important first step. If you're just trying to follow everyone who is a success without first reflecting on that, you'll chase too many options and then can't excel at any of them. You can also learn from when an author responds poorly and how the Internet reacts to it. Understandably, I'm not going to give specific examples here. For myself, I tend to focus on what I do best, which is writing really fast and doing social media updates. I never got into video because I kind of have a face for radio and I just don't enjoy doing video. I don't enjoy editing them. It's a lot of work that I don't really enjoy, so I don't do it. #5: Being informed makes comparisons less emotional. Knowing, for example, that an author was hired to write a book based on an existing outline created by the publisher, and then promised a future book deal with a big marketing budget in a preferred genre as part of the contract makes their cross-genre success seem less surprising and makes you feel less guilty for not being able to do the same on your own as an indie author. It's not a fair comparison because they have advantages that you can't understand without some industry knowledge. For people that compare themselves to me, for example, they should know that I've been writing since I was a teenager a very long time ago. I was an early adopter of self-publishing when it was less competitive and I usually work more than eight hours a day and I generally keep to a very rigid writing schedule. Some authors like me were able to get the rights back to their earlier published works and then self-publish them early on in order to finish a series, which is much less likely to be an option in a contract for a traditionally published author now. If you're just starting out, travel frequently for work, and only have an hour a day to write (and even that is dicey because your partner would rather you spend that time on some other activity because they don't support your writing), you can't possibly compare your writing output to mine. Knowing all this about me explains why it might be harder for you and why you shouldn't feel bad about having a harder time with writing. Comparison has been called “The Thief of Joy” all over social media for many years. That can definitely be true, but like so many things in life, how you respond to something and find ways to help it make you stronger is what really matters. Comparison has its place in the writing world, but it's important to keep it in perspective and not to let it overwhelm you emotionally or keep you from your writing goals or plans. So that is it for talking about comparison. I hope that was helpful and offered some useful tips on how to avoid the trap of comparison-itis. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

ORIGINAL EPISODE Summer means movies! And Drew's seen some of the biggest ones of the year so far. What does he think of Superman, Jurassic World, Sinners, Thunderbolts, etc? We don't have time on the show to go in depth like this on movies, so Drew's sharing his thoughts here.

James, Steve, and Charles reconvene after an Independence Day break to catch up over some thoughts on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, Ketanji Brown Jackson's professional disorientation, and the latest dead end on getting to the truth about the twisted villain Jeffrey Epstein. The trio also discusses the newest superhero would-be-blockbuster that's betting on subverting viewer expectations, and James tells us about his own recent crime-fighting adventure...Visit this week's sponsors:Take control of your cellular health today. Go to qualialife.com/ricochet and save 15% to experience the science of feeling younger.Escape the summer heat while you sleep, visit https://cozyearth.com and use code RICOCHETSound clip from this week's open: Trump dismisses question about that Epstein creep. 

James, Steve, and Charles reconvene after an Independence Day break to catch up over some thoughts on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, Ketanji Brown Jackson's professional disorientation, and the latest dead end on getting to the truth about the twisted villain Jeffrey Epstein. The trio also discusses the newest superhero would-be-blockbuster that's betting on subverting […]

In our second to last entry into Super Summer we cover the (almost) most recent live action Superman with a CW series that only ended within the last year. What does our elder millennial Superman have to say in this day and age? Listen and find out!

It's a new millennium, and what better way to celebrate than rebooting a classic hero! We're taking a look at a show that ended up lasting a decade, more than any other sci-fi tv series of the time!

The Club World Cup has ended for our 3 MLS representatives and our attention returns to the league where it's been a super summer so far for Nashville and San Diego! Elliot and Henry discuss the big talking points across the league ahead of the summer transfer window opening in July! You can also watch every episode of the MLS UK Show on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week's episode, we take a look at five obstacles that can impact your writing, and offer tips and tricks for dealing with them. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book #1 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: DRAGONAUDIO50 The coupon code is valid through July 21, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 257 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 27th, 2025, and today we are looking at mindset obstacles to writing. Before we get to that, we'll have Coupon of the Week, an update at my current writing progress, and then we will do Question of the Week.   First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book Number One in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That is DRAGONAUDIO50. And as always, the coupon code and the links to the store will be included in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through July the 21st, 2025, so if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. The rough draft of Shield of Power, the sixth and final book in the Shield War series, is done and I'm editing it. As of this recording, I am about 68% of the way through the first pass of editing. I had hoped to be a bit further along than I actually was, but there was a lot to do this week and because of that, I think it's going to slip to early July for the release date. I'd hoped to have it out in June, but I don't think that's going to happen, but it should be not too much longer once we get to July. Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, I'm 114,000 words into that. So I am very much hoping that will come out very quickly once Shield of Power is out. And I'm also 14,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which would be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series. So it sounds like my Super Summer of Finishing Things is well underway and making good progress. Hopefully I can continue that.   In audiobook news, Shield of Battle and Ghost in the Corruption are both essentially done in audio and just have to get through processing. Shield of Battle was narrated by Brad Wills and Ghost in the Corruption was narrated by Hollis McCarthy. They both did an excellent job and I'm looking forward to being able to share those audiobooks with you in July. So it looks like July is going to be a big month for releases with Shield of Power, Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, and then the audiobooks of Ghost in the Corruption and Shield of Battle. So lots to look forward to in July.   00:02:20 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: how do you pass the time when you find yourself compelled to spend a good chunk of time waiting away from home or work (such as in the hospital waiting room, in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, or waiting in your car to pick up someone from sports practice, a sort of situation like that)? And as you can expect, we had a range of answers.   Justin says: Reading your books.   Mary says: Reading.   David says: Reading or listening to books is my default. Sometimes email.   Keith says: I pace around mulling on problems that I otherwise have no time to think about.   Gary says: A variety of things. I do think it is good practice to teach yourself to wait an hour or more without something external to occupy your mind. My own opinion is that our constant need for distraction hinders us in many ways.   Mandy says: Reading. If I know I'm going to be waiting (or suspect it), I bring a book or my Kindle and I read. I almost always have a book in my car, too.   Mike says: I read books by Jonathan Moeller.   John says: I bring my tablet and read.   Juana says: I read.   Catriona says: Read a book or play a game on my phone. When I worked, I'd do emails, but I am retired now.   Tom says: Usually I read a book on my Kindle app on my phone. Often it's one of yours.   Bonnie says: Usually I scroll through Facebook or do one of the games on my phone or tablet. Don't usually read because I get focused and have a hard time tearing back to reality.   And Jesse says: Reading ebooks or thinking through Work problems for later. If I know up front it'll be an hour or more, I'll bring a laptop and tether it.   For myself, the answer is easy. I bring my laptop and work on my current book. The inspiration for this question was that I had to bring my car in for some maintenance, so I spent the time working on Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest and got a thousand words more into it. I've been doing that for a long time. I think most of my books for the last 10 years, or at least a majority of them, I had a session where I worked in a waiting room on them. I think the earliest I can recall working in a book in a waiting room would be Soul of Skulls way back in 2013, possibly 2012.   00:04:22 Handling Obstacles as a Writer   Now onto our main topic of this week, obstacles. We're going to do a series of a couple mindset obstacles that get in the way of writers. The first one we're going to talk about is obstacles because no writer works without obstacles. Some of them are internal, like mental or physical illness, self-doubt, and perfectionism. Others are external, like having your fence collapse in a storm or being interrupted every five minutes by a toddler who needs something. There is a false belief that time is the biggest obstacle, and if only a writer could write full-time, they would finally be able to start writing or finish a draft. The sea of full-time writers with unfinished books would easily prove this wrong, as would the wide variety of traditionally published authors with full-time day jobs.   I would argue that the biggest obstacle you'll face is how well you handle any kind of obstacle and develop mental flexibility and resilience. In previous series, I've talked about some of the practical ways to help with distractions, procrastination, and managing time wasters. In this series, I'm going to focus on things that derail writers from a mindset perspective. In this episode, we're going to focus on five examples of obstacles that writers face and how to mentally shift your perspective on them.   #1: Getting started. The perfect is the enemy of the possible. I say this often, and I say it often because it's true. Many people don't want to write until they have perfect conditions and feel like they're creatively inspired. Those days I'm afraid, are quite few. It's more productive to work consistently within your limitations than to wait for inspiration and motivation to magically find you. It's generally easier to edit than it is to write, so just get something done on the page without editing as you go.   Activation energy is also the enemy of many. Essentially, some people struggle with transitions and starting something because it takes a lot of mental energy for them to get going or to switch gears. Routines remove the decision making that takes up a lot of that energy. Making the process of starting as easy and pleasant as possible also makes it less daunting. How can I make this easy? It is a great question to ask yourself. Start with a block of time that is so small it feels ridiculously easy, such as one minute. Write without stopping for one minute each day without making any edits, and you'll end up with paragraphs sooner rather than later.   #2: Short amounts of time with purpose add up over the long run. For example, our transcriptionist started writing 300 to 500 words each weekday for 15 minutes as a part of our November Writing Challenge. Even with taking time off for the holidays and real life stuff, she hit 50,000 words on her rough draft in May just by committing to the short burst of focused work as part of her daily routine.   For myself, I mentioned earlier that I'm 114,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, and I started that back in October 2024, and I've been scratching away at it for 500 words a day for that entire time, which as you can clearly see, adds up. More time doesn't necessarily mean more productivity. A small liberal arts college was once concerned that students with a work study award (meaning a part time job on campus offered to those under a certain family income) didn't have as much time to study as their more privileged peers. What they found after looking into the matter was that students with work study awards were getting better grades, so they set out to interview them to find out why. Those they interviewed had schedules and routines for studying that the more affluent students hadn't developed. Even if you don't have the privilege of having a whole day free to do whatever you want, spending your day purposefully is far more important.   Finally, be honest about how you're actually spending your time. For example, the American Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average person surveyed spent 2.7 hours per day watching television, to say nothing of wasting time on social media or other forms of entertainment. By taking an honest look at how you're spending your time, you might find time that you can take from other less useful or even less enjoyable activities.   My mindset about managing my time is that I do try to be pretty disciplined about it. When I'm writing new material, I use the Pomodoro method and try to hit a minimum of 6,000 words a day of new stuff. When I'm editing, I have a number in mind of words I want to edit per day. Usually I try to get around 18,000 to 25,000. Though with that, it can depend very strongly on how much needs to be moved or changed or deleted in the section that I'm editing.   I do have things that I spend time on that aren't necessarily productive, of course. I did probably spend about 50 minutes last night playing Oblivion Remaster on Xbox. I do go to the gym for an hour every morning, though I really think at my age that's more necessary maintenance than an indulgent hobby. But it's always good to be honest about what you're spending time on and where you can improve it and maybe rearrange things to be a bit better.   #3: Number three is interruptions. Interruptions are inevitable and unavoidable. There will never be a day in your life when you're not interrupted by family members, friends, domestic tasks, chores, and even the occasional genuine emergency. Accepting that no perfect day exists and interruptions will be part of your writing routine is the first step in helping yourself manage them.   Focus on the interruptions you can control. If you can pick where you write, pick a spot where it's harder for people to pass by and interrupt you. If you can wake up a bit earlier than the rest of your household to squeeze out a quick hundred words with your first cup of coffee, then choose that time, even if it's a smaller block of time than after when the kids go to bed. Plan what you'll do when interruptions come and how you'll need to be flexible with your routine in order to get writing done. Here are some examples. Your computer breaks down or you're stuck in a hospital waiting room during your writing time. The solution is to keep a pocket notebook somewhere convenient or to use a notes app on your phone so you at least get some words down in either of these situations. You have a long commute and find that when you get home, your kids come to see you every five minutes while you're trying to write. Where is there time in your day you can control? Maybe you could squeeze out five minutes writing on your lunch break. Maybe you could find a way to dictate your writing on the way home, provided your local laws allow for hands-free device use and it doesn't impair your attentiveness while driving. You have a whole day planned to write and a storm hits, and sometimes you just have to accept that getting something done is better than trying to get the whole goal in the event that something comes up. Like for example, I've recently had to spend a good deal of time doing fence repair due to storm damage, and on those days I didn't get as much writing done as I wanted, but I did get some writing done, and as I do frequently say, one slice of pizza is better than no pizza at all. So when you do have days like that, it's better just to grab the one slice of pizza and get a little bit of writing done than to beat yourself up over how you didn't get to the writing goal that was in your head.   #4: Number four is distractions. Distractions like social media and doom scrolling are a huge obstacle, even though they feel more like a treat or a break than a problem. Treating them like a problem instead of a solution to not wanting to work is an important mindset shift. If such things like social media and doom scrolling are keeping you from beating your goals, distractions have to be managed like any other obstacle we're talking about. I've talked about practical ways to manage distractions in my November Writing Challenge series. I recommend you check that out for practical tips.   #5: And finally, number five, motivation. Consistency over passion or motivation wins the day. Slogging through when you don't feel motivated doesn't mean that you're not creative or a good writer. In fact, every good writer will admit that they do that more often than you might think. Removing your ideal of what you should be as a writer and focusing instead on your actual daily behaviors is important. It's easier to keep a routine going (even imperfectly or badly) than it is to keep having to start it over and over again.   There's a theory that was popularized on Reddit called No Zero Days that essentially says that you must do something (however small) each day in order to further your goal.   For example, instead of having the goal of writing 1,000 words each day, the goal is to write every single day. Even getting one single word on the page each day helps keeps the routine or habit going. It makes it easier to start the next day and helps with any guilt associated with a bad day or difficulties getting started.   In conclusion, obstacles are inevitable, but many of the ones we discussed today, especially distractions, are largely within your control. Even when you're not in control of an obstacle, you're fully in control of how you react to it and how quickly you can regroup and keep going. So those five tips, hopefully they will help you navigate your way around any obstacles to your writing goals.   So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

It's a (an almost) new decade, and that means a new look at the Big Blue Boy Scout! But this time, Lois Lane is just as big of an influence on both his character and the show. But how does the Superman of the 1990s stack up? Listen and find out!

In this week's episode, I take a look at the frozen pizzas that I enjoyed in 2025, and give my recommendations for the best frozen pizzas. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store: WARDEN25 The coupon code is valid through July 14, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 256 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 20th, 2025 and today we are looking at my favorite frozen pizzas from Winter and Spring 2025. Before we get to our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing progress, and then we will do Question of the Week this week.   First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store, and that coupon is WARDEN25. This coupon code is valid through July 14th, 2025. So if you need a new series of really long ebooks to read for this summer, we have got you covered and as always, the links to the store and the coupon code will be included in the show notes.   Now for an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. As I mentioned before, I want Summer 2025 to be my Super Summer of Finishing Things because I want to finish The Shield War, Stealth and Spells, and Ghost Armor series this summer before I start on new things. I'm pleased to report that I have reached a milestone of that. The rough draft of Shield of Power is done at 101,000 words. This will be the sixth and final book in the Shield War series. I am currently writing A Consort of Darkness, which will be a short story that newsletter subscribers will get a free copy of in ebook form when Shield of Power comes out. I am also 109,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest and hopefully that will come out very quickly after Shield The Power is out. I'm also 10,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which will likewise be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series.   In audiobook news, recording is still underway for Ghost in the Corruption, which will be narrated by Hollis McCarthy and Shield of Battle, which will be narrated by Brad Wills. Hopefully we will have some more updates on that soon and I don't think it'll be too much longer before both audiobooks are out and available.   00:02:02 Question of the Week   Now let's go to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: when was the last time you went to an actual movie theater to see a movie? No wrong answers, including “I don't go to movie theaters.”  As you can guess, we had a range of responses on this one.   Justin says: Last month we saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail (fifty year release) in the theater. Yes, we have the DVD.   David says: I guess Dune Two is the last time I went to a theater. For the price of going to the theater, I can wait and stream it later. If I don't like the price, I can even wait a few years. I'm not so quick to give them my money. Haven't gone to the theater yet in 2025. Nothing called out to me.   William says: Except for 2020-2021, I've been going to the movies frequently every year since the Hobbit movies first came out. It's not that my habits has changed, just that they started making the kind of movies I wanted to watch like Star Wars, Jurassic World, the Disney remakes, and so on. Before 2012, the last time I went was in 2006 for the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It probably helps that it's only two tickets each time and not four or five for a whole family.   Randy says: Top Gun: Maverick. It was a throwback to the days when movies were fun to watch. Everything doesn't have to have a deeper meaning and make us think. Just have an unlikely crew of misfits take out the bad guys. Bonnie says: Last one was Mary Poppins Returns with granddaughter in Spring 2019. I can't see spending the price for a one time deal.   Cheryl says: The last time I went to the cinema…when did American Beauty come out? That's how long ago it was and the movie was disappointing.   Jenny says: Thunderbolts! I wish movies weren't so pricey.   Elizabeth says: Last time I went to the movie theater was to see Jumanji 2 with my now husband as our first date because both of us are terrible at first date ideas.   I don't know- if Elizabeth's first date with her now husband was Jumanji 2, it seems like that was a very successful first date.   John says: War of the Rohirrim, December of last year.   A different John says: Dune Two and A Complete Unknown are the only two I've seen in the theater in the last two years. In both cases it was because A: the movie deserved to be experienced completely, and B: there was someone I wanted to share it with. Otherwise, modern tech in the home works just fine.   Michael says: Last movie I saw in an actual cinema was Avengers Infinity War, so that's going back a bit. I think the COVID lockdown just killed any desire to do so and haven't been back since.   Michael [A different Michael than the one listed above] says: It has been years.   For myself, the answer is quite simple. I went on May 31st to see Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning. The inspiration for this question was technological change. I only went to the theater twice in 2024, for Dune Part Two and The Fall Guy. In 2025, I've been to the theater twice so far, for Thunderbolts and Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning, but a long time ago when I was much younger and had far fewer demands in my time, I would usually go to the movies on Saturday afternoons if I saw something that looked at all interesting. I'd always go in the afternoons because afternoon matinees were cheaper and I usually preferred to spend Saturday night playing computer games anyway. Nowadays, like I said above, I only went twice in 2024 and twice in 2025 so far. I am not sure what changed. The obvious one is that I'm old enough to have enough to do week to week that giving up three hours on a Saturday afternoon can often be a problem. The other obvious answer is technological change in the form of streaming, which makes it a lot easier to see things at home and perhaps one's taste change as one gets older. For example, there is no way I would go to the theater to see the Minecraft movie, though I would probably watch it on streaming when it rolls around (and I did in fact watch it in streaming last week and thought it was pretty good. It'll be in my next Movie Roundup.) So that is it for Question of the Week.   00:05:52 Main Topic: Winter/Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup   Now onto our main topic this week, my Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup (though I suppose I've been working on this long enough that it should be the Winter/ Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup). I suppose it is a bit odd to talk about frozen pizza on a podcast ostensibly dedicated to indie publishing and indie writing, but I like frozen pizza and it's my podcast, so if I want to talk about frozen pizza, I'm going to talk about frozen pizza. Besides my previous pizza review roundup episode was pretty popular, so that's why I decided to do another one. Unlike a movie roundup, the pizza reviews will be in chronological order based on when I ate them. The grades are, as always, totally subjective and based on my own opinions. I'll also be rating the pizza by eating it hot and eating it cold, since cold pizza is a different experience than hot pizza. Cold pizza for lunch the next day is something to look forward to, especially during a busy day. I should also mention that I purchased each pizza myself with my own money. No one sent me any free stuff, so while my opinion may be subjective, it is nonetheless unbiased. Additionally, I exactly follow the preparation directions for each pizza since I wanted to avoid the phenomenon you sometimes see on recipe blogs where a commenter complains that a recipe didn't work and then admits that they took out the butter, cut the sugar in half, replaced the flour with corn starch, and substituted canola oil for frosting. So with those disclaimers, disclosures, and caveats out of the way, on to the pizzas.   The first one is Orv's Ultimate Rizer Three Meat Pizza, which I had on February 28th, 2025. Orv's is a pizza brand owned by Minnesota based pizza maker Bernatello's. In the last pizza roundup, I mistakenly said Bernatello's was based in Wisconsin (though they do in fact have numerous Wisconsin facilities) and Bernatello's also owns many different pizza brands I have mentioned the last roundup. I had never tried Orv's before, so I thought I would give it a try.   Eaten hot, the sausage, Canadian bacon, and pepperoni are quite good, as are the cheese and sauce. However, the crust really is quite bready and kind of overwhelmed the other tastes. This is a thick crust pizza and to be honest, I really prefer thin crust because it's generally less caloric and the crust has a greater chance to work in harmony with the other flavors and not overpower them.   Eaten cold, it's pretty much the same experience. This is definitely a pizza that would benefit from a bit of added oregano, garlic salt, or perhaps other spices. Overall, I do think I strongly prefer Bernatello's Brew Pub Lotzza Motzza pizza instead of Orv's, though I should mention that Orv's is in fact quite a bit cheaper. Overall Grade: C+   The next pizza is the Red Baron Four Meat Classic Crust Pizza, which I ate on March 7th, 2025. Red Baron is a frozen pizza brand that started in 1976 by the Schwan's Frozen Food Company of Minnesota. Currently, Schwan's is owned by a large Korean conglomerate. Whatever one might think of large corporate consolidation, the fact that the stylized World War I fighter pilot mascot of a Minnesota company is now owned by a Korean conglomerate is kind of hilarious in an absurdist sort of way. Anyway, the pizza!   Eaten hot, I liked the crust. It was a bit thicker than usual for thin crust pizza, but it was crisp and didn't get bready. The sauce was a bit sweeter than usual, but I still liked it. The various meats and the cheese were good as well. Eaten cold, it's still pretty good. The cheese and sauce set well and remained flavorful. Overall Grade: B+   Our next pizza is Good and Gather Pepperoni Pizza, which I had on March 14th, 2025. Store brand foods can be hit or miss, like if you go to a big box grocery store and they have their own store brand of essentials like coffee and cereal and bread and so forth. And as I said, those can be really hit or miss since it depends on the company that is actually supplying the food to the store. That said, I've had good results with Good and Gather, which is the store brand of Target, which is a major big box retailer in the United States. So I thought I'd give the Good and Gather Pepperoni Pizza a try. Eaten hot, I was pleasantly surprised. The crust was crisp, the cheese and sauce were good (if not outstanding), and the pepperoni was flavorful. A good workman like frozen pizza. Eaten cold, it still tastes quite good. An important detail is that this is a good deal cheaper than many of the more premium pizza brands I have mentioned in these pizza roundups. So I would say this is a good solid option for the budget minded consumer. Overall Grade: B     Next up we have Bellatoria's Ultra Thin Crust Meat Trio Pizza, which I ate on March the 21st, 2025. Bellatoria's is yet another brand of the Bernatello's Frozen Pizza Company, a frequent entry in these pizza roundups and it is a seems to be more of a premium brand compared to Orv's. It also has a less heavy load topping compared to Lotzza Motzza, which is another Bernatello's brand. Despite that, I quite like this one. Eaten hot, the crust was crisp and just a bit flaky in a good way and the cheese, sauce, and meat toppings were all good. Sometimes on a pizza you can't taste the crust. Other times you taste it too much, like with thick crust pizza, but I think this was a good crust that complemented the toppings, which were all flavorful. Eaten cold, it fares well. The thin crust doesn't get soggy and the meat and cheese remain flavorful. A very good pizza. I prefer a thin crust to a thick crust, but this was an excellent thin crust. Overall Grade: A   Our next pizza is the Totino's Party Pizza Triple Meat, which I ate March 26th, 2025. Totino's was famously one of the first companies to make frozen pizza and it was later acquired by General Mills. These days, Totino's is mostly known for its pizza rolls, but they still put out small individual pizzas and for the sake of historical continuity, I decided to give it a try. It was okay. It definitely tasted like pizza, but it didn't compare to the stronger ones I've tried like Heggie's or Pothole Pizza. You do need to cook it for a long time for the crust to be adequately crispy and not soggy. I didn't bother to try it cold since I didn't think it would be improved, and this is definitely a pizza where you might want to add some oregano or garlic salt. Its biggest advantage is that it's quite inexpensive, a cheap meal, but don't expect too much. Overall Grade: C+     Next up is Authentic Motor City Pizza Company Three Meat Pizza, which I had on March 28th, 2025. Authentic Motor Pizza Company is owned by the Ilitch billionaire family of Michigan who are the original founders of Little Caesar's Pizza. This pizza is a Detroit style pizza, which is essentially a square pizza cooked in a square pan with a thick crust and lots of cheese. The square shape comes from the fact that Detroit style pizza was originally cooked in a car oil drip pan since the commercially available pans at the time weren't suitable for the pizza. There is some dispute about what actually happened, but it seems Detroit style pizza started at a restaurant called Buddy's Rendezvous in the 1940s, which later became the local Michigan pizza chain Buddy's Pizza. I have to admit, I was originally only vaguely aware of Detroit style pizza, but in 2019 I went to the Detroit area for a funeral and had dinner at Buddy's Pizza, which was amazing. (There was also a guy getting arrested in the parking lot at the time, but thankfully that did not affect the dining experience.) If your travels ever take you to the Detroit area, you should definitely try Buddy's Pizza. Anyway, so after all this, when I happened across a Detroit style frozen pizza, I decided I needed to give it a try. Eaten hot, it is quite good. As I've said before, I'm generally not a fan of thick crust pizza, which this is, but it's a good thick crust, crispy on the edges and bottom without being bready or chewy. The toppings are all excellent, which is helped by the fact that the sauce is good and has a good garlic flavor to it. I was curious how it would hold up when eaten cold and I actually liked it a bit better than when it was hot. The cheese sets well and then everything holds together and so it's a very substantial, very tasty cold pizza. This is good pizza, though that said, I still prefer a thinner crust because the Detroit style of pizza is delicious, but dang, is it a heavy meal. Overall grade: A   Next up is Pothole Kitchen Sink Pizza, which I ate on April 4, 2025, and this is another pizza from the Midwestern convenience store chain Kwik Trip and features pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, and red and green peppers. I really like this one, like the other Pothole varieties I've tried. It's quite good: good crust, good cheese, good sauce, and very flavorful toppings. This has a slight advantage over my other favorite version, the Pothole Meat Sweats Pizza, since the lesser amount of meat means it isn't as greasy. Eaten cold, it is likewise quite good. I think this ties with the Meat Sweats Pothole Pizza. They both represent excellent versions of two different pizza experiences. If you don't want mushrooms and vegetables on your pizza, get the Meat Sweats, but if you do want vegetables, go for the Kitchen Sink. Overall grade: A+     Next up is Heggie's Six Pack Pizza, which I tried on April 11th, 2025. This is another pizza from Minnesota company Heggie's, which had one of my favorite pizzas of the last roundup. Heggie's Six Pack Pizza comes with sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, regular bacon, mozzarella cheese, and cheddar cheese. Let's just say if you're eating this, you probably don't have a six pack.   Anyway. Eaten hot, it was quite good. I like the thin crust and all the meat was good. I would say the biggest weakness is that you can mostly taste the cheese and the Canadian bacon since they kind of drown out all the other flavors. Eaten cold, I would say it tastes better. You can taste all the individual toppings. The cheese, sauce, and crust are pleasant when cold as well. This was a good pizza, but I do like the pepperoni only version better since I think the taste is superior. Overall grade: A-   Next up is the Tombstone Tavern Style Meat Crumble Pizza, which I had on May 2nd, 2025, and this is a more upgraded version of the basic model Tombstone pizza with thinner crust, slightly different cheese, and a mixture of pepperoni and crumbled pork sausage. Honestly, it tasted about the same as the standard model Tombstone. The crust and meat were slightly better, but I thought the sauce was rather watery. Eaten cold, it was better since the watery flavor of the sauce wasn't as strong. That said, I do think the standard model Tombstone pizza is a better pizza. Overall grade: B-     Then we had a bit of a gap here because I had basically tried most of the pizza brands that I actually wanted to try for this review. There are some more lower cost brands out there, but I figured they'd be mostly similar to the cheaper ones I already tried.   Then I came across the final pizza for this review roundup, Screamin' Sicilian Mountain of Meat, which I had on June 6th, 2025. This is another pizza from the Screamin' Sicilian line, which is part of the Palermo Pizza Company of Wisconsin. I tried an all pepperoni version for the last pizza roundup and thought it was pretty good. It got an A-. I decided to try the Mountain of Meat, which has pepperoni, sausage, ham, and bacon, and has a stone fired crust. I liked it better than the all pepperoni version. The different meats blend together well, and I think this version of the crust is quite a bit better. It's a little bit thicker, but still quite crispy. Eaten cold, it likewise holds up quite well. The spiciness of the meat remains flavorful even when cold and the cheese holds it all together. Overall grade: A   So to sum up after two pizza review posts, here are my favorites.   Overall favorites: Pothole Meat Sweats and Pothole Kitchen Sink. Excellent strong runners-up: Heggie's Pepperoni Pizza, Lotzza Motzza, Bellatoria, and the Screamin' Sicilian Mountain of Meat. The downside of all these choices is that they tend to be expensive, usually $10 US or above. So with that in mind, here are best my choices for the best budget options, which would be Tombstone Pepperoni & Sausage and Target's Good & Gather Pepperoni.   Also, one advantage of frozen pizza is that you can add spices to flavor the taste. I found that frozen pizza in general frequently benefits from the addition of oregano or perhaps a dusting of garlic powder. So if you are looking for some frozen pizza, hopefully this will help you find one.   So that is it for this week. Next week I promise we will go back to writing and publishing topics instead of pizza. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Every so often a hero gets so popular that the multimillion dollar company that owns it decides to revoke the rights of anybody that's been making money off of it. And what do you do when that happens? Well if you're one of the Salkinds you pivot to another, younger, cooler, more hip with the kids version of that same character! And this time ... in Florida!

Today's guest is Bob Negen, a seasoned expert in retail management and customer experience. Bob is the co-founder of Whizbang Retail Training, a company dedicated to helping independent retailers thrive in today's competitive market. If you haven't heard of Whizbang, you need to check it out. In this episode, we are thrilled to discuss several ideas to have a super summer, focusing on strategies for pet retailers to maximize this vibrant season. If you're a pet store owner looking for fresh ideas to attract more customers, you're in for a treat. Connect with Whizbang: https://whizbangtraining.com/ Connect with the Pet Shop Girls! Find us everywhere: https://linktr.ee/petshopgirls Connect with Carly (House of Paws): https://www.instagram.com/houseofpawsboutique https://www.tiktok.com/@houseofpawsboutique https://www.facebook.com/houseofpawsboutique Connect with Sherry (Odyssey Pets): https://www.facebook.com/odysseypets https://www.instagram.com/odysseypets https://linktr.ee/odysseypetsdallas Connect with Pet Product News: https://www.petproductnews.com/ https://www.facebook.com/PetProductNews

Look, up in the sky! It's a billboard, for a new Superman movie! And to celebrate, we're spending this summer talking all about the big blue Boy Scout, but we're not talking about his adventures on the silver screen, we're talking about all the different versions that appeared right in your very home! We're kicking off going all the way back to the 1950s and one of the very first superhero tv shows to appear. Do not adjust your TV set, this IS in black and white. But does it hold up? Listen and find out!

In this week's episode, we take a look at the major self-publishing platforms that I use, and examine the pros and cons of each. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Doom of the Sorceress, Book #8 in the Dragonskull series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: DOOM50 The coupon code is valid through June 24, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 253 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 30th, 2025, and today we are looking at the current major self-publishing platforms and what they offer indie authors. Before we get to our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing projects.   So let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Doom of the Sorceress (book number eight in the Dragonskull series, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That code is DOOM50. And as always, we will have the coupon code and the links to the store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June 24th, 2025. So if you are setting out on summer travels this summer and you need an audiobook to listen to while you're in the car or plane, we have got you covered. So now for an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. Ghost in the Corruption (as I mentioned last week) is now out and available at all the ebook stores: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and Payhip. It is selling well. So thank you all for that. Now that Ghost in the Corruption is finished, what am I working on next? Well, back in 2023, I finished the Dragonskull and The Silent Order series back to back, so I declared Summer 2023 to be my Summer of Finishing Things. Well, it looks like Summer 2025 is going to be the Super Summer of Finishing Things because I intend to finish three series back to back.   First up is Shield of Power, the sixth and final book of The Shield War series. As of this publishing, I am 26,000 words into it, which puts me on Chapter 6 of 29. So I think it's going to end up being around 100,000-110,000 words long, and I am hoping it will be out in June, though it might slip to July depending on how things go. Once that is done, the next one up will be Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, which will be the third and very definitely final book of the Stealth and Spells Online trilogy. Believe it or not, I have been working on Final Quest on the side for so long that I passed the 100,000 word mark in that book this week. In fact, it's been a side project for so long that I don't remember how long I've been working on it, and I had to look up the metadata to check that I indeed started chipping away on it on October 18th, 2024. So I am very pleased that I'm nearly done with the rough draft and because of that reason, if all goes well, it'll come out very quickly after Shield of Power, since I think the rough draft will end up at about 125,000 to 130,000 words or in that neighborhood. Once Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest is finished, I will then write Ghost in the Siege, which will be the sixth and final book of the Ghost Armor series. I am 1,500 words into that and hoping for that to come out in August or September, if all goes well. Once The Shield War, Stealth and Spells Online, and Ghost Armor are finished, I will finally be free to return to the Rivah and Nadia series. I realized that through all of 2024 and the first half of 2025, I had five unfinished series at the same time, and that was just too much for me to keep track of as a writer, and I think it may have been too much for the readers because it was too much of a wait between the different series as I worked my way through them. So five series at the same time is too much, so hence the Super Summer of Finishing Things. Going forward, I've decided that three unfinished series at the same time will be my maximum, which after the Super Summer of Finishing Things will be Cloak Mage, Half-Elven Thief, and a new epic fantasy series that I will set in the realm of Owyllain.   In audiobook news, Brad Wills started working on Shield of Battle this week and Hollis McCarthy started working on Ghost in the Corruption, so hopefully before probably about July or thereabouts, we will have those audiobooks available for you to listen to. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:03:49 Main Topic of the Week: Self-Publishing Platforms for Ebooks [Note: Information in this Episode is Very Likely to Change]   So now let's move on to our main topic for the week, which is the main self-publishing platforms for ebooks. Today we will do a brief overview of the self-publishing platforms I currently use: Amazon/KDP, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Draft2Digital/Smashwords. The reason I wanted to do this is because there are many scammy platforms for self-publishing out there, but fortunately there are also many legitimate ones. Today we'll compare several of the most popular ones for ebooks. Just to make things easier for comparison, we'll be using the term platform to discuss both retailers and aggregators and we're not going to talk about options for self-publishing print or audio formats today. We're going to focus solely on ebooks.   First of all, what should you look for in a publishing platform? The first thing is to make sure you retain complete ownership of your content in all formats. Some of these scammer ones try to claim all rights to anything you try to post or sell through them, so that is definitely a red flag to watch out for. Make sure that you understand any exclusivity requirements of any programs that you sign up for such as KDP Select, such as if other formats like audio are also included in their requirements, how long exclusivity lasts, et cetera. If the platform requires exclusivity, that is definitely something to pay attention to. Make sure you do your research carefully to understand how pricing, royalties, and payments work on each individual platform. Sometimes some of them will pay quarterly, some of them pay monthly, and some of them pay you last month's royalties at the end of the month. Some of them like Amazon run like two months behind.   Finally, and this is a big one, you should not have to pay any money in order to upload your work. If they are asking for money upfront, it is probably a scam. Now, there are some aggregators that don't take a percentage and instead charge you a yearly fee. I'm not talking about them in this podcast episode because I don't use them, but they are out there. One example would be Book Funnel, which does charge a yearly fee for you to use but provides a valuable service in being a backend for running your own store on like Payhip or Shopify, and there's a couple of other useful services in that way, but they're not a storefront and they don't take a percentage of any royalties. They just charge a yearly fee. So they're not the topic with this episode.   All the platforms I've talked about today do not have any fees in order to upload. Reputable sites like Amazon or Kobo will instead take a percentage of each book's sale. It's also good to have a few realistic expectations before you start using self-publishing platforms, and one of them is that the platform is not a marketer. For example, many people complain that KDP doesn't showcase their books and they get lost in the millions of books available. However, none of these services are promising that you'll make the front page of their site just by publishing there. It's a common delusion among new indie authors that when you publish your first book, that's all you have to do and people will flock to it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.   In fact, since Amazon makes a small fortune off book ads, it's not in their interest to give away screen space for free, and this isn't to knock on Amazon, that's just the way the retail industry works. For example, if you go into a Target or a Walmart or another big box retailer, note the products that are prominently displayed on the aisle displays or the endcaps of the aisles. They didn't just get there randomly. The manufacturers of those products paid big money to Amazon and Target and Walmart and the other big box retailers to have their products featured there. In many cases, online commerce is no different.   Getting your book uploaded onto a platform is just the first step. Promoting and marketing the book is up to you and strategies for those will vary based on which ones you choose to use. For example, if you choose to make your work exclusive to just one platform, it's not a good idea to run Facebook ads in countries where that platform either doesn't exist or where it's not terribly popular. Today we're going to be just focusing on comparing the platforms, not how to best to market from them. So what are the options?   #1: First up is the most common platform people use and it's the 800 pound gorilla in the self-publishing space, and that is Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. And what are the pros and cons of KDP?   Pro: They are the biggest force in ebook publishing in many countries, including the United States. Some authors find that as much as 80 to 95% of their ebook sales come from Amazon, even if they are not exclusive with Amazon. For myself, it's usually about 50 to 60% of my sales on any given month are from Amazon and the rest come from the other retailers.   Heavy readers are generally very familiar with the Kindle Store interface and Library setup, and many readers are kind of locked into Amazon because they own Kindle devices, subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, and have large Kindle Libraries. So those are all the pros of publishing with KDP.   Cons: If you're expecting a large portion of your sales to come from the print version of your book or if print sales are very important to you, be aware that many bookstores and libraries either can't or won't buy print books from Amazon, so you should find an additional platform for the print version such as Ingram Spark or maybe Barnes & Noble's print division. One big concern about going exclusive with Amazon is that you're losing readers who don't have Kindle books in their countries, people who are boycotting Amazon for a variety of reasons, people who are locked into another platform such as Apple or Kobo, or people who want to self-archive their ebooks since Amazon doesn't allow that anymore. If you're already wide, you'll have to look carefully at what percentage of your sales are non-Amazon and if this percentage is an amount you'd be comfortable risking losing in order to be exclusive. Occasionally authors do complain about the customer service available to KDP, especially if it's urgent. For myself, I've not personally had any huge problems with KDP customer service. That said, I think you should expect a lead time of about one to two business days on anything you ask because I usually go through the email form.   Does KDP offer a subscription service? Yes. Kindle Unlimited (KU) readers pay a set amount and can read an unlimited number of books each month, although they're limited as to how many they can have in their library at any one time. Promotions happen regularly, usually based around big sales like Prime Day, and it can make a subscription as cheap as $0.99 for a three month period. Some also receive free subscriptions by buying certain Amazon products such as a new Kindle or Kindle Fire.   The downside of being in Kindle Unlimited is the exclusivity. You can't be in KU without being exclusive with Amazon, or at least the specific book in question has to be exclusive. Not all of your books have to be exclusive, and many authors such as myself will usually put one series in KU and then make sure everything else is wide. You must agree to be exclusive with them for ninety days and that time period is renewable.   What does KDP pay in terms of royalty? For $2.99 to $9.99, they give you 70% of the sale price. Under $2.99 and above $9.99, it's 35%. So that is sort of an encouragement from Amazon to price your ebooks in the $2.99 to $9.99 range. Currently I price new novels at $4.99 and do short stories at $0.99 cents.   What do I do? I have all of my titles available through KDP. I have a smaller portion of my collection exclusive through KDP Select/KU, and I have only recently increased that amount of Select titles due to the economic downturn. I suspect that KU users are likely to hold onto their subscriptions while cutting other expenses because honestly, KU is a pretty good deal for readers and the monthly subscription costs is about the same as one tradpub frontlist ebook, but with a KU subscription, they could read thousands of books for the same price. The value of KU is really very strong for frequent romance, LitRPG, science fiction, and fantasy readers. There's a strong population in the KU subscriber base often referred to as binge readers. They care more about variety, discovering new books, and the ability to read a lot over the ability to read specific authors or stories.   So overall, I think if you are self-publishing and even if you don't like Amazon very much or don't plan to go exclusive, it's still in your best interest to publish your ebook with them, even if you are wide and intend to do all the other retailers just because Amazon really is the biggest ebook platform out there at the moment. #2: Now, the next self-publishing platform we're going to look at is Barnes & Noble Press, which as the name implies, belongs to Barnes & Noble. The Pros: some people are never, ever going to let go of their Nooks or they already have a large personal ebook library through the Nook so they feel locked into that platform. These readers are the majority of people buying ebooks through Barnes & Noble, but fortunately that group tends to read a lot. There's also a lot of trust in Barnes & Noble as a brand, and that inspires people to continue buying from them.   In fact, for a while in the indie author space at the end of the 2010s and the start of the 2020s, it was a regular prediction that Barnes & Noble was going to go out of business soon, but then the company was bought by a private equity firm, and while private equity firms often have a deserved bad reputation for stripping a company of assets and then selling it off at a bargain basement price (such as the fate of Red Lobster), that does not seem to be the case of what happened with Barnes & Noble and the company really has been strengthening in recent years. So they may be here to stay for a while.   The downsides of publishing with Barnes & Noble Press is that Barnes & Noble is relatively a minor player in the ebook market, though usually in the top four of most indie author ebook sales if they're wide. They have shifted their focus to selling print books instead of Nook devices, especially in the retail space.   Do they offer a subscription service? They do not. However, nothing about Barnes & Noble requires exclusivity, which is nice, and the royalty structure is pretty good. It's 70% over all titles over $0.99. So if you want, you could price your ebook at $0.99 or $19.99 and still make 70%, which you couldn't do with those prices on Amazon.     #3: The next self-publishing platform we'll look at is Kobo Writing Life, which is the ebook platform to publish on Kobo, which is owned by Rakuten. Pros: Kobo is strong in the international market and will help you to reach readers in many countries. Based on my sales data, in Canada and Australia, Kobo is significantly bigger than Amazon for ebook sales. Kobo has also had a surge of recent media attention in the US as people seek out alternatives to Amazon and Kindle devices.   The Con of Kobo, and this is a fairly small one, is that their US market share is still fairly small compared to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or some of the others. But as I mentioned, they're a lot stronger in Canada and Australia, and they do reach a lot of different countries, more than Amazon does.   Does Kobo have a subscription service? Yes, Kobo Plus. Kobo Plus is significantly less expensive than Kindle Unlimited, and there's an additional tier that allows you to add audiobook content to the plan. The library isn't quite as extensive as KU though, though. I should note that in the years since Kobo has been introduced, I'd say about half of my revenue from Kobo (sometimes 60% of my revenue from Kobo) comes from Kobo Plus and not from direct ebook sales. So it's getting to the point where the majority of their ebook revenue I suspect, is coming from Kobo Plus and not direct Kobo sales.   Do they require exclusivity? No, which is another strong selling point for Kobo Plus. For their royalty structure, ebooks over $2.99, you get 70% and any books over below $2.99, you get 45%, which is a more generous term than Amazon in terms of the royalty rate for below $2.99 and above $9.99.   So what do I do? I currently use it as one of the platforms for my ebooks. It's been a pretty strong seller for me consistently over the years, and every Kobo book that I have is also available in Kobo Plus, which probably explains the revenue split I was talking about earlier. #4: The next platform we'll look at is Draft2Digital/Smashwords, which we'll do as one because Draft2Digital and Smashwords are in the process of merging. Draft2Digital is technically what's called an aggregator, where you upload your book and then they can publish on a variety of different platforms for you, and in exchange, they take a small cut of the sales. Draft2Digital is, in my opinion, probably the most effective way to get your ebooks through Apple and Smashwords. Apple does have its own direct uploading service, but I've never used it because there are a bit too many hoops to jump through.   Draft2Digital does, as I mentioned, have a way to publish on multiple storefronts at once while managing uploads and sales reporting through just one interface. They're not a storefront in and of themselves, although since Draft2Digital does own Smashwords, Smashwords essentially acts as their storefront for them. Although Draft2Digital lists Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble as an option, most authors will upload to these sites separately, and in fact, that's what I do for myself.   The Pros of Draft2Digital is that it's a definite time savings using Draft2Digital to publish across multiple platforms, especially with platforms like Apple that are more difficult or time consuming to learn. This is also a convenient way to make your work accessible to library platforms like Overdrive/Libby, Hoopla, and Bibliotheca, if that is important to you. Library sales have never been a huge priority of mine, but I've never been opposed to them either, so I usually just flip those switches on and then don't think about it again.   The Cons for Draft2Digital are that there was a period after the Smashwords migration where they received complaints about customer service and difficulty in setting up tax information, though I think that is mostly ironed out now.   One potential hazard for Draft2Digital with a very specific subset of writers is that if you are a writer of, shall we say, very hard erotica, the sort that ends up in very restricted categories on most stores, you will probably have trouble publishing through Draft2Digital. This is not, however, a problem that's unique to Draft2Digital. Amazon has what is called the “erotica dungeon”, where if you publish certain kinds of, like we said, very harsh erotica, your book isn't searchable on the Amazon store. You can link to it directly, but it will never show up on any search results. Kobo in particular has had problems with erotica.   Back in the 2010s, Kobo was also distributing ebooks to some British retailers, and these British retailers suddenly got upset when they noticed that these kinds of hard erotica were showing up on their store pages, which was not a good look for the company. And so there was a kerfuffle until that was all sorted out. My frank opinion with that is if you are writing these kinds of erotica, the big stores and Draft2Digital will never be on your side, and so you are better off pursuing a sort of a Patreon/running your own store on Shopify or Payhip strategy, but that is a bit of a digression.   So in terms of royalties, Draft2Digital takes 10% of the book's retail price per copy sold, which is in addition to whatever amount is taken by the specific storefront. So you are paying a bit of money in exchange for convenience for just uploading your book to Draft2Digital and having it push out the book to all the different stores for you.   What I do is I use Draft2Digital for Apple mainly because for a while I was using Smashwords, but Smashwords in the 2010s was a bit more persnickety than is now, and you needed to prepare a specially formatted doc file to publish on Smashwords and sometimes getting it through the Smashwords processing onto Apple was a bit of a pain. Draft2Digital took epub files, which are much easier to work with, and after a while I switched over all my Apple publishing to Draft2Digital entirely. So that's why I use Draft2Digital for Apple and for various library services that tend to be a minor amount of sales. Because of the difficulties on publishing direct to Apple, I do find that that 10% is good trade off in terms of selling books on Apple for me.   #5: Now onto Google Play's ebook self-publishing platform, which is, I think its full name is the Google Books Partner Center, which lets you publish books to the Google Play Store for sale on Android devices.   The Pros are that for writers interested in the international market, Google Play is another strong choice for a platform since the international mobile device market is very Android heavy. The iPhone (Apple) tends to be concentrated mainly in the US and a few of the wealthier countries like the UK and Canada, but Android has a much more international reach in general than the iPhone. Google Play also has some interesting promotional options for ebooks, such as offering the buyer a chance to subscribe to a specific series.   The cons are that some authors report that their sales reporting doesn't always consistently generate reports, and others are annoyed that it only generates a CSV file, (which isn't that much of a hardship for people who are familiar with Excel).   For myself, I found that there is a bit of a reporting lag on Google Play where it will sometimes take as long as five or six days for sales to show up on the dashboard, though usually it's only a delay of two days, though sometimes during the month you'll get these bigger lags and sometimes processing new material on the Google Play Store can be slow, and it can sometimes take two to three days for things to appear, though it usually gets worked out in the end. Does Google Play have a subscription service? It does not, nor does it require exclusivity, which is another point in its favor. And the royalties, the data is quite nice here. It is 70% for all price points in the countries listed on their support page, which only excludes a handful of countries like India, South Korea, and Japan (because of currency conversion regions or other local laws).   So those are the ebook publishing platforms that I currently use, and because I use them myself, I would recommend them. Hopefully that is helpful to you as you are looking for places to self-publish your book as you set out to become an indie author.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the backup episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

Send us a textOn this episode of the CSZ Podcast, coming to you live from the Four Pegs Studios, Jeremy is joined in person by Joey, Shawn, & Sam! (finally) We are also joined in studio by the one & only Colin Lyman!Today the guys talk to one of the most clutch hitters in Louisville Baseball history, Colin Lyman! The guys talk about the current season with Colin, Post-season hopes, chance they can pull things together then we talk Basketball recruiting, Football recruiting, Rapid Fire and much, much more plus our usual shenanigans! Another can't miss episode! Follow us on Twitter:@Jeremy_CSZ@lvilleshawn@baseboy124@DPence_@joewahman526@WesB_42@WesKeyes_CSZ@IamthehiggyFollow our sponsors on Twitter:@RallyHouse@FitnessMarketKY@course_crew@FourPegsBeer@MossyOak@Shoot360Lou@CherryPickinGds@Zach_Beckmann1@PlanetFitnessSupport the show

Send us a textOn this episode of the CSZ Podcast, coming to you live from the Four Pegs Studios, Jeremy is joined in person by Joey & Shawn & Sam via Restream. We are also joined by our first in-studio guest in the new studio. The one and only Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke Whitehead!On this episode of the Superstar Summer Series, the guys talk to the toughest Cardinal of all time, the one & only Luke Whitehead. We talk seasons results, roster construction,Basketball recruiting, his son, Mixed Nation, coaching, Shoot 360 and much, much more plus our usual shenanigans! Another can't miss episode!Follow us on Twitter:@Jeremy_CSZ@lvilleshawn@baseboy124@DPence_@joewahman526@WesB_42@WesKeyes_CSZ@IamthehiggyFollow our sponsors on Twitter:@RallyHouse@FitnessMarketKY@course_crew@FourPegsBeer@MossyOak@Shoot360Lou@CherryPickinGds@Zach_Beckmann1#PlanetFitnessSupport the show

What started as a modest outdoor theatrical space in the Spring Mountains now regularly draws a thousand people per performance.

Darin, Mitch and Kris hit all the hotspots — from the Pacific Northwest (Gamble Sands, Chambers Bay, Bandon Dunes and more) to a Michigan buddies trip plus a very cool experience in Pinehurst with two future stars of the game — in this hourlong Summer Recap episode of Talking GolfGetaways that covers courses, food, friendship and all kinds of fun.

In der neuesten Folge von Hot Seats and Cold Brews sitzen Dennis und Tobi entspannt im Klappstuhl vor ihrem Camper und lassen ihre Erlebnisse in den Dolomiten Revue passieren. In dieser Episode nehmen sie dich mit auf die atemberaubenden Trails in Canazei und Arabba und erzählen von ihren Eindrücken vom brandneuen Bikepark in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Erfahre aus erster Hand, was diese Regionen für Mountainbiker so besonders macht und warum die Dolomiten ganz oben auf deiner Bucket List stehen sollten. Außerdem gibt es in dieser Folge ein spannendes Gewinnspiel – also unbedingt bis zum Schluss dranbleiben!

Get Ready for Super Summer! by TABC

     When Sirius would appear in the sky just before the sun, in July, that marked the beginning of the very hottest days of the year.     The Romans referred to this period as "dies caniculares" or "days of the dog star," which was eventually translated as just "dog days."     Too hot to handle?     Now that the world seems warmer and that last trade show of the first half of 2024 was over at PVG last week, we are counting the ‘Dog Days' as July 4th in America approaches Thursday wishing all A SUPER SUMMER 2024!     At home we look at our four-legged friends with some passion whilst they continue to do what they have always done best as great spirits looking up every time, we enter the room and no matter what, asking us the same question with longing in their eyes:     “What's up?” they always want to know.     Lulu, our faithful companion (pictured here), could not be described as a wonder dog, that's for sure.     No heroics on tap for July 4th either.

Send us a Text Message.Pull a seat up at the table and join us in a conversation with Zach DePriest and Ken Hall about 2024 Super Summer at Mississippi College the week of July 8.  We hear about the long ministry of Super Summer and the new changes ahead for this year.  Zach serves as the Student Pastor at First Jackson and is one of many leaders for Super Summer.Around the Corner Events: All Events: mbcb.org/eventsJune 25-29: HeartSong Worship Arts CampJuly 8-12: Super SummerJuly 9-12: SMACK CampJuly 18-20: State Literacy Missions & Christian Job Corps ConferenceJuly 19: Stand Tall - Students Standing for ChristAugust 8: Impact Training - ColumbusAugust 12: Impact Training - ClintonAugust 13: Impact Training - Hernando August 16-17: Equipping LeadersAugust 19: Impact Training - GulfportAugust 20: Impact Training - HattiesburgContacts: Jon Martin, Chief Strategy Officer - jmartin@mbcb.orgTanner Cade, Communication Services Director - tcade@mbcb.org

Have you ever been caught understaffed during the summer months, or experienced the guilt of trying to take a well-deserved break only to have your team ping you with questions? Those days are over! In this episode, we'll explore the crucial balance between risk and reward as the warm weather rolls in, and I'll share some tips to help you plan ahead. We'll talk about managing time-off requests, ensuring your team has proper cross-training, and setting boundaries for contact while on vacation so that you can actually relax. So, get ready to confidently step away from your day-to-day, knowing that your team has everything under control.  It's time to build a business and a team that thrives, with or without you on deck! Work with Shelli Warren: Apply now to join the Leadership Lab. Apply now to join the Leadership Lab 101. Enroll your key team members into the TEAM Leader Program. Learn more about Personal Guided Development from Shelli. Confidence Starts Here: Get the Ask Shelli scripts to know what to say and how to say it. Free Resources: Click here to get the 12 Ways to Motivate Your Team Without a Pay Raise guide. Click here for free resources and tools from Stacking Your Team. Click here to get the guide on how to position your role as their next best career move. Connect with Shelli Warren: Email: leader@stackingyourteam.com Instagram LinkedIn Subscribe to the Stacking Your Team Newsletter

Today's guest is Bob Negen, a seasoned expert in retail management and customer experience. Bob is the co-founder of Whizbang Retail Training, a company dedicated to helping independent retailers thrive in today's competitive market. If you haven't heard of Whizbang, you need to check it out. In this episode, we are thrilled to discuss several ideas to have a super summer, focusing on strategies for pet retailers to maximize this vibrant season. If you're a pet store owner looking for fresh ideas to attract more customers, you're in for a treat. Connect with Whizbang: https://whizbangtraining.com/ Connect with the Pet Shop Girls! Find us everywhere: https://linktr.ee/petshopgirls Connect with Carly (House of Paws): https://www.instagram.com/houseofpawsboutique https://www.tiktok.com/@houseofpawsboutique https://www.facebook.com/houseofpawsboutique Connect with Sherry (Odyssey Pets): https://www.facebook.com/odysseypets https://www.instagram.com/odysseypets https://linktr.ee/odysseypetsdallas Connect with Pet Product News: https://www.petproductnews.com/ https://www.facebook.com/PetProductNews

The guys need a superhero palate cleanser after “Super Summer”, so they are cracking open the newest from their favorite duo: Brubaker and Phillips. Does this podcast favorite creative team still have the magic?

The Dynasty WarZone, Season 1, Episode 16: Memphis (@DWZMemphis) and Kevin (@smickyyy) break down some of the most hyped players and tell you who to sell. -- In this episode, the guys provide valuable insights into Good People, Bad Tweets Hype meters on DJM, Pickens, Ridley The most optimal Ravens scheme yet Workload concerns in CAR and JAX Darren Waller league winner Get ready to take your fantasy football game to the next level, tune in now to gain the upper hand in your leagues. -- Subscribe to the Dynasty WarZone directly ➔ https://pod.link/1404648578 YT➔ https://www.youtube.com/@dynastywarzone8225 IG/X➔ @DynastyWarZone Patreon➔ https://www.patreon.com/DynastyWarZone -- Timestamps: 5:47 - Good People Bad Tweets 9:53 - Dynasty Sells!! 10:38 - Calvin Ridley is older than people think 17:21 - Is the DJ Moore hype getting out of control? 22:47 - The Ravens offense is going to smash in 2023 23:59 - Is George Pickens more than just a highlight reel?? 33:56 - Are we worried about Miles Sanders new situation? 40:53 - Is Travis Etienne's workload in trouble? 47:40 - Should we capitalize on the Darren Waller camp hype? --

Before “Super Summer” comes to an end the guys discuss their bonus Superman reads and viewings before reflecting on all they learned from the “Man of Steel” this summer.

Pod favorite Tom King returns with his take on “Supergirl”. With gorgeous art from Bilquis Evely, this volume makes a perfect addition to “Super Summer”

The boys take a slight detour from “Super Summer” to discuss the newest DC film “The Flash”, but don't worry because there is a “Super” character to discuss in the movie.

Summertime is here, and you know what that means... its time for the Super Summer Wham Bam Slam Bam Funsplosion Toycast Party! And it doesn't end there! The Time Blaster Toycast is a nostalgic podcast about growing up in the 1980's & 1990's, with a specific focus on action figures, video games, junk food and retro geek stuff. Hosts Keith, Joe & Dave are your weekly tour guides as we travel back in time... when toys were cooler, movies were funnier, times were simpler & life in general was just MORE RAD! Got a question, comment or idea for our show? Want to share a story of your own with us? The Time Blaster Toyline is open 24/7! Leave us a message or shoot over a text message at 734-494-2292 Follow us on Instagram: @timeblastertoys @theretroko @mathew_priest --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/timeblastertoycast/support

What is in the This Week in Science Podcast? This Week: Horse toes, Global Cooling = Global Warming, Long-Necked Dinos, Cellular Selection, Cancer Cures, Gutsy Treatment, Detail, El Ribbit, Calming Rats, Why Snakes, Pain Fingerprints, And Much More Solstice Science! Become a Patron! Check out the full unedited episode of our science podcast on YouTube […] The post 21 June 2023 – Episode 931 – Super Summer Solstice Science! appeared first on This Week in Science - The Kickass Science Podcast.

The first book to kickoff “Super Summer” is Superman: For All Seasons where the truly dynamic duo of Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale re-introduce Superman to a 90's audience.

In this variant episode the boys run through their upcoming summer event which is all about Superman. Hear the boys history and feelings about the character along with a preview of the Superman titles they will be reading and watching this summer.

We are soaking up the summer here in Wisconsin! But sometimes summer comes with a cost. Bugs, Sunburn, and Heat- Oh My! Tune into this episode for some summer survival tips from Everside NP and International Certified Aromatherapist, Renee Wenzlaff. Be sure to also check out our Summer Savvy episode for maximum education on possible summer ailments! General recipe for stings and bites 1 drop thyme 10 drops lavender 4 drops eucalyptus radiata 3 drops Roman or German chamomile Peppermint Cooling Mist 1-2 drops of peppermint per 8 oz of water --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tacoboutwellnesswehwc/message

In which Jorge and JT pack up their tents, sleeping bags, marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers and make for the great outdoors...or not.TOPICSThe BurningCabin FeverCamp MurderDon't Fuck In The WoodsFear Street Part Two: 1978MidsommarRituals (aka The Creeper)Ruin MeSleepaway CampSummer CampLINKShttps://linktr.ee/podferatuNaro CinemaSkull logo by Erik Leach @erikleach_art (Instagram)Theme:  Netherworld Shanty, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Chase and Noah kick off season 2 with a series of super stories from their summer break! From bats to preaching to kids to teaching the fellas fill you in on their packed and faith growing summer. The pals pontificate on thought from the summer and they both happen to find themselves in the book of Phillipians! Join us for our season two spectacular kick off with the Pontification Pals!Song referenced in episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkR4hUM0RmcRemember to like, subscribe, and share!

What single player game would you love to see with co-op?? We dive into that, and the secret discovery found this week revolving around the 90s classic game Super Punch Out!! Tell us all your thoughts in this latest Season 3 Bonus Summer Episode!  . You can tell us all of your thoughts and send us your questions on our Podcast Discussion channel on DISCORD: https://discord.com/invite/Z8bj9cXNVy . Join us on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tasteofdragons And also on Social Media: https://linktr.ee/tasteofdragons . Punch Well. Punch Dragon.

Description:  This episode features the Service Users of AAW San Diego in an original theatrical scene and musical scene titled; Super Summer Scene: Featuring Rap Battle.  This was a team effort between Podcast Class, Art Class, and Music Therapy class through which the SU collaboratively wrote, rehearsed, and recorded an original scene and an original rap battle that is performed in character! Through this process, the SU explored themes such as team work, patience, seeing the good in others, never giving up, and owning who they are.  We hope you enjoy listening and are inspired by their creation. Cast List Narrator: Jillian Anderson Superman Daniel: Daniel Lee Ice Woman: Stephanie Monis Siren Sarah: Sarah Shaw Speedy Boy: Liam Porter Captain Claire: Claire Feth Juan Marcos: SU does not consent to be named Mr. Jaws: Max Lecanu-Fayet WonderwomAnda: Amanda Terrones Mighty Buck: SU does not consent to be named Gazing Grace: Grace Szymanski Racing Reid: Reid Moriarty Nya: Kaitlyn Johanson  Black Rhino Erick: Erick Abney Renee Russo: Renee Morneau Jammin Josh: Joshua Andrews Nikk: Nikki Pousti Introduction:  Ladies and Gentlemen, we are the artists of Able Arts Work San Diego.  Welcome to our first ever podcast created in person! We created a scene about a character named Mr. Jaws and some superheroes.  Through this story, we wanted to demonstrate themes that are important to us such as finding the good in others, always being kind, never giving up, being patient, and owning who we are.  Each of us has unique abilities in real life, that we showcased through our superhero characters.  When someone is mean, they rise above it and inspire others through teamwork.   We also wrote and recorded an original rap battle to develop our characters further!  This was a team effort between Podcast Class, Art class, and Music Therapy Class.Story:  [Open to beach scene: Superhero friends gather around for birthday party] Narrator: It was a sunny day in San Diego. The San Diego Superheroes gathered at Belmont Park to celebrate their friend Superman Daniel's birthday. The group was very excited for their water balloon fight, dance parties, and karaoke. Gazing Grace and Siren Sarah were prepping the dance floor and putting up decorations Siren Sarah: It's going to be an awesome day! Ice Woman: Yeah, I think so!  Narrator: then suddenly Speedy Boy heard ominous music Speedy Boy: Oh no! It's Mr. Jaws! I've heard he likes to throw water balloons at people.  Black Rhino Erick: That's right, I was at a birthday party last week and Mr. Jaws stole water balloons and threw them at all the guests.  Captain Claire: Not today!  Juan Marcos: Be! WonderwomAnda: Patient, we'll work together to save the party Narrator: A great white shark rose from the ocean and walked toward the group on the beach. The shark bellowed:  Mr. Jaws: You Super San Diegans think you can have a birthday party and not invite me?!? We'll see about that.  Narrator: The party scattered, but the San Diego Superheroes stood together and faced him. Wonderwomanda moved forward to confront the shark WonderwomAmanda: We're just trying to celebrate Super Man Daniel, what do you want from us?  Mr. Jaws: If you are all as super as you say you are I have a 3-part challenge for you. First, we have to go to Belmont Park. And there you have to beat me at air hockey and Fast and Furious racing. If you make it past that, you have to face me on stage for a rap battle, where I will destroy you and your water balloons.  Narrator: The superheroes turned towards each other to make a plan. Renee Russo created an electric smoothie machine with her magic wand and offered it to the group.  Renee Russo: Everyone, let's drink this! It will engage your super powers and help us defeat Mr. Jaws Mighty Buck: Great Idea!  *Rap Battle begins at 10:55(For the FULL Transcription email kking@ableartswork.org)

Jeff & Will have books to recommend for your TBR! In keeping with the Christmas in July theme, the guys recommend "Lights, Camera, Christmas" by J.D. Light, "Merry Measure" by Lily Morton, and "Stanley's Christmas Redemption" by Gabbi Grey. For some summertime YA reads they talk about "A Little Bit Country" by Brian D. Kennedy, and "Out of the Blue" by Jason June. Jeff's also got some can't miss romance with "Playing for Keeps" by Beth Bolden, and Kate Hawthorne's complete "Not Ready for Love" trilogy. Complete shownotes for episode 390 along with a transcript of the show are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find many more outstanding podcasts at frolic.media/podcasts!

You made it today! Today is out last day of Super Summer Bootcamp!   My hope was that working through this challenge would not only bring an infusion of action and activity to your business, but also help to instill some habits in you that you can continue with in the days, weeks, months and years to come! (I've been following this process for almost 7 years myself!)   Our last installment is about giving referrals and reviews, one of the most fun parts in my opinion.   You know I”m going to tell you all about the how's and the why's. Listen in on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking the link below.   We also have a wrap up from this challenge, I hope you have enjoyed it. Share in the comments below if you completed it!   Be sure to use the hashtag #supersummerbootcamp to share that you are completed the challenge!   Thank you for listening! Click subscribe to be notified every Wednesday when our latest episode is released, and be sure to check out our group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomeninrealestate We are close to 30,000 members strong and we want you to join us! Find me on IG karen.w.cooper

Database, database, database.   Today's challenge for Super Summer Bootcamp is all about your database … specifically ADDING to your database.   I've got lots of ideas and strategies to share today, I promise you this, you know more people than you think.   Listen in on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking the link below.   Be sure to use the hashtag #supersummerbootcamp to share that you are completing this challenge with us!   Thank you for listening! Click subscribe to be notified every Wednesday when our latest episode is released, and be sure to check out our group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomeninrealestate We are close to 30,000 members strong and we want you to join us! Find me on IG karen.w.cooper

You're halfway there!   Today's challenge will probably take you the longest of all of the aspects of this week's challenge, and that is pop bys. I love giving pop bys, but I don't always love delivering them. I'll be sharing the ins and outs of that today too.   Listen in for my favorite strategies for making pop by giving more fun AND efficient (my favorite). I've even got two Canva templates for you to customize for summer ready pop by options …   https://bit.ly/FreeziesPopBy https://bit.ly/CitronellaCandlePopBy   Tune in to today's episode on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking the link below.   Be sure to use the hashtag #supersummerbootcamp to share that you are completing this challenge with us!   Thank you for listening! Click subscribe to be notified every Wednesday when our latest episode is released, and be sure to check out our group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomeninrealestate We are close to 30,000 members strong and we want you to join us! Find me on IG karen.w.cooper

I'll admit, today's component of the Super Summer Bootcamp challenge is my absolute favorite. Today is all about writing notes.   Do not overthink this. (I know you do, I have too.) A note doesn't have to be long and complicated. Short and sweet gets the point across.   I'm sharing my favorite note writing strategies today to make this easier and more effective.   Listen in on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking the link below.   Be sure to use the hashtag #supersummerbootcamp to share that you are completing this challenge with us!   Thank you for listening! Click subscribe to be notified every Wednesday when our latest episode is released, and be sure to check out our group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomeninrealestate We are close to 30,000 members strong and we want you to join us! Find me on IG karen.w.cooper

Summer is here and the living is easy!   Well, maybe sometimes a little too easy. Have you ever experienced a summer slump? Or, more likely, a fall slump resulting from a little too much summer fun?   I say there is no such thing as too much summer fun AND you can keep your business humming along at the same time.   Enter … Super Summer Bootcamp! If you've ever done this program with me before, this year's edition is much, much different.   If I had to tell you 1 thing that has revolutionized my business it is my Daily Business Builders. My daily habits for “prospecting” and staying in touch that I can adjust based on my phase of life and business.   For this year's Super Summer Bootcamp I will be walking you through each of the 5 components, with a challenge for each one. My hope is that you will see just how doable these habits are and will make them a regular part of your business. Even if you just complete this challenge one time, I hope that it will give you an infusion of energy and activity into your business this summer!   Today's episode is our introduction … why you need to do this, how to do it, and the prep you need. Listen in on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking the link below.   Let's go … who will join us!   Thank you for listening! Click subscribe to be notified every Wednesday when our latest episode is released, and be sure to check out our group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomeninrealestate We are close to 30,000 members strong and we want you to join us! Find me on IG karen.w.cooper

It's day 1 of our Super Summer Bootcamp challenge … and we're starting with everyone's favorite, or should I say lease favorite, calls!   Have no fear, you know I'm going to make this easier for you that what first comes to mind when you hear “calls”. Today I'll be sharing with you not just the why these calls are important, but actually HOW … and what to say!   Listen in on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking the link below.   Be sure to use the hashtag #supersummerbootcamp to share that you are completing this challenge with us!   Thank you for listening! Click subscribe to be notified every Wednesday when our latest episode is released, and be sure to check out our group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomeninrealestate We are close to 30,000 members strong and we want you to join us! Find me on IG karen.w.cooper

Predestination with Dr. Leighton Flowers Dr. Leighton Flowers was named the Director of Evangelism and Apologetics for Texas Baptists in 2018. In addition to preaching on a wide range of biblical subjects, Leighton regularly travels to churches of all sizes to conduct seminars that specialize on evangelism and apologetics. He has participated in debates with leading apologists and led training conferences for the Annual Convention, Conclave, Apologetic Conferences, and the SBC Annual Convention. Previously, he served as the Director of Youth Evangelism for Texas Baptists for 13 years. In this position he oversaw the statewide youth leadership training camp called Super Summer and the Youth Evangelism Conferences impacting thousands of teenagers with evangelistic messages, missions mobilization and discipleship training. Leighton has also assisted in the oversight of such ministries as See You At The Pole, a worldwide prayer movement (began by his father, Chuck Flowers) which is impacting people not only in Texas but all around our world. Leighton earned a Bachelor's Degree in Applied Theology from Hardin-Simmons University (1997); a Masters of Divinity with Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (2000); and completed his Doctorate at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (2016). Leighton and his wife Laura, a Licensed Therapist in Richardson, have four children (Colson, Cooper, Esther and Caden) and live in North Garland just outside of Dallas where he also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Theology for Trinity Seminary. Prior to coming on staff with Texas Baptists, Leighton served as a pastor in the local church for over 10 years. He and his family are active members of First Baptist Richardson. Soteriology101 52.6K subscribers https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPRJ7X3hyFvm-3Jo8rVWYOw Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLrZriCc01bnp0Amb2gXDtQ/join Ask your bible question https://www.quora.com/profile/Anthony-Wilson-973/Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/c/AnthonyWilson73 https://veefly.com?referrer=101982 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/anthony-wilson/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/anthony-wilson/support