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In this week's episode, we take a look at professional development for writers, and examine both the benefits and the pitfalls. We also take a look at my advertising results for March 2025. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Curse of the Orcs, Book #4 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store: ORCCURSE50 The coupon code is valid through April 25, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 246 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April 4, 2025, and today we are looking at professional development for writers. Before we get to our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing and audiobook projects, Question of the Week, and then a look back at how my various ads performed for March 2025.   So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Curse of the Orcs, Book Four in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is ORCCURSE50. As always, you can find the coupon code and the links to my store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through April 25th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered.   Now for an update on my current writing projects. I'm very pleased to report that the rough draft of Shield of Battle is done, 102,800 words written in 22 days. That will be the second to last book in the Shield War series. If all goes well, I'm still hoping to have that out and edited and published before the end of the month. I'm now working on a currently untitled short story that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook form when Shield of Battle comes out. So this might be a great time to sign up for my new release newsletter. I am also 10,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption and that will be my main project after Shield of Battle is out.   Recording is still underway for Shield of Deception and Ghost in the Assembly. That is Brad Wills and Hollis McCarthy narrating, respectively. So I am looking forward to having those audiobooks out for you to listen to and then Shield the Battle and Ghost in the Corruption available for you to read, but I just have to get back to work on them.   00:01:48 Question of the Week   Now it's time for Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question, what games (if any) are you currently playing? No wrong answers, including “I don't play video games”. The inspiration for this question was that the fact that Nintendo was having this big Switch 2 announcement on April 2, which is amusing to me personally on a meta level because people have been speculating wildly about a Switch successor for years. Baseless Switch 2 rumors have been a clickfarm industry for years. Probably Nintendo had to have it on April 2 so no one would think it was a really elaborate April Fool's Day joke. Justin says: Online it would be World of Warcraft Classic. Otherwise, it is Conquest of the New World. Like me, my games are old and dated.   I can relate to Justin because I'm currently playing a game that was first made in 1994, but more on that later.   Sam says: Currently dancing between two games, my long-term love game, Final Fantasy 14 and Dragon Age: the Veilguard. The Veilguard was a massive disappointment for me, unfortunately, but it still has its reasonably okay points, but man, the developers dropped the ball in the worst way since Cyberpunk's disastrous release.   That's interesting because I've actually encountered a couple different people who have played Dragon Age: Veilguard and they either love it or hate it. There is just no in-between. So that does seem to be the kind of game where you either love the thing or you just hate it. Todd says: Enjoying No Man's Sky, waiting for Light No Fire. Continuing to grind World of Warcraft retail. Recently played the re-release of Half Life. Today, I also installed Lands of Lore, gotta love Patrick Stewart as King Richard!   I had forgotten that Patrick Stewart voiced King Richard back in the ‘90s in the Lands of Lore game. His most famous video game part (I think) is playing Emperor Uriel Septim in the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.   JKM says: Monster Hunter Wilds and Star Citizen.   Jesse says: Been doing an on and off run on Enshrouded. The story hasn't hugely gripped me as yet, but the mechanics are fun if you like Breath of the Wilds-esque world exploration.   Michael says: I'm currently playing Star Traders: Frontiers, which is a 2D indie space trading/exploration/crew management game in a vaguely Dune-like setting. It has turn based squad combat in Darkest Dungeon style too. Originally a mobile game but mechanics are surprisingly deep. It's good fun.   Randy says: Wizardry Remaster. Ironic because I didn't play the original.   For myself, I am kind of alternating between three current games. I am playing the Master of Magic remake on the PC and I'm determined to finally beat a campaign at that. I am still playing Iratus: Lord of the Dead and drawing closer to the final level. And when I'm really tired and don't want to do anything else that requires a lot of brain power, I still fire up some Starfield and go really mess up the day of some procedurally generated space pirates.   So watch my website and Facebook for Question of the Week if you want to have your comment read on the show as well.   00:04:39 Ad Results for March 2025   Now let's look at how my ads for my books did in March 2025, which is interesting because I changed things up a fair bit for ads in March. The reason I did this is because the economy isn't great and not likely to improve for several years. I saw someone arguing that all the policy decisions in the Covid era will have a 15 year economic hangover into which we're only five years, and I think that argument might have some merit to it. So because of that, I thought it might be prudent to move some older series into Kindle Unlimited. So I did that with the Demonsouled books and with Cloak Games, though not with Cloak Mage, which will remain wide as new books come out. I might do it with Silent Order as well, but I haven't decided. My thinking is that as people are looking to economize, subscription services will probably offer better value than direct book sales.   So let's see how we did. For Facebook ads, I did Cloak Games/Cloak Mage and The Ghosts. For Games/Cloak Mage, I got $4.14 back for every $1 spent, with 10% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. For The Ghosts, I got back $8.73 for every dollar spent, with 6% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. Obviously the total for The Ghosts might be inflated because of Ghosts in the Assembly, which did well. Thanks, everyone! Without Ghosts in the Assembly, The Ghosts still would've done $3.68 for every dollar spent, with 15% for the profit coming from the audiobooks. So still pretty good.   For Amazon ads, I mostly focused on Half-Elven Thief. Remember that for an Amazon ad to be successful, it needs to get a sale or a complete Kindle Unlimited read for every six to eight clicks. So for Half-Elven Thief, I got back $3.41 for every $1 spent, with a sale or a complete KU read for every 0.84 clicks, which is a really good result. However, it was not all roses in Amazon ads because I gave up on advertising Stealth and Spells Online: Creation. I've realized I fundamentally misunderstood what readers in the LitRPG actually want. I'm still going to finish the series this summer with the final book. I am 75,000 words into it as of this recording, but I don't think I'm going to advertise the series anymore.   For Demonsouled, I did a combined Facebook/Amazon ads campaign and for a combined campaign like that, it's easiest just to track the return. So for Demonsouled, I got back $2.53 for every dollar spent on Facebook and Amazon ads. So that was pretty close to how it did in February.   I also did some BookBub ad campaigns for The Ghosts and Sevenfold Sword on Apple. For The Ghosts, we got back $9.24 for every dollar I spent and for Sevenfold Sword, I got back $6.76 back for every dollar spent. So those are some very good results.   Finally, I've begun experimenting with BookBub ads for Google Play. I tried out Sevenfold Sword first and for Sevenfold Sword on Google Play with BookBub ads, we got back $3.86 for every dollar. So that is a promising beginning and I might try more experiments with BookBub ads and Google Play in May. So a good month all in all. Thanks for reading, everyone. Hopefully I'll have more new books for you soon.   00:07:46 Main Topic: Professional Development   So our main topic this week will be part three of our series on writing adjacent activities, and that is professional development. As I mentioned on past episodes, I'm working on a new podcast series on what I call writing adjacent activities. What do I mean by this? I'm talking about the tasks that seem like they're a part of the writing process but really belong in a different category. These tasks are important, but they can also be a pitfall if you spend too much time on them or don't use that time correctly. In this series, we'll focus on a few of these tasks and how they can benefit or hinder your writing process, even though they seem like good uses of time and may in fact be beneficial in proper amounts.   In this episode, we'll talk about professional development for writers. Those working in education, healthcare, or the corporate world will be very familiar with this concept. For those who aren't familiar with professional development, let's explain what it is. What is professional development and what is it for writers specifically? Professional development generally means gaining skills or knowledge that can help someone stay current in their field and grow in their work. In some fields like teaching or healthcare, professional development is required and must be done regularly. Some examples of typical professional development tasks include learning a new programming language, attending conferences, and reading professional journals. Writers have many of these same opportunities. Ther are a slew of conferences, workshops, webinars, videos, courses, and books available for writers to hone their craft, pick up marketing skills, and learn the ever evolving technical skills needed to self-publish and have an online presence. Some of these options, especially conferences and retreats, can be very expensive and time consuming while others are free and quick to consume, such as blog posts or podcast episodes.   How can you benefit from professional development? There are five ways.   #1: You can learn information and techniques that can help you improve your writing. An example would be a workshop session presenting data on when readers typically give up when starting a new book, which can help you think about how your book is structured.   #2: You can learn about technology and software that can make your work more efficient or look more professional. An example of this would be tutorials on how to use formatting software to turn Word documents into a formatted ebook.   #3: In-person professional development can help you network with others in your field. For example, if one of your priorities is being added to group promotion, meeting other authors at a workshop or a conference could lead to more promising leads than just emailing people.   #4: You can keep up with the constant changes in the field and adjust your strategies and plans accordingly. For example, Amazon's policies for KDP change constantly, sometimes monthly, it feels like. Writing blogs and podcasts can often explain these changes in a practical way that's more efficient than trying to parse long legal documents yourself.   #5: Finally, and fifthly, some people find professional development motivational or it helps them to feel more excited about their work. An example is a phenomenon called the post conference high, when someone returns from a conference with a high level of excitement and a list of plans a mile long. It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day tasks of work and sometimes professional development can shake things up in a positive way.   So professional development can be a good thing, but there are ways it can hinder your writing process. So we'll look at four ways that professional development can get in the way of you actually sitting down and getting some writing done.   #1: One of the downsides of being a writer is that professional development must be self-funded or you must pursue your own scholarships or grants for it, which are pretty limited compared to professional development in other fields. It is quite easy to spend tens of thousands of dollars on it each year, so each opportunity must be carefully considered. It's important not to spend money without a clear plan for how to turn it into action and without researching less expensive (but still effective) options that might serve your purposes. It's also important to look carefully to see if you can find lower cost options before registering for something. For example, instead of going to a weeklong residential bootcamp to learn WordPress, you could find a community education class or a LinkedIn Learning class (which many libraries provide to their patrons). Do you need a full course offered by another author or are you only interested in one portion of it and can learn that information from a YouTube channel? There is a lot of nonsense on the Internet of course, but one of the advantages of living in the modern era is that there is an abundance of good free information. You just have to find it.   My podcast transcriptionist has something that she likes to call the Two Buck Chuck Principle. It is named after the store brand of wine from Trader Joe's. That's way back when it was $2 a bottle, hence the popular nickname for it. Many people refuse to stray from this cheapest available option at the store because they find it meets their alcohol related needs and refuse to buy more expensive bottles.   The point of this principle is that like those Trader Joe's shoppers, my podcast transcriptionist will search for the free and low cost option for something first and then see what is missing from them that a more expensive option offers before buying the more expensive option. For example, if you're just starting out as a writer, you may be tempted to pay $3,000 or $4,000 for consulting sessions about advertising strategies because you read a convincing testimonial. Realistically, if you only have one or two books with only a handful of reviews and you're not willing to throw thousands of additional dollars on a professional style ad campaign, this would be severe overkill.   Applying the Two Buck Chuck Principle to this person's ad spending, it would make more sense to learn the basics first through webinars and blog posts on the topic. Something like Brian Cohen's Five Day Amazon Ad Challenge would teach the basics of using the interface and some strategies that keep a rookie from overspending or straying from their target audience. Once a writer has a few years of sales and several books in the same series, then perhaps it might be wise to progress to something more advanced and expensive, like hiring a consultant.   For most professional development, if you're paying money, you're either paying for being in a physical location or you're paying for the time someone else took to assemble and present the knowledge for you (in the case of a conference or workshop, both). For the latter, you can usually apply this Two Buck Chuck Principle by taking the time to assemble the knowledge yourself or find others who have through blogs, podcasts, and lower cost books. Someone like Joanna Penn or David Gaughran provides a wealth of sensible advice through these types of much lower cost options.   #2: Professional development, like many other writing adjacent activities, can give you the illusion of progress. Knowing about something and actually doing it are very different things. You have to have a specific plan for how you will implement your professional development. The sooner you start after completing your professional development activity, the more likely you are to benefit from it. Even five minutes a day working on it helps keep the knowledge fresh and gives you the confidence to continue.   #3: The number of available options for professional development can be paralyzing and it can be easy to feel like you have to do it all. The fear of missing out is a very real phenomenon, but it's necessary to combat it by being intentional with your time. Start by making your goals for the next year and then seeing what professional development you need to further those goals. For example, if creating video content is not part of your goals for the year, then it doesn't make sense to watch webinars on creating Instagram Reels or TikTok videos, even if you feel like it might be useful or you have a fear of missing out on the information. Your professional development, your goals, and your output all need to be in harmony in order to progress as a writer.   I have talked before about how a certain degree of tunnel vision is necessary to write at the pace that I do. Because I want to publish frequently, I often ignore conference and workshop opportunities because travel actively hinders my main goal of getting down as many words as possible each day.   #4: Professional development can take up so much time that it keeps you from the priority of writers, which is actually writing. Like the other writing adjacent activities out there, they expand to the size you'll allow. Planning your professional development goals for the year when you've created your writing goals can help you be disciplined in choosing the activities that will serve you best and fit with the time you can give them.   For example, if your goal is to set up an author website in May, you can allocate a little block of time each day for that month to watching tutorials, reading instructions, checking out other author sites for inspiration, and testing out the software. You wouldn't want to attend a three week intensive writing retreat in May because that would likely derail your progress on your other goal.   So finally, what do I personally do for professional development? What has helped me? I think the biggest help I had in terms of writing advice was a book called Billion Dollar Outlines by David Farland. It's well worth reading and a good look at story structure and understanding story structure that I think would be very helpful if you're struggling to finish an outline and write a book. Most of my professional development since then has been aimed towards the goal of trying to sell as many books as possible. So I took the Self-Publishing Formula course on advertising for Facebook, which was very helpful. I read a couple of different books on Facebook advertising, which was helpful. What was really helpful was a course on Photoshop I took in 2020 and 2021 that really increased my Photoshop skills and gave me the ability to do my own covers, which is very helpful because you often have to book a cover designer out well in advance. So that was very useful. And beyond that, I keep an eye on the various writing podcasts and Facebook groups. I don't really participate in the Facebook groups because that can be a huge time sink. Arguing with random people over the internet is not a productive use of time, but it is a good way to keep an eye on news within the indie author space and what people are doing and what trends you can expect to see. So that's what I do.   In short, professional development, like so many other writing adjacent activities, is a good thing that can hinder your progress if it's not done with intentionality and clear goals. As I said earlier in the podcast, your professional development, your goals, and your output all need to be harmonized in order to progress as a writer.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. And a quick note of thanks to my podcast transcriptionist for helping me to pull together the research for this episode. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on 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.

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In this week's episode, we take a look at how research can both help and hinder writers, and offer tips for effective research for fiction. This coupon code will get you 25% off DRAGONTIARNA: OMNIBUS ONE at my Payhip store: DRAGONOMNI25 The coupon code is valid through April 14th, 2025. So if you need a new book to read for spring, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 245 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 28th, 2025, and today we are looking at some of the challenges of research for writers. Before we get into that, we'll do Coupon of the Week, an update my current writing and audiobook projects, and then Question of the Week.   First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Dragontiarna: Omnibus One at my Payhip store, and that is DRAGONOMNI25. This coupon code will be valid through April the 14th, 2025. So if you need a new ebook to read for spring, we have got you covered.   Let's have an update on my current writing projects. I'm currently 70,000 words into Shield of Battle, which I believe will put me on chapter 16 of 24, so I'm about two thirds of the way through the rough draft. I'm still hoping to have it out towards the end of April, if all goes well. I am 7,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption, which will be the sequel to Ghost in the Assembly, and hopefully that will be out sometime after Shield of Battle.   In audiobook news, recording is underway for both Shield of Deception and Ghost in the Assembly. Brad Wills will be recording Shield of Deception and Hollis McCarthy will be recording Ghost in the Assembly. So I am looking forward to both those audiobooks and that's where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects.   00:01:25 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, do you read comics books or graphic novels, Marvel, DC, indie manga, whatever? No wrong answers, obviously, including “I don't read comics.”   Ryan says: I don't read comic books, they just don't appeal to me. I prefer world building through writing as opposed to images, and I think you don't get the same feel for characters in a comic as you do in a novel.   Justin says: Once upon a time, I did read comics. It's been a long time since I knew of the mainstream comics interested me, sadly. I have read some manga in the last year, but any associated light novel wins handily. There are a few web comics to keep up with. I have bought books and merch from the Foglios for Girl Genius and Tayler for Schlock Mercenary, but even then, it's been years since my last purchase.   Juana says: I love Batman. End of story.   John says: I enjoy graphic novels, mainly for the art. Most recent read was The Wizard of Earthsea graphic novel, which is a true work of art published just this month.   Randy says: Marvel/DC stuff, not much anymore. I can sit down and read Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine, etc. collections anytime, probably not the “comics” you meant.   Jenny says: Rat Queens! So good!   Gary says: I don't read comics.   Bob says: Nope. Used to devour DC and Marvel as a kid. Wish I still had some of them. Probably worth big bucks now.   Tom says: I used to be a Marvel Zombie. Seriously, I have 20-30 long boxes filled with comics. I had to kick the habit though. Nowadays it's mostly just a few TV show based series. Would love to read some Frostborn graphic novels though!   And finally, Tracy says: I don't read comics.   For myself, I agree with many of the commenters where my answer is I don't read comics. It's not out of snobbery or disdain for the art form. It just doesn't speak to me or hold my interest. Of course not all art speaks to all people at all times. I was curious about this topic because I see people discussing comic books online all the time, but apparently the industry is in bad shape financially with multiple bankruptcies and closures and so forth. So I was wondering if comics were kind of more of a vintage art form that is less popular with younger generations as the older generations start to die off. But you never know. Things always are on a wheel and come around again.   00:03:36 Main Topic of the Week: Writing Adjacent Activities: Research   So now back to our main topic or to start with our main topic, research challenges for writers. As I mentioned two episodes ago, I'm working on a new podcast series about what I call writing adjacent activities. What do I mean by this? I'm talking about tasks that seem like they're part of the writing process but really belong in a different category. These tasks are important, but they can also be a pitfall if you spend too much time on them or don't use that time correctly.   In this series, we will focus on a few of these tasks and how they can benefit or hinder your writing process, even though they seem like good uses of time and may be beneficial. In this episode, we'll talk about research for fiction writing. How much research is necessary and how does research help? When does it get to the point where it becomes a pitfall instead of an asset? What are some things that work well for me when researching matters for my books?   First of all, why should writers even have to research in order to write a work of fiction? Why can't we just make up details since the characters and the plot are also made up? Why research?   Research can help provide crucial information for the plot. For example, of a spy novel set in World War II focuses on the Canadians battling the British is inaccurate to the point of farce. Knowing which countries were Axis and which were Allies is an important piece of research that should have been done for that story in advance of writing it. There's a British TV series called The Goes Wrong Show about a group of inept actors putting on bad plays that's quite funny, and one of the episodes has them putting on a play that is widely criticized for its lazy historical research, which includes such things as Winston Churchill being a prime minister during the Vietnam War. In the show, of course, this is played for comedy as part of how bad the actors are, but you don't want to do this in real life.   Research prevents factual errors that can distract readers. Some of the biggest examples of this are military terminology, the British peerage system, and information about weapons like guns. All of these things have very distinct details that avid readers in a certain genre will notice and be upset about if they're incorrect. You'll notice that successful thriller writers tend to put a lot of time into researching and lovingly describing various pieces of military hardware in their books.   For a genre like historical romance, the distinction seems unimportant to a modern American, but to a debutante in Regency England, the difference between marrying a baron and a duke is immense and the titles can't be used interchangeably in a work of historical fiction. For example, the duke and baron would be addressed differently and enter a room in a different order, but more importantly, in a status conscious marriage market like the debutante season, a duke would be a highly sought after potential husband while a baron might be less of a catch, especially if the family is not so wealthy. This detail changes the characters and plots completely. To return to the firearm examples, for one of the famous errors that sometimes new writers do is a character puts a silencer on a revolver, which doesn't work because you can't silence a revolver. Much of the noise comes from the rear of the weapon when it's fired in addition to the muzzle flash and muzzle noise, so there are little details like that (both for weapons and the British peerage system) that you do need to watch out for.   Research can give you ideas or add depth through details. For example, someone writing a romance novel about two rival managers in a theme park could discover that this particular theme park has an intricate underground system of tunnels that includes storage areas and staff break rooms. The writer realizes this would give good opportunities for the characters to have a conversation or confrontation in a more private place than outside of a busy ride. What are some good sources for research? Not all research is going to the library and looking at books that haven't been checked out in 10 years or so. Sometimes research for writing fiction is about checking or learning basic facts like street names, what the word is for cat in Spanish, or what a certain chain store was named in 2008. Making these details up only makes sense if the places and languages are completely fictional. Where more academic and in depth research comes in is when a high level of informational accuracy is required by genre convention, like in thrillers, historical fiction, a legal drama, or a medical thriller.   One of the criticisms of the relatively recent Disney Plus show She Hulk was that although She Hulk's profession is a lawyer and she spends all of her time doing lawyer things, none of the writers had a background in law and it seemed like their legal advisor was quite hands off in their approach. They tried to write around it instead, and the results were disappointing to both fans of the source material and new viewers because as I've often said before, you don't need to be totally accurate, but it needs to feel accurate. Anyone watching the show would know that the American legal system works nothing like the way it's portrayed, not even in the abstract.   One of the additional complaints about the show is that they missed the chance to showcase the character by barely showing them doing any actual work or to only show it as a farce, making She Hulk seem more frivolous and unlikable without her defining trait of being a really good lawyer. Trying to write around factual information is usually not the best solution, and it could hurt the reader's feeling of immersion or cause them just to feel annoyed.   For genres that require a high level of information accuracy, try starting with the general overview books and then looking at more specific information as needed. You don't need to become an expert in every piece of medieval weaponry to write a historical or a fantasy book, but you do need to know the basics in order to have the characters use them in a convincing way.   As I've said before, I often talk about how verisimilitude is the goal in writing. You need to know and share just enough to make the reader feel convinced and have the characters be able to act in a believable way in the world there inhabiting.   Often writers are advised to use YouTube for research because it's free and usually easy to understand. However, YouTubers usually don't cite their sources and incorrect information often gets reshared this way. That said, it can still be useful. For example, if we go back to our example of the theme park romance novel, the writer could find YouTube footage of what the line looks like for a certain ride without having to go see it in person and determine from the footage if a child could really climb over a railing to escape their parents, for example, if that was one of the plot contrivances the writer wanted to put in the book.   I would strongly recommend you don't use a LLM program like ChatGPT for research, and if you do, you should cross-reference and double check its answers for accuracy because ChatGPT essentially makes stuff up. Unlike a search engine ChatGPT essentially guesses at its answers instead of retrieving them. For example, if you ask ChatGPT who the spouse of one reality star is, it confidently lists her brother as her husband because the names are very frequently paired and they had the same last name, ChatGPT made a guess and that guess was quite wrong. It's also important to note that it's not trained on recent information. It won't, for example, be able to tell you on what date a movie is going to come out in two weeks because it may not have access to that information yet, and it might instead give you the premiere date for previous films or guess at a date.   How much research is necessary and when is it a pitfall instead of an asset? Too much research can keep you from starting to actually write. It's a real temptation if you enjoy research to spend months bogged down in every possible source of information. It's also good to take a step back, look at your book's outline, and determine what's truly needed. When you're writing, you can add a note, “research this” and note about what fact you need to look up and then keep going. It isn't a great idea to stop writing every time you need to look up a specific fact. Doing that can often lead to research spirals that take too much time and then you lose your writing momentum.   Having researched too much can also drag down the plot with a lot of info dumps. We've all encountered books where the writer very clearly put in a lot of research into a very specific topic, so they were going to put all that research into the book, even if it was to the book's detriment. It's natural to want to use as much of your research as possible, but in reality, the only research that is good for the reader is what benefits the plot or adds to the feeling of verisimilitude without stopping the plot in its tracks.   What are some things that have worked for me when researching subjects for my books? Because I write fantasy and science fiction, I tend not to do that much research. Usually it's if I need to look up a specific fact to increase the verisimilitude. I had to do that quite a bit with Silent Order because that's science fiction and therefore a bit more fact-based. So I wanted to make sure I had things like the speed of light in kilometers or the amount of kilometers in a light year, for example, make sure that I had those numbers accurate. However, when I'm writing and there's something I want to look up later, I tend to literally just type “look this up later” and then keep going in the book.   This actually happens quite a bit in the Cloak Games and Cloak Mage series because while that's set in a fantasy setting, that fantasy setting is a version of our own world. I do need to look things up reasonably frequently, like where this town is located or how long you would take to fly from Chicago to Boston, for example. So very often I will just type “look this up later”, and then in the editing process, I will actually look that up and make sure that I have a good information source, not ChatGPT, and then add that fact into the book as necessary.   One thing I would recommend watching out for is that if the entire plot of the book hinges on a certain fact, like for example, say that you have in your book, the entire plot revolves around the fact that on average it takes about seven to eight hours to drive from Milwaukee to Detroit, it's a good idea to look it up and make sure that is actually true. If for example, you, let's talk hypothetically, if you weren't familiar with the geography of the United States and you had the plot being that it takes only three hours to drive from Milwaukee to Detroit, your book will not work because anyone remotely familiar with the American Midwest knows that if you are driving from Milwaukee to Detroit around the southern side of Lake Michigan, it takes at least seven hours and depending on traffic conditions, it can easily go much higher very quickly. So if you do have a fact around which the entire plot of your book hinges, it's a good idea to research that fact first and make sure that's accurate, so you can avoid the scenario where you write the book and then people are laughing at you because you wrote it only takes three hours to drive from Milwaukee to Detroit.   So to sum up, research in fiction is very different from in the academic world, but that doesn't mean that's not important. Like so many things in life, it's all about balance. You don't want to go too far down the research rabbit hole to the detriment of finishing your book, but you do need enough information to maintain verisimilitude, but not an excess of detail that will derail the plot or keep you from finishing the book you want, just enough that it makes sense.   An example for that for me would be one of the plot lines in Cloak of Spears which revolves around nuclear fusion. The book sold pretty well and people liked it, but I did get a email from an expert in nuclear fusion saying that the way I had described things is not actually how nuclear fusion works, and the fact of the matter was that thankfully for that book, it didn't matter because the actual intricacies of how nuclear fusion works is beyond my grasp and frankly beyond the grasp of most people. So I'd included enough verisimilitude to that the book worked for most people, but it was not enough to fool an actual expert in nuclear physics. So that brings me to a Abraham Lincoln quote I remember where he says, “you can fool some of the people some of the time and the rest of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.” And that is true with research and fiction. You'll want to do just enough to get verisimilitude so that you can fool most of the people, but you can't always expect to fool everybody. If you are writing about something which has subject matter experts, you may find that you'll have the subject matter experts writing to you and pointing things out. But what's important is that you do it well enough to fool most of the general audience, if not the subject matter experts.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In this week's episode, I take a look at some of the historical influences & inspirations that went into my new book GHOST IN THE ASSEMBLY. This coupon code will get you 25% off SILENT ORDER: OMNIBUS ONE at my Payhip store: SILENT25 The coupon code is valid through April 7th, 2025. So if you need a new book to read for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 244 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 21st, 2025, and today we are looking at some of the historical influences that went into Ghost in the Assembly. Before we get into that, we will do Coupon of the Week and an update my current writing and audiobook projects. And then Question of the Week, which we did have time for this week.   This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Silent Order: Omnibus One at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SILENT25. I'll have the links and the coupon code in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through April 7, 2025, so if you need a new book to read for these spring months, we have got you covered.   Now an update on my current writing projects. I am 44,000 words into Shield of Battle, the fifth book in the Shield War series. I'm hoping to have that out towards the end of April, if all goes well. A reminder that the Shield War series will be six books, so Shield the Battle will be the second to last one. I have also started on the sequel to Ghost in the Assembly, and I am 4,000 words into that, give or take. I had originally planned to call this book Ghost in the Assassins, but I thought that sounded too similar to Ghost in the Assembly. So the fifth book in the Ghost Armor series will be called Ghost in the Corruption. A reminder that Ghost Armor will be six books long and Ghost in the Corruption will be the fifth of six books, so the second to last book in that series as well.   In audio news, recording has started for Shield of Deception and Ghost in the Assembly. Shield of Deception will be excellently narrated by Brad Wills and Hollis McCarthy will excellently narrate Ghost in the Assembly. I expect both of them will probably be out sometime towards the end of May if all goes well, given how long it usually takes to record an audiobook.   In Stealth and Spells Online news, I am 68,000 words into the third and final book in this trilogy. Once Ghost Armor and Shield War are complete, then I will hopefully release the final book in the Stealth and Spells Online because I've been working on that as a tertiary project for quite a long time now. So that's where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects.   00:02:17 Question of the Week   Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is of course designed to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question, what is your favorite style of fantasy setting (like a more high fantasy, one like Middle Earth or the Forgotten Realms, urban fantasy like the Dresden Files or Kate Daniels or more steampunk like Everon and so on)? No wrong answers, obviously.   And as you can imagine this inspired quite a few responses.   Perry says: Hyperborea! Lankhmar is up there as well. Setting where magic is rare, and usually dangerous or evil. The first edition of the Forgotten Realms (the grey box from the ‘80s) was great. Enough detail to let you use the setting, lots of room to make it your own. Then all the Forgotten Realms novels started to appear with the release of the second edition in the ‘90s and everybody in the world suddenly had powerful magic at their fingertips. Elminster, the Seven Sisters, Drizz't, and others took the appeal right out of the setting for me.   Joachim says: I like the Spelljammer Campaign setting best. A lot of great modules. It seemed it was not overly successful. A shame. I had a campaign running in this setting with some people who liked it. In addition to the Spelljammer modules, you can easily transfer any normal module centered on a small town onto an asteroid.   Evan says: A huge Sanderson Cosmere fan here, especially Stormlight Archive. I like the magical progression tied in to character development, with a bit of mystery of how things work or an unknown that takes time to unwind or tease out.   Justin says: My problem here is separating the settings from the authors. Given that near impossibility, I would cast my vote for high fantasy with a bit of techno/steampunk mixed in. Example – Andre Norton's Witch World.   Bonnie says: I seem to gravitate towards the swords and sorcery genre like Frostborn, but I also enjoyed the urban fantasy/Nadia and the other genres. I have to thank you for introducing me to all of these.   Michael says: Okay, Jonathan, that's the second time I've noticed you indicating a preference for sword and sorcery saga where a barbarian hero travels between corrupt city states and now I really, really want you to write this. And yeah, that's definitely my favorite type of setting too.   Simone says: Definitely urban fantasy. Even in your books, which offer an unusual variety of fantasy settings, I find I enjoy the Cloak series the best.   Roger says: Being an old fogey, I prefer high fantasy always. Can't seem to get my head around urban fantasy. It jars with me.   John says: While I enjoy all settings, I'm also a traditionalist and want a non-industrial, non punk setting without some sprawling empire, more like the aftermath of empire with multiple successor states.   Jonathan T. says: Personally, Star Wars has always been fantasy in a science fiction setting, and that remains a personal favorite. Other than that, I suppose I'm for high fantasy, although I'm not opposed to high fantasy slapstick either such as the Wuntvor trilogy. At some point I must try again to surmount the obstacle known as The Wheel of Time.   Catriona says: Epic and high fantasy are my favorite, enjoy Dark Fantasy, too. Urban fantasy is a hard pass for me.   Juana says: Sword and sorcery, parfait gentle knights, medieval societies, historical fiction like Doyle's The White Company and Sir Nigel. Wherever Nadia lives.   Justin says: Sword and sorcery, magical creatures/beasts. Definitely needs different environments like cities and wild mountains and forests. Not sure what genre that is, but that's what I like.   MG says: High fantasy.   Brandy says: I like ones with a clearly defined map. Sometimes it seems like the world wasn't thought about clearly, so it makes it hard to imagine and I find those stories the least successful. The ones I go back to repeatedly, the ones I read over and over or pimp out to other authors or groups are those I feel like they have a great structure and map, even if it's added on to later. So high, low, or middle, I just really just want the author to tell a great story and make it a great one.   Speaking as an author myself, I really dislike drawing maps, but fantasy readers really like maps, so that's why I have been doing more and more maps lately.   Pauline says: Urban fantasy is definitely my favorite.   Jeremy says: High Fantasy is my favorite. However, my favorite fantasy author is Terry Brooks. His series is Low Fantasy based on Earth. I found out years after reading the series LOL.   For myself, I think my favorite would be a pre-industrial setting with a lot of city-states and various dangerous magic, like you have a barbarian hero wandering from city-state to city-state with monster infested ruins and wilderness between them. When he gets to the city states, he can fight corrupt sorcerers, arrogant nobles, and thieves guilds, and then move on to a new adventure in the next book. So basically a sword and sorcery style setting. So that's it for Question of the Week.   00:06:30 Main Topic of the Week: Ghost in the Assembly: Inspirations and Sources (Note: Spoilers for Ghost in the Assembly!)   This week and now onto our main topic, Ghost in the Assembly inspirations and sources that went into the book. I should mention that this episode contains mild spoilers for Ghost in the Assembly. So if you have not finished reading Ghost in the Assembly yet, stop listening and go finish reading Ghost in the Assembly.   So I thought it would be interesting to talk about some of the ideas and influences that went into Ghost in the Assembly. I have to admit, it took me a few years of thinking between Ghost Night and Ghost Armor to figure out how to write more Caina stories because Caina had become a political figure by the end of Ghost Night and political figures typically do bad things for personal advancement and then lie about it. That is in some ways the essential definition of a political figure. This of course, is hard for a writer to use as a sympathetic protagonist.   Of course, I eventually realized the way around this, the success of a political figure cannot be judged by their personal morality or even their political morality, but by the results of their decisions. Did they do the most for the greatest good of their people? Therefore, I just needed to write a political figure who did somewhat sketchy things (like subverting the Kyracian houses via buying up their debt) in the name of the greater good of the people (defending them from the impending attack of the Red Krakens).   I frequently said that if you want to write a good fantasy novel, you should try to stick to about 15 to 25% of the actual harshness of the past. I don't think you want to go full Grimdark, but you don't want your fantasy world to be indistinguishable from a typical 21st century parliamentary democracy because I think that kind of defeats the purpose of fantasy where you want to visit a world that is eldritch and strange and at least somewhat different than our own. So for Ghost in the Assembly, I went to about 15 to 25% of the experience of ancient Greek democracy. For the entire time that New Kyre and the Kyracians have been in the series (Ghost in the Storm was way the heck back in 2012 and the Kyracians were mentioned before that), they've always been very loosely based on the democracy of ancient Athens. In fact, the very name Assembly of New Kyre comes from ancient Athens, where the gathering of voting citizens was called the ecclesia, which translates into English as assembly. Interestingly, this is also the origins of the word ecclesiastical in terms of a church since one of the first words for the church was ecclesia in the sense of the assembly of the believers in Christ.   Athens wasn't the first ancient Greek democracy, but it was one of the most successful. It was also one of the democracies that self-destructed in the most spectacularly dramatic fashion possible. The Athenians decided to convert the Delian League from an alliance of city-states into their own private empire. A demagogue convinced them to waste enormous resources attacking Syracuse and Sicily, which ended disastrously. The Athenians were eventually defeated by the more militaristic Spartans.   People have debated for centuries whether or not this means democracy is inferior to the Spartans' harsher system, but that overlooks the key fact that a few decades later, Athens, Sparta, and all the rest of the Greek city-states were conquered by the Macedonians anyway. I suppose the actual historical lesson is that a city-state, regardless of its government, is no match for a larger centralized state with better leaders and better military organization. In fact, historically city-states tend to eventually get subsumed into larger political entities. If they last for a long time, it tends to be because of geography (like in ancient Greece) or because of weak and or remote central authority like the medieval Italian city-states, which were ostensibly under the authority of the Holy Roman emperor but in practice tended to do whatever they wanted. Places like modern Vatican City tend to be special exceptions.   Caina's criticism of the assembly of New Kyre in the book is that it is not as egalitarian as it pretends and is easily swayed by both demagogues and bribes. The Athenian assembly of citizens had both these problems, but far worse. You needed to have a substantial level of property to be allowed to vote, and there were numerous examples of the votes swinging on bribes or last minute orations. The Athenian assembly was easily swayed into making bad decisions, such as supporting the disastrous attack on Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War that was the start of Athens' downfall.   In Ghost in the Assembly, Lady Eirenea Tritos is one of the nine chief magistrates of the city, but in an Athenian democracy, women were not allowed to vote and most definitely were not allowed to hold political office. The ancient Greeks in general did not have a very high opinion of women. One Greek orator said that men had wives to produce legitimate heirs, concubines to attend to the body's “daily needs”, and prostitutes for pleasure.   Because of things like that, I thought a setting with a hundred percent of the harshness of ancient Greece would be off-putting to the reader. So as I said, I shot for between 15 and 25% of the actual harshness. New Kyre is definitely richer, better governed, and less elitist and chauvinistic than the ancient Greeks. That said, New Kyre isn't an egalitarian place. Nobles have vastly more rights and money than commoners, and both nobles and commoners own slaves and only the poorest commoners own no slaves themselves. Indeed, slavery is so common in New Kyre that the other nobles see Kylon's decision that House Kardamnos will have no slaves as a sign of malevolent and sinister foreign influence.   Kalliope's fear that she could be dispossessed and Kylon simply take her children is very real. If Kylon wanted, he probably could keep Kalliope from seeing Nikarion and Zoe ever again, though that would inevitably put him in conflict with Lysikas Agramemnos and Calliope is charismatic enough to powerful allies to her side. If Kylon did in fact refuse to allow Kalliope to see their children, he might well set off a civil war. But Kylon, who lost both his parents when he was young, doesn't want to deprive his children of a loving mother.   Of course, the ancient Greeks never had to fight the Red Krakens and orcs. The Red Krakens, the Caphtori, are kind of written like snake-worshipping Vikings. In fact, Caphtori are inspired by the “Sea Peoples”, pirates that seem to have contributed to the collapse of Bronzes Age civilization. Historians argue endlessly about the impact of the Sea Peoples or whether they existed at all, but if they did exist, they might well have been proto-Ancient Greeks, perhaps Mycenaean in origin.   Since having one ancient Greek-esque group fighting another would've been confusing in the book, I made the Caphtori/Red Kraken more like Vikings, which I suppose is a bit of historical anachronism, but Ghost Armor is a constructed world with elves, orcs, and sorcerers, so it's not like I'm writing period accurate historical fiction here.   So these are some of the influences that went into Ghost in the Assembly. I don't have any grand concluding point here. Those were just some of the ideas I thought about and went into the story. Though I should mention that for a while I was a graduate student in medieval history and I hated the experience so much I left and went into IT instead. That said ,decades later it has proven a useful source of plot ideas for fantasy novels, so it worked out in the end.   One final note, a reader suggested that Kalliope Agramemnos and Mardun Scorneus might hook up in later books. And I have to admit, I laughed at that suggestion. Kalliope would react with dismay at the thought of marrying anyone other than an extremely high ranking Kyracian noble, and at the prospect of marrying Kalliope, Mardun would think about it, fake his death, and flee back to the Empire, preferring to take his chances with the Magisterium rather than Kalliope. Anyway, thank you to everyone who has read Ghost in the Assembly. I am very grateful that so many people have enjoyed the book.   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 back episodes of the show on 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.  

In this week's episode, we continue our discuss about how seeking prestige can be dangerous for writers, specifically in the form of traditional publishing and the New York Times Bestseller list. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, Book #2 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store: DRAGONSHIELD50 The coupon code is valid through March 21, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 241 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 28th, 2025. Today we are continuing our discussion of how to escape the trap of prestige for writers, specifically traditional publishing and The New York Times Bestseller List. Before we get to our main topic, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing and audiobook projects, and then Question of the Week.   This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, Book Two in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store. That coupon code is DRAGONSHIELD50. As always, I'll include the coupon code and the link to the store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through March 21st, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook as we start to head into the spring months, we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report I am done with the rough draft of Ghost in the Assembly. I came in at 106,000 words, so it'll definitely be over a hundred thousand words when it's done. I'm about 20% of the way through the first round of edits, so I am confident in saying that if all goes well and nothing unexpected happens, I am on track to have it out in March. I am also 10,000 words into Shield of Battle, which will be the fifth of six books in the Shield War series and I'm hoping to have that out in April, if all goes well.   In audiobook news, recording for both Cloak of Dragonfire and Orc-Hoard is done. I'm just waiting for them to get through the processing on the various stores so they're available. There is also an audiobook edition of Half Elven Thief Omnibus One and Cloak Mage Omnibus Three that hopefully should be coming in March. More news with that to come.   00:01:55 Question of the Week   Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite subgenre of fantasy, high fantasy, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, historical fantasy, urban fantasy, LitRPG, cultivation, or something else? No wrong answers, obviously.   Cindy says: Epic fantasy or those with a good history for that world. The Ghost Series are fantastic at this.   Thanks, Cindy.   Justin says: I enjoy all those sub-genres, if they are done well. In times past I would've said comic fantasy, but that is because Terry Pratchett at his best was just that good.   Mary says: High fantasy.   Surabhi says: I'd honestly read anything fantasy that's written well and has characters I'm attached to, given that it's not too gritty. Bonus points if there's humor! Also, I love your books so much and they're the perfect blend of fantasy, adventure, and characters. Your books were what really got me into Sword and Sorcery.   Thanks, Surabhi.     Matthew says: See, that's difficult. I love my sabers, both light and metal. I would say urban fantasy crosses the boundary the most. If it's a captivating story, it will be read.   John F says: I can't choose one- Lord of the Rings or LWW, The Inheritance Cycle, The Dresden Files, Caina, Ridmark, or Nadia. I think what draws me is great characters who grow. The setting/genre is just the device. That's why I keep coming back to your books. You create great characters.   Thanks, John F.   John K says: I think I'm partial to historical fantasy. I enjoy all genres, but when I think of my favorites, they tend to be derivations of historical settings. Think Guy Gavriel Kay or Miles Cameron. That said, I was weaned on Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, Jack Vance, so a strong sword and sorcery second place.   Juana says: High fantasy. Belgariad, Tolkien, dragons, et cetera.   Jonathan says: Sword and sorcery in space! Prehistoric sword and sorcery, sword and sorcery always.   Quint: says Sword and sorcery!   Michael says: Sword and sorcery.   For myself, I think I would agree with our last couple of commenters and it would be sword and sorcery. My ideal fantasy novel has a barbarian hero wandering from corrupt city state to corrupt city state messing up the business of some evil wizards. I'm also very fond of what's called generic fantasy (if a fighter, a dwarf, an elf, and a wizard are going into a dungeon and fighting some orcs, I'm happy).   00:04:18 Main Topic of the Week: Escaping the Prestige Trap, Part 2   Now onto our main topic for the week, Escaping the Prestige Trap, Part 2, and we'll focus on traditional publishing and the New York Times Bestseller List this week. As we talked about last week, much of the idea of success, especially in the United States, is based on hitting certain milestones in a specific order. In the writing world, these measures of success have until fairly recently been getting an MFA, finding an agent, getting traditionally published, and hitting The New York Times Bestseller List. Last week we talked about the risks of an MFA and an agent. This week, we are going to talk about two more of those writing markers of prestige, getting traditionally published and having a book land on The New York Times Bestseller List. Why are they no longer as important? What should you devote your energy and focus to instead?   So let's start with looking at getting traditionally published. Most writers have dreamed of seeing their book for sale and traditional publishing for a long time has been the only route to this path. Until about 15 years ago, traditional publishing was the way that a majority of authors made their living. Now that big name authors like Hugh Howie, Andy Weir, and Colleen Hoover have had success starting as self-published authors (or in the case of authors Sarah J. Maas and Ali Hazelwood, fan fiction authors) and then are getting traditional publishing deals made for them for their self-published works. It's proof that self-publishing is no longer a sign that the author isn't good enough to be published traditionally. Previous to the rise of the Kindle, that was a common belief that if you were self-published, it was because you were not good enough to get traditionally published. That was sort of this pernicious belief that traditional publishing was a meritocracy, when in fact it tended to be based on who you knew. But that was all 15 years ago and now we are well into the age of self-publishing. Why do authors still want to be traditionally published when in my frank opinion, self-publishing is the better path? Well, I think there are three main reasons for that.   One of the main reasons is that the authors say they want to be traditionally published is to have someone else handle the marketing and the advertising. They don't realize how meager marketing budgets and staffing support are, especially for unknown authors. Many traditionally published authors are handling large portions of their own marketing and hiring publicists out of their own pocket because publishers are spending much less on marketing. The new reality is that traditional publishers aren't going to do much for you as a debut author unless you are already a public figure.   Even traditionally published authors are not exempt from having to do their own marketing now. James Patterson set up an entire company himself to handle his marketing. Though, to be fair to James Patterson, his background was in advertising before he came into publishing, so he wasn't exactly a neophyte in the field, but you see more and more traditionally published authors who you think would be successful just discontented with the system and starting to dabble in self-publishing or looking at alternative publishers like Aethon Books and different arrangements of publishing because the traditional system is just so bad for writers. The second main reason authors want to be traditionally published is that they want to avoid the financial burden of publishing. This is an outdated way of thinking. The barrier to publishing these days is not so much financial as it is knowledge. In fact, I published a book entirely using free open source software in 2017 just to prove that it could be done. It was Silent Order: Eclipse Hand, the fourth book in my science fiction series. I wrote it on Ubuntu using Libre Office and I edited it in Libre Office and I did the formatting on Ubuntu and I did the cover in the GIMP, which is a free and open source image editing program. This was all using free software and I didn't have to pay for the program. Obviously I had to pay for the computer I was using and the Internet connection, but in the modern era, having an internet connection is in many ways almost a requirement, so that's the cost you would be paying anyway.   The idea that you must spend tens of thousands of dollars in formatting, editing, cover, and marketing comes from scammy self-publishing services. Self-publishing, much like traditional publishing, has more than its fair share of scams or from people who aren't willing to take the time to learn these skills and just want to cut someone a check to solve the problem. There are many low cost and effective ways to learn these skills and resources designed specifically for authors. People like Joanna Penn have free videos online explaining how to do this, and as I've said, a lot of the software you can use to self-publish is either free or low cost, and you can get some very good programs like Atticus or Vellum or Jutoh for formatting eBooks for very low cost.   The third reason that writers want to be traditionally published is that many believe they will get paid more this way, which is, unless you are in the top 1% of traditionally published authors, very wrong. Every so often, there's a study bemoaning the fact that most publishers will only sell about $600 worth of any individual book, and that is true of a large percentage of traditionally published books. Traditional publishers typically pay a lump sum called advance, and then royalties based on sales. An average advance is about the same as two or three months of salary from an office job and so not a reflection of the amount of time it typically takes most authors to finish a book. Most books do not earn out their advance, which means the advance is likely to be the only money the author receives for the book. Even well-known traditionally published authors are not earning enough to support themselves as full-time authors. So as you can see, all three of these reasons are putting a lot of faith in traditional publishers, faith that seems increasingly unnecessary or downright misplaced. I think it is very healthy to get rid of the idea that good writing comes from traditional publishers and that the prestige of being traditionally published is the only way you'll be accepted as a writer or be able to earn a living as a full-time writer. I strongly recommend that people stop thinking that marketing is beneath you as an author or too difficult to learn. Whether you are indie or tradpub, you are producing a product that you want to sell, thus you are a businessperson. The idea that only indie authors have to sell their work is outdated. The sooner you accept this reality, the more options you will have. Self-publishing and indie publishing are admittedly more work. However, the benefits are significant. Here are five benefits of self-publishing versus traditional publishing.   The first advantage of self-publishing is you have complete creative control. You decide what the content of your book will be; you decide what the cover will be. If you don't want to make the covers yourself or you don't want to learn how to do that, you can very affordably hire someone to do it for you and they will make the cover exactly to your specifications. You also have more freedom to experiment with cross-genre books. As I've mentioned before, publishers really aren't a fan of cross genre books until they make a ton of money, like the new romantasy trend.   Traditional publishing is very trend driven and cautious. Back in the 2000s before I gave up on traditional publishing and discovered self-publishing, I would submit to agents a lot. Agents all had these guidelines for fantasy saying that they didn't want to see stories with elves and orcs and dwarves and other traditional fantasy creatures because they thought that was passe. Well, when I started self-publishing, I thought I'm going to write a traditional fantasy series with elves and orcs and dwarves and other traditional fantasy creatures just because I can and Frostborn has been my bestselling series of all time in the time I've been self-publishing, so you can see the advantages of having creative control.   The second advantage is you can control the marketing. Tradpub authors often sign a contract that they'll get their social media and website content approved by the publisher before posting. They may even be given boilerplate or pre-written things to post. In self-publishing, you have real time data to help you make decisions and adjust ads and overall strategy on the fly to maximize revenue. For example, if one of your books is selling strangely well on Google Play, it's time to adjust BookBub ads to focus on that platform instead of Amazon.   You can also easily change your cover, your blurb, and so forth after release. I've changed covers of some of my books many times trying to optimize them for increased sales and that is nearly impossible to do with traditional publishing. And in fact, Brandon Sanderson gave a recent interview where he talked about how the original cover of his Mistborn book was so unrelated to the content of the book that it almost sunk the book and hence his career.   You also have the ability to run ad campaigns as you see fit, not just an initial launch like tradpub does. For example, in February 2025, I've been heavily advertising my Demonsouled series even though I finished writing that series back in 2013, but I've been able to increase sales and derive a significant profit from those ads.   A third big advantage is that you get a far greater share of the profits. Most of the stores, if you price an ebook between $2.99 (prices are USD) and $9.99, you will get 70% of the sale price, which means if you sell an ebook for $4.99, you're probably going to get about $3.50 per sale (depending on currency fluctuations and so forth). That is vastly more than you would get from any publishing contract.   You also don't have to worry about the publisher trying to cheat you out of royalties. We talked about an agency stealing money last episode. Every platform you publish your book on, whether Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Smashwords and Apple will give you a monthly spreadsheet of your sales and then you can look at it for yourself, see exactly how many books you sold and exactly how much money you're going to get. I have only very rarely seen traditional publishing royalty statements that are as clear and have as much data in them as a spreadsheet from Google Play or Amazon. A fourth advantage is you don't have to worry about publishers abandoning you mid-series. In traditional publishing, there is what's called the Publishing Death Spiral where let's say an author is contracted to write a series of five books. The author writes the first book and it sells well. Then the author publishes the second book and it doesn't sell quite as well, but the publisher is annoyed enough by the decrease in sales that they drop the writer entirely and don't finish the series. This happens quite a bit in the traditional publishing world, and you don't have to worry about that in indie publishing because you can just publish as often as you want. If you're not happy with the sales of the first few books in the series, you can change the covers, try ad campaigns, and other strategies.   Finally, you can publish as often as you want and when you want. In traditional publishing, there is often a rule of thumb that an author should only publish one book a year under their name. Considering that last year I published 10 books under my name, that seems somewhat ridiculous, but that's a function of the fact that traditional publishing has only so much capacity and the pieces of the machine involved there are slow and not very responsive. Whereas with self-publishing, you have much more freedom and everything involved with it is much more responsive. There's no artificial deadlines, so you can take as long as you want to prepare it and if the book is ready, you don't have to wait a year to put it out because it would mess up the publisher's schedule.   So what to do instead of chasing traditional publishing? Learn about self-publishing, especially about scams and bad deals related to it. Publish your own works by a platform such as KDP, Barnes and Noble Press, Kobo Writing Life, Apple Books, Google Play, Smashwords, and possibly your own Payhip and/or Shopify store.   Conquer your fear of marketing and advertising. Even traditionally published authors are shouldering more of this work and paying out of their own pocket to hire someone to do it, and if you are paying your own marketing costs, you might as well self-publish and keep a greater share of the profits. The second half of our main topic, another potential risk of prestige, is getting on The New York Times Bestseller List. I should note that I suppose someone could accuse me of sour grapes here saying, oh, Jonathan Moeller, you've never been on The New York Times Bestseller List. You must just be bitter about it. That is not true. I do not want to be on The New York Times Bestseller List. What I would like to be is a number one Amazon bestseller. Admittedly though, that's unlikely, but a number one Amazon bestseller would make a lot more money than a number one New York Times Bestseller List, though because of the way it works, if you are a number one Amazon bestseller, you might be a New York Times Bestseller, but you might not. Let's get into that now.   Many writers have the dream of seeing their name on the New York Times Bestseller List. One self-help guru wrote about “manifesting” this milestone for herself by writing out the words “My book is number one on The New York Times Bestseller List” every day until it happened. Such is the mystique of this milestone that many authors crave it as a necessity. However, this list has seen challenges to its prestige in recent years. The one thing that shocks most people when they dig into the topic is that the list is not an objective list based on the raw number of books sold. The list is “editorial content” and The New York Times can exclude, include, or rank the books on the list however they choose.   What it does not capture is perennial sellers or classics. For example, the Bible and the Quran are obviously some of the bestselling books of all time, but you won't see editions of the Bible or the Quran on the New York Times Bestseller List. Textbooks and classroom materials, I guarantee there are some textbooks that are standards in their field that would be on the bestseller list every year, but they're not because The New York Times doesn't track them. Ebooks available only from a single vendor such as Kindle Unlimited books, ebook sales from not reporting vendors such as Shopify or Payhip. Reference Works including test prep guides (because I guarantee when test season comes around the ACT and SAT prep guides or the GRE prep guides sell a lot of copies) and coloring books or puzzle books.  It would be quite a blow to the authors on the list to realize that if these excluded works were included on the list, they would in all likelihood be consistently below To Kill a Mockingbird, SAT prep books, citation manuals, Bibles/other religious works, and coloring books about The Eras Tour.   Publishers, political figures, religious groups, and anyone with enough money can buy their way into the rank by purchasing their books in enormous quantities. In fact, it's widely acknowledged in the United States that this is essentially a legal form of bribery and a bit of money laundering too, where a publisher will give a truly enormous advance to a public figure or politician that they like, and that advance will essentially be a payment to that public figure in the totally legal form of an enormous book advance that isn't going to pay out. Because this is happening with such frequency, The New York Times gave into the pressure to acknowledge titles suspected of this strategy with a special mark next to it on the list. However, these books remain on the list and can still be called a New York Times Bestseller.   Since the list is not an objective marker of sales and certainly not some guarantee of quality, why focus on making it there? I think trying to get your book on The New York Times Bestseller List would be an enormous waste of time, since the list is fundamentally an artificial construction that doesn't reflect sales reality very well.   So what can you do instead? Focus on raw sales numbers and revenue, not lists. Even Amazon's bestseller category lists have a certain amount of non-quantitative factors. In the indie author community, there's a saying called Bank not Rank, which means you should focus on how much revenue your books are actually generating instead of whatever sales rank they are on whatever platform. I think that's a wiser approach to focus your efforts.   You can use lists like those from Publishers Weekly instead if you're interested in what's selling or trends in the industry, although that too can be manipulated and these use only a fairly small subset of data that favors retail booksellers, but it's still more objective in measuring than The New York Times.   I suppose in the end, you should try and focus on ebook and writing activities that'll bring you actual revenue or satisfaction rather than chasing the hollow prestige of things like traditional publishing, agents, MFAs, and The New York Times Bestseller List.   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 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.

In this week's episode, we take a look at five tips for outlining your novel. I also take a look at audiobook sales for 2024. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Wizard-Thief, Book #2 in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store: WIZARD50 The coupon code is valid through February 21, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 237 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January 31st, 2025, and today we're discussing five tips for outlining your novel. Before we get to that, we will have Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing projects, Question of the Week, and then a look at how my audiobooks performed in 2024.   First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Wizard Thief, Book Number Two in the Half-Eleven Thief series (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is WIZARD50. Both the coupon code and the link to the store will be in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through February the 21st, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook to get you through the February doldrums, we have got you covered. And now an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. I am very, very, very pleased to report that Shield of Deception, the fourth book in The Shield War series, is done. As soon as I am finished recording this episode, I'm going to start publishing it at all the stores. So by the time this episode goes live, you should be able to get it at your favorite ebook store. I'm very pleased this is done because I think this is the longest book I have written in the last four years, which of course I picked to do over the Christmas holiday and was in the process of switching over to a new desktop computer. Great planning on my part, but the book is done and hopefully you should be able to enjoy it soon at your favorite ebook store.   Now that Shield of Deception is done, my next project will be Ghost in the Assembly and I'm pleased to report I'm 20,000 words into that. So I'm hopefully on track to have that come out sometime in March. My secondary project is also going to be Shield of Battle, the fifth book in the Shield War series, and hopefully that will be in April, if all goes well.   In audiobook news, Cloak of Masks is now finally available at all audiobook stores: Audible, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Chirp, and all the others. A reminder that you can also get Ghost Armor Omnibus One, the combination of the first three Ghost Armor books (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at Audible, Apple, and Amazon.   00:02:15 Question of the Week   Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's topic: do you watch the special features on the DVD when you watch a movie? I'm talking about the making of and the director and cast and crew interviews and so forth. Not all DVDs have them of course, but some do. We have a few responses to this question.   Justin says: It depends on the movie. The special features in Monty Python and the Holy Grail Special Edition are a must-see in my opinion.   John says: I watched all the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition extras. Really great material. I know I've watched others, but I can't recall offhand. Definitely the gold standard.   Tom says: My general pattern is to watch the trailer, then the movie, then the deleted scenes. Sometimes I'll watch parts of the special features if their name caches my eye, not often though.   James says: With On-Demand through my cable provider, I just watch the movies. Being part of the PC Master Race, I've never had a gaming console to play DVDs on. I haven't bought a DVD in ages. I used to belong to Redbox, but they're not even in business anymore. Elizabeth says: Sometimes, or play in another language with English subtitles.   Brandy says: Sometimes. I watched The Lord of the Rings special features and enjoyed it. I also watch historical extras or look them up.   Bonnie says: I think I may have once? I usually just watch the movie, haven't watched anything in ages, though.   Juana says: Yes. After the feature things are interesting!   Tracy says: I do.   For myself, the inspiration for this question was that I couldn't think of anything to watch, so I was watching the special features on The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions box set, which a few people have already mentioned. I really think those are the gold standard for DVD special features. Not too many special features have middle aged literature professors discussing the origins of the book that inspired the movie. There's like six discs worth of special features in the Extended Edition Lord of the Rings DVDs, and if you watch all of them, it's really a very interesting and comprehensive documentary on how those three movies were made. If you get the Oppenheimer Blu-ray, the special features that come with that are also quite interesting and worth watching in my opinion.   00:04:18 Audiobook Sales in 2024   Now let's talk a little bit about how my audiobooks did in 2024. Ebook sales were down a bit from 2023 to 2024, but my audiobook sales were up from 2023 to 2024. So here are my Top 10 bestselling audiobooks of 2024. It's nice to note that audio (at least for me) was up, in 2024 in a time of general economic contraction. So that's nice. Now my Top 10 audiobooks:   The Ghosts: Omnibus One 2. Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit 3. Frostborn: The Dark Warden 4. Frostborn: The Broken Mage 5. Frostborn: The World Gate 6. Frostborn: The False King 7. Frostborn: Excalibur 8. Frostborn: The Dwarven Prince 9. Dragonskull: Omnibus One 10. Frostborn: The High Lords   So I have to admit, it's nice to see the Frostborn books still in the Top 10 there because they've long ago made back their production costs. So now it's just a pure profit at this point, which is nice. And it's also amusing that The Ghosts Omnibus One remains my bestselling audiobook of all time just because it's so long. Now let's see how those sales broke down by vendor because as you know, I sell my audiobooks through several different platforms. And so let's see how they did:   ACX (Audible, Amazon, Apple): 76.54% 2. Google Play: 9.84% 3. Storytel: 5.08% 4. Hoopla: 2.73% 5. Spotify: 2.27% 6. Chirp: 1.05% 7. Under 1%: Kobo, Scribd, Audiobooks.com, Overdrive, TuneIn, Bibliotheca, Nook, and Anyplay     So as we can see, Audible in the form of ACX is still pretty dominant, but there is growth on the other platforms, especially Google Play. I was not expecting Google Play to come in second. I would've thought it would've been Chirp or Spotify, but it seems Google Play did very well for me for audiobooks for 2024. So thanks for listening everyone, or at least listening to the audiobooks. We're not done with the podcast yet, so let's now move on to our main topic.   00:06:34 Main Topic: 5 Tips for Creating an Outline for Your Novel   Now let's move on to our main topic, five tips for creating an outline for your novel. In the fiction writing community, there's generally two schools of thoughts, outliners (of which I am definitely one), and discovery writers, who feel that starting with outlines sort of drains the process of its fun and magic. Though I heard an interesting point from one of Brandon Sanderson's videos recently where he said that all outliners do have a little bit of discovery writer in them because if you look at your outline, it'll say something like “there is a chase scene.” Then when you get to that part of the book, you write out eight to ten pages of the chase scene or whatever that you come up with on the spot and then later refine and improve through editing. So that's a good point, but I do think outlining is more useful in general for writing than not outlining is.   So why outline? As I mentioned, many writers do not outline, but I do think outlining does help, especially with beginning writers. For one, it saves time because if you follow the outline, you're less likely to go down a blind alley and realize you have to drop the last 10 or 20,000 words you wrote. It helps prevent getting stuck and not knowing what to write next. And it also really helps because it'll save you time in editing because you're less likely to have to rewrite large portions of the book. And it's also helpful for maintaining continuity as well.   I found also that outlining in advance is good because it forces you to think about things before you start because we all know writers who get really excited about writing, get a third of the way through, and then don't know where to go next. It's because they haven't thought it through. Outlining forces you to really think through the middle, which is where a lot of writers get stuck, and it also forces you to think through the ending and make sure it properly resolves the conflicts and stakes raised in the story.   As an example, I know a beginning writer who did not create an outline when setting out to write for the first time, although she had a strong setting and liked her characters, she realized about halfway through that the conflict wasn't enough to carry her whole story and that changing the conflict or raising the stakes would change the tone of the story too much. And unfortunately, she decided to abandon the draft. You could look at that one way, that it was months of wasted effort for her that could have been prevented with a couple hours of outlining, though I think it's better to look at it as a valuable learning experience where she learned that yes, outlining really will help me with my writing and just sort of had to learn that the hard way through attempting to write without an outline first.   #1: So our first tip for outlining novels is to learn story structure. It's hard to write an outline without understanding good story structure, but the flip side is if you do understand story structure and put good story structure into your outline, it will be all the easier to write your novel. The basic story structure that everyone learns in English class when they're talking about short stories (or should learn an English class when they're talking about short stories), is introduction, conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution. That is essentially basic short story structure that's in short stories and in novels, however long. A longer novel of course we'll have subplots and sort of sub conflicts and maybe false ends and red herrings, but that basic story structure is there throughout. So our first tip for good outlining is to understand story structure. And if you try to hold to that basic five step story structure when you're first starting out, especially when you're first starting out, you'll probably find it a lot easier to go.     #2: Start with the problem. What do we mean by that? First, think of the main conflicts and then start outlining to move the characters/locations around them accordingly. Work the hardest on understanding your central conflict. Your protagonist must have a problem that results in a serious conflict. Now, serious conflict doesn't necessarily imply violence, though in genres such as a thriller and mystery, it can. The conflict must be emotionally significant and serious for the protagonist where there are real stakes involved.   The example I usually go to for this is the movie The King Speech, which is a highly fictionalized version of Britain's King George VI learning to overcome his stutter to speak in public. At no point in the movie is George VI in any physical danger. His wife and children love and respect him, and he's generally well regarded by everyone who knows him. However, the problem is he can't speak in public effectively, and this is a huge emotional problem for him. And frankly, one with serious stakes after his brother abdicates and he becomes king. He needs to be able to speak effectively in public or he won't be able to carry out his duties well. So this conflict of dealing with his stutter and his speech impediment is central to the movie. And even though he's not in any physical danger, it nonetheless has very high stakes for him, which is why I say that the problem has to be emotionally significant and have high stakes for the protagonist.   And there are ways to do that without violence, though of course, if you're writing fantasy or a thriller, you can use all the violence you want. You can help create a significant conflict and problem for your character by asking yourself a few questions. What conflicts and actions lead up to it? What is causing this conflict to happen? What are the stakes? What will happen if it doesn't resolve favorably? And why is the character involved? What must they do to resolve the conflict?   For an example from my own books, I'm going to talk about Half-Elven Thief, which is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited if you want to go read that. In Half-Elven Thief, the main character is Rivah, who is a member of a fantasy Thieves Guild in her city. She's massively in debt to her immediate superior in the Thieves Guild who hates her and has been using that debt to exploit work from her and considering selling her into slavery to recover the debt. However, a massive and very dangerous job comes to the Thieves Guild, and Rivah is the one assigned to take the job, and if she pulls off the job, her debt will be repaid and she doesn't have this debt hanging over her head anymore. But the job is to steal a spell book from a very dangerous and powerful wizard, so there's every chance she'll be killed in the process. So the central conflict of Half-Elven Thief, that Rivah needs to steal this spell book from this very dangerous wizard, and the stakes for that is so she can get out from under this debt her superior has been holding over her head for the last three years. So hopefully that is a helpful example of a conflict with serious stakes for the protagonist.   #3: Our third tip is to start with simple. What is the book's blurb or elevator pitch for this story? Write that first. There's a couple different ways you can do that. I've sometimes described my Cloak Games/Cloak Mage series as Shadow Run meets The Dresden Files, which can be a starting point. I've heard people describe the Caina series as Black Widow meets Conan the Barbarian, which is another way to do it. To return to our previous two examples, in The King's Speech, the precise pitch is “faced with becoming King George VI must overcome his speech/stutter and face his emotional problems in order to effectively exercise his office.” And with my book Half-Elven Thief, the elevator pitch was, “in order to escape a dangerous debt, a thief is forced to steal a spell book from a dangerous wizard.” So that is the one sentence starting point, and you can use that to build the conflict.   Another potential way to do this is to write the blurb for your book and then build the conflict off that. For example, here is the blurb for another one of my books, Ghost in the Serpent, which is available at all ebook stores.   Anyway, the blurb: “A deadly poison. A hidden cult of sorcerers. Only Caina can find the truth. Caina is a countess of the Empire, an advisor and friend of three powerful monarchs, but she was once a nightfighter with the Ghosts, the spies and assassins of the Emperor and faced lethal sorcerers and corrupt lords. And when a hidden cult of malevolent sorcerers emerges from the shadows, Caina will show them that she has forgotten none of her old skills.”   So what is this blurb doing? It is introducing the setting and the characters, Caina and the Empire, focusing on the conflict and stakes and focusing on how they relate to Caina. And that allows us to sort of expand out into the conflict. If you read the book, you know that the plot is someone tries to poison Caina and fails. As she investigates what happened, she discovers that her husband had two children that he didn't know about, and for some reason this mysterious cult is trying to kill both Caina and these children, which pulls her deeper into the mystery. So that is the stakes and the conflict, and that is how I was able to build the book around them. #4: Our fourth tip is to just start. Just pick a time, grab your laptop or your notebook or whatever, and just start writing down an outline for your short story or a synopsis. Don't research things about your story while you're outlining. You can just write “TO BE RESEARCHED LATER” in capital letters, which is what I do sometimes. Don't research the perfect way to make an outline, just sit down and make an outline. How I outline personally is what I usually do is I have the central conflict in mind, like the example with Rivah, and then I sit down and write a synopsis of what I want to happen and then I chop up the synopsis into chapters and I go from there. My outlines tend to be about 1,000 to 2,000 words long, depending on the length of the book.   For example, Shield of Deception, which I just published, was on the longer side. It came to about 120,000 words and the outline was about 2,000 words. And it basically started out as a long synopsis I wrote, and then I chopped up the synopsis into chapters and went from there. I included major story beats, where the characters were going to go, and what they did. It doesn't get too detailed. Each chapter…the book had 30 chapters. So each chapter generally was described with about 80 words in the outline, maybe a hundred words, depending on what goes on. The detail varies. Basically, like in a chapter outline, I'll say “Character X comes and confronts Character Y and then they fight.” Then I will extemporize and make up the conversation when I actually get to the writing.   What I try to include in all the outlines is story beats that have to be in the story. The character has to be here or the plot doesn't make sense, or they have to go this location or it's a massive plot hole, or they have to think of this or it causes a plot hole, that kind of thing, which is part of the value of the outlining process is that it forces you to think of these things in advance. What I don't include is that I don't get too super detailed because to return to the Brandon Sanderson example from earlier in the show, when you get to the actual scene, there is a bit of discovery writing, like where I'll write where Character X confronts Character Y about whatever they're arguing about. Then the actual conversation I will just write when I arrive there.   #5: And our fifth and final tip, try a different style of outlining if you're struggling. There are different outlining techniques and styles out there. Here are two examples.   There's the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson, which is where you start with a one sentence summary, build up to a paragraph, and continue to add detail in depth. There's also Dean Koontz's story structure from his book, How to Write Bestselling Fiction. His story structure is:   Get your character into trouble as quickly as possible Their plans backfire Things escalate until defeat seems inevitable Victory against all odds   If you're having trouble starting an outline, that might be a good way to do it. That said, there is no magic bullet. There is not a magic outlining style or perfect outlining style that will guarantee success. So don't get lost in endless reading or studying different kinds of outlines. A finished outline is better than waiting for a perfect one. And in that vein, a book that you have actually written, even if it's not as cool as you want it to be, is still infinitely better than a book that exists only in your head. And all that said, those five tips for outlining, I'm about to do all that myself. There is in the tech industry a phrase called “eating the dog food” or “eating your own dog food,” which means if you make a product and sell a product, you should probably be using the product a great deal. And Microsoft in particular was known for leaning on this. And for myself, I'm going to be doing everything I just talked about here because over the next few days, I'll be writing the outline for Shield of Battle, which at the moment consists of only four sentences I jotted down when I had ideas. I'll be applying all those techniques myself to write the outline for Shield of Battle, and hopefully it will work well for me. I think it will. I think these tips, if you want to start outlining your novels before you write them, would hopefully be helpful for you as well.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In this week's episode, we take a look at five ways to use short stories to market your books. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief, Book #1 in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store: HALF50 The coupon code is valid through February 14, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for the January/February doldrums, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 236 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January the 24th, 2025. Today we are discussing how to use short stories for marketing. Before we get into that, we'll start with Coupon of the Week. I have an update on my current writing projects and then do Question of the Week.   So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief, Book One in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store. That code is HALF50. You can find the link and the coupon code in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through February the 14th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for the January/February doldrums, we have got you covered. Now on to an update on my current writing projects. As of this recording, I am 56% of the way through the first round of edits on Shield of Deception. I am still hoping to have the book out early in February, if all goes well. Once that is out, my main project will be Ghost in the Assembly. I am 16,000 words into that. So that is good news there.   In audiobook news, as I mentioned in the previous show, the audiobook of Ghost Armor Omnibus One (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) has come out and you can get that at Audible, Apple, and Amazon. Cloak of Masks should be coming soon and a recording for Cloak of Dragonfire is almost done, so we should have some more audiobook news coming pretty soon.   00:01:45 Question of the Week   Now onto Question of the Week, which is designed for an enjoyable discussion of interesting topics. This week's question: what is your favorite kind of Italian food? No wrong answers, obviously, including not liking Italian food. We had quite a few responses on that.   Justin says: Ah yes, pizza, the food of company team building exercises and RPG tabletop sessions. You can't go wrong with pizza. Another dish I adore would be Italian sausage and peppers with penne pasta. It goes together quickly, tastes great, and is easy to clean up afterwards. Alas, I can no longer partake- the green and red pepper has given me gas worse than any bean dish.   Mary says: Ravioli! The right brands, because the cheese mixes vary. I like a number, but not all.   Surabhi says: Pizza wins, without a doubt!   Juana says: Pizza hits all the notes.   Denny says: I love North American pizza. Italian pizza is its own thing and not something I enjoy. I've eaten very little actual Italian food, but generally I do enjoy pasta. John says: Definitely lasagna. There is a little place in Southern California where the chef makes a deconstructed lasagna that is out of this world.   I have to admit, I didn't know there was such a thing as deconstructed lasagna.   Jenny says: Fettuccine Alfredo and Chicken Parmesan are so good, but I love getting some of both so I get the red and white sauces blended and with tasty cheesy chicken.   Brooks says: While I love a lot of Italian dishes, I really like a type of lasagna that is cream based versus marinara based. Usually it's considered a veggie type lasagna. It just adds a different twist. Basically alfredo meets lasagna.   Olaf says: Any kind of pasta (linguini, tortiglioni, rigatoni, farfalle) or gnocchi with a slow cooked bolognaise. My self-made pizza, then of course lasagna and all kinds of pasta with salsicce and let not forget tiramisu and a latte macchiato. James says: It's funny what we call “foreign food.”” Your Taco Bell style taco originated in Texas. What Americans consider Chinese food originated in San Francisco and pizza as we know it originated in New York City.   Bonnie says: Chicken parm and my husband's lasagna.   A different John says: I love a really good risotto, specifically with porcini mushrooms and pancetta. Also the truffle pasta I had in Rome about 10 years ago, but the best pasta I had was rabbit ragout with handmade pappardelle (which I'm pretty sure I didn't say correctly) at a restaurant here in California. My family loves my homemade spaghetti with meatballs. My granddaughter's favorite is actually spaghetti with clams.   Gary says: Almost anything with pesto.   Andrew says: Cannoli.   James says: Only reason I know this is because of the Food Network, but a true pizza (Italians in Italy don't have pizza) order in Italy doesn't sound appetizing to me. I want a supreme with everything but anchovies on it. While pizza, as we know it is an American invention, what an Italian in Italy would order has only tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and basil.   Finally, Michael says: Spaghetti.   For myself, I think my answer would be pizza, which I think as we just heard is true of many people, but pizza is kind of a category all its own, especially American pizza, which as we heard is American invention and not an Italian one. For non-pizza, I would say lasagna and spaghetti carbonara.   00:04:56 Main Topic of the Week: Using Short Stories for Marketing Now onto our main topic this week, how to use short stories for marketing. Many authors, myself included (which if you haven't subscribed to my new release newsletter, which you should really do), create short stories for marketing. It can be an effective way to connect with your readers, but why do it?   Two caveats I should get into before we get into why you should use short stories for marketing and the big one is if you don't actually enjoy writing short stories, you shouldn't do it. Marketing tactics work only if you actually enjoy doing it or you can find it at least tolerable. If you actively dislike writing short stories and prefer to write novels, then you should not try to write short stories unless you actively enjoy the process at least as much as you enjoy writing novels. The second caveat is to remember that short stories really don't sell well outside of certain very specific categories like erotica or anthologies (and even anthologies don't sell as well as full length novels). Recently I saw an interview with a longtime fantasy author who lamented because of TikTok and YouTube (and whatever) that young people nowadays prefer shorter books/quicker books and books will have to get shorter. I have to admit that has not been my experience at all. I think of the 158 books I've published, I've never had anyone write to me afterwards and say, hey, you know what? This book was too long and should have been shorter. No, they say the book should have been longer. So I think that might just be an illusion caused by that author in question being mostly traditionally published and having to deal with printing costs and the publishers being stingy on paper. But my own experience has been that readers really prefer longer works, which means that they don't want to pay for short stories and that therefore you're not going to make a lot of money from your short stories. That doesn't mean you can't use your short stories to make money, but the short stories themselves (if you sell them) are probably not going to make a lot of money and therefore giving them out for free is probably a good idea. Obviously, this is not a new idea. Nonfiction writers, especially in the self-help and business genres, have long given out charts, worksheets, and other bonus content to their newsletter subscribers. Short stories can work well as what's called a reader magnet in the indie author space. The reader magnet is where you give away something for free and hope that the people who pick it up like it enough to go on and try your paid content. I do this all the time myself with my free series starters like Cloak Games: Thief Trap or Child of the Ghosts or Sevenfold Sword: Champion, where if you read that book since it's free and enjoy it, hopefully you go on to purchase the rest of the books in the series. Short stories also generally don't sell for very much. I almost always sell mine for $0.99 USD when they're not free, so it's not a major loss of revenue or “devaluing the work” if you give it away for free, especially if it's only temporary. Another advantage is that people very obviously love free stuff, especially digital content that doesn't take up physical space. Whether you live in a one room efficiency apartment or a four bedroom house, there is only so much space to go around and you can only have so much stuff and in fact, people are always looking to declutter. This is not a problem with digital goods and if you're giving away the short stories for free in digital format, your readers can receive it whenever it's most convenient for them and it's not a burden for them to keep or maintain it like a pile of freebie clutter from a conference (like pens and tote bags, for example). Also, the idea that giving away something for free means that it is low quality is just not a value that most modern readers have. It is more a legacy of a tradpub/print books that is probably going to fade over time. Being the one to provide the free content directly to readers is a way to keep their interest and hopefully build enough of a relationship with the reader that they're willing to try out the non-free content. This is the concept of the loss leader, where you give away something for free and hopefully people will go on to buy the paid products that are connected to it. In marketing speak, this is called the Marketing Funnel, where the free thing you give away is the top of your funnel and hopefully people take the free thing and like it and they'll get drawn further into the funnel and will become paying customers. Giving away things for free also has the benefit of building up a positive association with you in the reader's mind. So hopefully when you send out a newsletter or they see that you have a new book available on Amazon or Kobo or Google Play or wherever, that they will have a positive reaction and then purchase the book.   With all that in mind, and now that we've had our caveats and laid the groundwork, let us have five reasons to give away short stories.   #1: It can keep people connected with the characters/world between books and keep up interest for the next book in the series. If there are gaps between the books in your series, new short stories keep people engaged with characters and help them to remember what happened in the previous books. A short story can also excite them for what comes next in the series, especially if it alludes to what's about to happen in the next book. I have found generally it's a good idea to avoid massive spoilers for things in the books in the short stories, though some of that may be unavoidable depending on where it's written and how it's set.   #2: It gives readers insight into characters and events that don't fit into the larger narrative but are still fan favorites or interesting to fans. My main approach when I write short stories is I don't really want them to be standalone, but I don't really want them to be spoiler-y, so I tend to treat them as DVD extras or like bonus scenes on the DVD, like everyone knows that the Lord the Rings movies came out in the theaters 20 years ago in a specific form, but when the Lord the Rings Extended Editions came out in DVD, they had many extra scenes that had been cut from the movie for time or budgetary reasons or whatever.   That is how I view the short stories I give away for free when I publish a new book. It is bonus content that gets included like bonus content from the DVD. A prominent example of that would be Trick or Treat and Blood Walk and Iron Drive short stories from the Cloak Mage series, all of which are written from the perspective of the character Casimir Volansko. These have proven to be very popular short stories for me because Casimir offers the chance to see Nadia's world from a more normal perspective because Nadia, by this point in the series, is a superpowered wizard with many responsibilities, whereas Casimir is a truck driver who just wants to retire. So that makes for an interesting contrast and looking at the world through Casimir's eyes is not something I would probably do in a main book in the series but does make for a fun bonus in the short stories.   You can also do the backstory of a character that isn't central to the narrative. A couple of times I've done that where in a short story I have fleshed out more of a character's backstory, especially with the Frostborn series where I had The Orc's Tale, The Thief's Tale, The Assassin's Tale, The Soldier's Tale, and so forth where we delved into the backstory of some of the point of view characters in the series that we didn't have time to go through in the books.   #3: It will give people a clear, easy to understand reason to sign up for your email newsletter. “Subscribe and receive two free short stories” is a more compelling argument than “subscribe to my newsletter.” If anyone subscribes to my newsletter, they get three free novels to start with: Frostborn: The Skull Quest, Blade of the Ghosts, and Malison: Dragon Curse, I believe are the three right now. But I also emphasize that if you do sign up for my new release newsletter, you do get free short stories on a fairly regular basis. If fact, I'm planning a newsletter for the 27th that will also give away more short stories. So I do send out a couple of newsletters a month whenever I have a new book come out, and there are short stories given away with all of those. So that is a good way to help build loyalty and reader engagement for your newsletter, which leads directly into reason number four.   #4: It is a carrot, not a stick to motivate people to open and read your messages, which helps with your messages getting flagged as spam. As I've mentioned before, I do enjoy writing short stories. I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it, but the main marketing reason, the big one I write short stories for, is to drive engagement for my newsletter, which has a very practical benefit. Many of the anti-spam systems nowadays are very sophisticated and track a lot of what you do in the email and the more you interact with an email, the less likely it is to get classified by spam, so that way if people are clicking on links in the newsletter to get the free short story, that means they're interacting more with the newsletter and that the email is less likely to be classified as spam.   For a while in 2018 and 2019, I thought writing short stories was too much work, so I decided to phase it out, but my newsletter engagement just dropped. I realized it was because so many fewer people were clicking on the links in the emails and therefore they're getting listed as spam. So I thought, you know what? I better get back to writing short stories. If your newsletter messages are just long diary style entries, people will at best skim them or start to tune out. Having reader magnets for the newsletter gets people used to thinking there is some incentive for them to personally keep checking your updates, which of course turns back to the original point, that this will also help drive engagement and meaning your newsletter is more likely to be opened and less likely to be classified as spam.   #5: And finally, the fifth and final reason is making short stories free for a limited period of time instead of permafree gives subscribers and followers an incentive to read your posts and newsletters frequently and closely. Fear of missing out (or FOMO, as it's commonly known), is a powerful force. Having the item be free for limited time and exclusive for newsletter subscribers creates a sense of urgency to keep up with your updates. Exclusive content such as never selling the short story but only making it available to newsletter subscribers is also a big incentive for people to subscribe. Many readers (in fact, I would say most readers) are completionists and don't want to miss out on anything in a series, even for just a single short story in that series.   So those are five reasons to use short stories in your marketing to give them away for free. But there are a couple of caveats I want to add.   First, free content is part of the marketing plan and not the entire marketing plan. After being an indie author for almost 13 years now (wow, that's a long time), I've come to realize there is no single magic silver bullet for marketing, but if you do a lot of different things that have a little effect on their own, that does add up over time.   Second, free content should be in line with reader expectations/interests. For example, I'm writing epic fantasy with the Shield War series, so the short story that comes out with Shield of Deception should really be epic fantasy as well. A mystery writer who gives away romance short stories would probably baffle the reader. Likewise, if I published a Caina book and then gave away a short story that was totally unrelated to the Caina series, or indeed not even in the fantasy genre at all, that would probably confuse and annoy readers.   The third caveat is that content besides short stories can also work, such as deleted scenes and alternative point of view chapters or preview chapters. I know writers who have done that, but it needs to be substantial. For example, subscribing to a newsletter and finding out that the special preview is only a paragraph is not going to create goodwill with new subscribers and you're probably going to get a lot of immediate unsubscribes.   And fourth, and finally, the story you're giving away needs to feel professional. It needs to be formatted and edited and put together properly and the cover needs to look good. That is something I struggled with for a long time because at the start, I would hire out my novel covers and do the short story covers myself, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and eventually I learned to use Photoshop and got better at that so I could have better looking short story covers, which paid off in the long run, but it was a lot of work to get there. So that is something to consider if you're giving away short stories, is how much you want to spend on the cover image for it. It might be a good idea to just do something simple for a short story you're giving away for free, like finding an appropriate stock image and then putting some appropriate typography on it. It doesn't have to look amazing. It just has to look good and professional enough. Those are four caveats to our five previous thoughts.   That is it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes 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.  

In this week's episode, we take a look at five reasons to buy direct from authors through platforms such as Shopify and Payhip. We also take a look at my choice of computing platforms for 2025. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Tombs, Book #3 in the Ghost Armor series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: TOMBS50 The coupon code is valid through February 7, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for next week's cold weather, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 235 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January the 17th, 2025 and today we are discussing the advantages of buying direct from the author. I will also share an update on what I've done for my writing computers this year and we also have Coupon of the Week, Question of the Week, and an update on my current writing projects. So let's get right to it.   Let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Tombs, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. That is Book Three of the Ghost Armor series, and this coupon will get you 50% off the audiobook at my Payhip store: TOMBS50. This coupon code will be valid through February 7, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for next week's cold weather, we have got you covered. Now let's share an update on my current writing projects. As of this recording, I am 116,000 words into Shield of Deception, which puts me on chapter 28 of 31. So I'm hoping before too much longer I will be able to be done with the rough draft, which I think I'm hoping I'm going to be able to finish it on Monday the 20th if all goes well, but we'll see how things work out. I think it's going to end up being around 125,000 words, which will make it the longest book in the Shield War series and probably the longest book I've written since the end of my Dragontiarna series back in 2021. I kind of wanted a break from really long, complex epic fantasy, but I had my break. I'm rested and now we're doing it again. I'm also 13,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, which will be the fourth book in the Ghost Armor series, and I'm hoping to have that out in March and Shield Deception out in February.   In audiobook news, Cloak of Masks is entirely done and working its way through processing. As I mentioned last week, it should be up on a couple of the stores like Google Play, Kobo, and Chirp, though it is not up on Audible yet. On Audible, though, is Ghost Armor Omnibus One (again narrated by Hollis McCarthy). That is an omnibus bundle of the first three books in the Ghost Armor series. That is available in audio at Audible, Amazon, and Apple. If you're on Audible, it is 31 hours of listening for just one credit, which in my opinion is a pretty good deal. That is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:02:32 Question of the Week   Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended for enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: what is your favorite Mexican dish? No wrong answers, including not enjoying Mexican food. A little bit about semantics. I'm aware that Mexican food is a very broad net and like all such definitions is prone to a substantial bit of haziness. Mexican cuisine is not the same as Tex-Mex, which is not the same as Puerto Rican cuisine, which is not the same as Guatemalan cuisine and so on. And the various regions of Mexico itself all have their own distinct culinary traditions. But this is true of all cuisines. By Mexican food, I mean Mexican food as it is generally defined in the United States, which tends to be an assemblage of various foods from the American Southwest, Mexico, and Latin America. And as you might expect, we had numerous responses.   Our first response is from Justin who says: We have taco night here once a week or so, but no actual tacos are used. A pan of seasoned crumbled hamburger meat along with standard toppings is available for folks to make what they want. That generally becomes beef and cheese burritos and taco salad (regular bowl, corn chips added as desired).   Hollis (who narrates the Ghost and Cloak audiobooks as we as mentioned) says: Quesadillas. Taste decadent but can pack in healthy spinach and peppers and whole wheat tortillas with decadent meat and cheese.   Juana says: burritos, loaded!   Tracy says: chicken and guacamole with roasted veggies.   Becca says: Chile en nogada, basically a meat stuffed grilled chili. I have had it with chicken and beef, usually comes with pomegranate or other fruit containing sauce.   John says: Three barbacoa tacos with cilantro, onion and the green salsa and three beef fajita tacos the same way. With large horchata from a sketchy food truck usually found in front of the local tire shop.   I have to say some of the best Mexican food I've had has come from somewhat sketchy food trucks in front of local tire shops.   Bob says: Any kind of mole. One nearby restaurant had a duck mole that was excellent.   A different John says: I'm always searching for a great cheese enchilada. At least three, please. Cheryl says: Never had Mexican, so can't comment.   Jenny says: Queso dip, especially when it's got beef and chili seasoning (not like chili peppers, but the southwest chili seasoning and beef).   Scott says: Anything Al Pastor (burritos taco, et cetera).   Steve says: Fish tacos, any way I can get them.   Yet another John says: Brisket quesadillas.   I've actually had those and they're very good.   Andrew Abbott says: Quesadilla.   Gary says: Al pastor.   Mandy says: Carnitas.   For myself, I think my favorite would be arroz con pollo with mushrooms. Tasty, very filling, and so long as you don't go too heavy on the cheese, it's not too terribly bad for you. I've had a couple of different variations of it, including one that had carrots and I admit I was dubious when it came out with carrots in the arroz con pollo, but it was really good. Steak fajitas would be a close second in my Mexican food preference list. The inspiration for this question was that I made homemade nachos for dinner twice this week and I also made tacos twice for dinner this week because if you make up enough taco mix, you can get a couple of meals out of it. So that's it for Question of the Week.   00:05:37 Work Computers/Writing Computer for 2025   Now I thought I'd talk a little bit about what I'm going to use for a computer in 2025. The reason for this is a couple of weeks ago, I posted a meme about choosing a new computer on Facebook and promptly forgot I had done so, but then I looked back a week and a half later to see it had gone viral and people are still arguing about the best computer in the comments, which is good summary of social media, isn't it? You can carefully consider a 1,500 word post that will get like three likes at the most but toss a meme up and forget about it and you'll come back in a week to see it had thousands of views and almost 300 comments, all of them arguing for or against specific computing platforms. So that is the reason I thought I would share what I actually picked for my computing needs in 2025.   Three caveats: One, for your own computing requirements, pick whatever meets your needs and that your budget will allow. Windows, Mac OS, Linux, a tablet, whatever. It doesn't really matter. Honestly, I think 90% of people can do 95% of what they need in a web browser nowadays anyway and maybe use a cheap laser printer to print something out like every other month or so. I recently helped an elderly relative with a computer problem and she does about 95% of her computer needs on her Kindle Fire tablet and only breaks out her laptop when a webpage doesn't render properly on mobile. She can even print from her Kindle Fire. That said, I definitely fall into that 10% that cannot use a web browser for everything. Caveat two, my objective isn't to have the best computer or the most powerful computer, it's to have the computer that will be the most efficient in helping me write and publish books. And finally, caveat three. I worked for a long, long time in IT support and I did in fact write an internationally bestselling book about the Linux command line. I have done tech support for operating systems that no longer exist. Remember Windows CE on phones, Palm OS, Windows Phone, getting Mac OSX to talk to Windows Print Services, getting Mac OSX to talk to Active Directory, and Windows Millennium Edition (ugh)? I remember them and none too fondly. That means whatever objection you may have to Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or any other operating system, I probably know about it already have personally experienced it and have in fact tried to fix it while on the phone with someone having a panic attack about that particular problem. So with all that in mind, this is what I will use for computers in 2025 and hopefully for several years longer than that. For my writing/editing computer, I have picked a Mac mini M4. I've mentioned before that I'm increasingly unhappy with Windows 11 because of Microsoft's turn towards AI. I thought long and hard about either Linux or Mac OS and in the end, I decided on Mac OS because I have several subcontractors who all use Excel. Granted, you can install Excel on a Linux system with an emulation layer, but it never works 100% right. Some of the more advanced Excel stuff, which I do use, freaks out with it. There are a number of excellent spreadsheet programs available for Linux as well, but none of them have 100% compatibility with Excel, which is what I need.   Additionally for ebook and paperback formatting, I use Vellum, which is Mac only. I have been very happy with Vellum since 2018, which means I've it to format around 60 different eBooks and paperbacks. So based on all that, I chose the Mac mini M4. I've been reasonably happy with it so far, since I've written about half of Shield of Deception on it. It's quite fast, which shows there are some advantages to the same company producing the CPU and the operating system. Microsoft Word is definitely faster on the M4 and the M Series Macs than it was on the Intel based Macs. I wasn't expecting this, but the overall lack of distraction in Mac OS is nice. It's very unobtrusive. Windows 11 is a very cluttered environment by default with lots of distractions and it is very annoying how Microsoft has been encrusting ads throughout the operating system. You can turn on quiet mode of course, but it's pleasant to have the overall lack of distraction be the default. So the Mac mini M4 will be the computer I use for writing, editing and book layout, but that's not all I do. My everything else computer will be a Windows 11 Intel Core I7 desktop. My previous computer before the Mac mini, a Windows 11 box with Intel Core I7, will also remain in use. The thing about being an indie publisher is that writing and editing isn't all I do. I do my own covers now, which means Photoshop and DAZ3D. Both of those applications are big, fat memory hogs. I definitely did not want to shell out the money for a Mac with that much memory. There's also advertising, which means a lot of spreadsheets and using Photoshop to make those ad images and other miscellaneous tasks like recording expenses, web design, audio proofing, podcast recording, and so forth. In fact, I'm recording this podcast on that computer right now, so my Windows 11 box is now my everything else computer. It doesn't have an NPU chip, which means that Windows 11's more odious features like Recall won't work on it, therefore I plan to nurse it along as long as possible. I have to admit there was an unanticipated pleasant psychological effect to this. When I write, I go to my writing computer and when I need to do something else, I use my everything else computer, so it's easier to avoid getting distracted by something else I need to do while I'm writing.   I should mention gaming. I don't really use desktop computers for gaming any longer. They're for work. If there's a PC game I want to play, it needs to be able to run on my laptop while I sit on my couch. Otherwise, it's not going to happen. In the past five years, I spent more time playing games on the Switch and the Xbox than on desktop PC. So that is my computer plan for 2025, write on the Mac, do everything else on the PC. I should mention that the day before I started recording this, Microsoft pushed out an update that added this big ugly Copilot AI button to Word and Excel. So while I'm going to finish Shield of Deception in Microsoft Word, I am probably going to write Ghost in the Assembly in either Libre Office Writer or maybe MobiOffice. I need something that's cross compatible between Windows and Mac, so I'll be investigating other word processor options with all this Copilot stuff they're jamming into Word, but in the end, I'm grateful I'm able to use two different desktop computers and hopefully I will use these computers to produce many good books for you to read in 2025.   00:12:00 Main Topic of the Week: 5 Reasons You Should Buy Direct from Authors   Now on to our main topic, five reasons you should buy direct from authors. What do we mean by selling direct? It's when the author has his or her own store hosted on a site like Shopify or Payhip that allows the author to sell eBooks, audiobooks, and sometimes paperbacks direct to readers. I should mention this is not intended in any way to be shaming or bullying. If you are most comfortable buying your eBooks from Amazon or Kobo or Apple Books or Google or any other platform, that is what you should do. This is just to talk about the advantages for both readers and writers for buying direct from authors. Payhip and Shopify are the two most popular platforms for selling direct to readers. I use Payhip since I'm mostly interested in selling eBooks and audiobooks direct and not paperbacks. You can actually look at my Payhip store, which is https://payhip.com/jonathanmoeller. The links are also available on my website and indeed in the show notes for the show for Coupon of the Week.   So why even bother with direct sales when most people are now locked into a platform like Amazon or Kobo and their libraries? Why take the time to convince readers to buy directly from the author? What are the advantages to the author and more importantly, what are the advantages to the reader? And there are five of them, which we'll discuss now.   #1: Faster access to new releases. The reason Payhip is always the first platform to become available for one of my new books by about a day or so is that when a new title releases, it's because I'm uploading it myself. With Amazon or other sites, my books are essentially put into a line with many, many other titles and I can't control or predict when it will become available for customers. Various stores can take longer to process or be unavailable/down when a new book releases. Kobo glitched quite badly at various points throughout 2024. In 2021, Barnes and Noble suffered a ransomware attack that blocked the ability to upload new books to the platform for about a month, and all the other stores have had various technical glitches throughout time. That's just the nature of running a large website, but having a site like Payhip gives me a place where people can turn to when it happens. Quite a few people bought Cloak of Illusion from Payhip because Kobo was down for a week when I was trying to upload the book to the site.   #2: The second reason, which is a big advantage for both readers and writers, is that I can control discounts and permafree so it's easier to get discounts from an author's store. It's easier to provide discounts on Payhip because I'm getting a higher profit margin. Even with the 50% discount on Ghost in the Tombs we mentioned this week, I still would make from that discounted audiobook more than on Audible and pretty close to what I get from some of the more generous sites like Chirp or Google Play or Kobo.   Just like with the uploads, I also have complete control over when the discounts happen on Payhip. Otherwise, as I mentioned earlier, I'm at the mercy of when the uploaded book processes on various stores, just like with release dates. It's hard to promote discounts or short-term freebies on those other platforms because the price change move slowly (and often unreliably) there, whereas they're instant on Payhip. Payhip is also my hub for providing free content to my readers beyond my Permafree series starters. Keep an eye on my blog and Facebook page for Coupon of the Week, where as I mentioned earlier in the show, I give out codes with steep discounts for my Payhip store. I also provide free short stories on my Payhip store for a limited time when new books release. Subscribe to my newsletter if you'd like to know when those free short stories become available. I also make a dozen older short stories (both ebook and audiobook) free on my Payhip at the end of each year, an event called 12 Days of Short Story Christmas. If you follow my website and blog, you might remember that from recently. It would take too much time away from writing to do all these things on all the other platforms, and it often isn't technically possible. Using Payhip frees up my time to do more writing instead of trying to work with the tech support of six different vendors when something doesn't switch price in time to run a specific promotion.   #3: A third advantage, and that is a big advantage for readers, is I am not interested in your data and I am not spying on you the way that a large e-commerce site might be. Payhip basically just shows me the buyer's email for an individual's data. I can't see any other purchases you make. I can't see any individual demographic data and I can't see anything that would be uncomfortable for me to know. Basically all I see is your email address and your geographic location (your rough geographic location), which obviously the store needs in order to calculate sales tax liability. I intentionally set up the Payhip store so that you don't need a user account to buy books or audiobooks there. We also try and turn off the more annoying site settings like follow up emails that request reviews. Even the aggregate data on the Payhip app dashboard is extremely limited compared to other platforms. I can see a map shaded in with countries of visitors, which isn't accurate or useful in an age where you can use a VPN to switch your location with the click of a button. [We can see] if users are accessing the link directly from a Google search and the raw number of clicks on the page. Compared to the amount of data collected by other sites, [that is very minimal]. For example, other sites can show that men ages 23 to 28 who like Taylor Swift, own a cat, and live in Canada are looking at your page at midnight on Tuesday. That is much less data than Payhip collects, so therefore, if you're concerned about data privacy, Payhip is a stronger choice than most other ebook and audiobook platforms. For details about what Payhip tracks separate from what the individual author does, check out their privacy policy.   #4: The fourth advantage is the reader gets a choice of file formats and you can send files to another ebook library. With Amazon or indeed any of the other ebook stores, you get your chosen format for an ebook and can't switch that format without using third party software. At my Payhip store, you get three ebook formats: epub, PDF, and when possible, the ancient .mobi format (which is kinda depreciated and gradually going away). I've noticed that people who like PDFs really like PDFs, and so if you want your ebook in PDF form, you can get them in PDF form from my Payhip store.   Having a choice of different file formats allows you to more easily import the books into the platforms you already use like Kindle or Kobo. It's a pretty simple process to send files to your Kindle, Kobo, iPad, or other device so you have access to them in your library there. All my eBooks are integrated with Book Funnel, so if you have a Book Funnel account, they automatically show up in your library. Book Funnel also has directions for sideloading the files onto your various devices.   #5: The fifth advantage, and this is a really big one for readers, is all the files you buy from me on Payhip are DRM free files that you can self-archive. Digital rights management limits your ability to transfer books and audiobooks through apps, devices, and so forth. It controls the way that you access things you have purchased. It's often said that you don't buy digital content, you have a conditional lease on it that's controlled by the platform you buy it from.   The content that you buy can disappear, especially when a platform is sold or closes. We've all heard horror stories of people whose accounts at various online retailers get closed for some reason, and then they lose their access to the library of any media they have purchased there or a platform can go out of business. There was a minor, well, actually a fairly major scandal a few years ago when a romance themed ebook store went out of business and everyone lost their access to their libraries. And for a while Microsoft was offering eBooks for sale through the Edge browser, but as we know, Microsoft tends to change mind about things a lot, and that went away and eventually people lost their ability to access any eBooks they had purchased through the Microsoft store. And this isn't even the first time Microsoft did this. Way back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, Microsoft was trying to be become a music retailer to compete with Apple's iTunes store, and they used a kind of a DRM called Play For Sure. Eventually they got out of that business and shut down Play For Sure's servers and anyone who had purchased music locked to that DRM could no longer play it. Our Payhip store has DRM free files. These allow you to store and archive the files separate from the ebook and audiobook stores so that doesn't happen. It allows you to actually own the content that you buy and build a library that best suits your needs. So that way, if for some reason (let's say for example, your audiobook store account gets hacked and you get locked out of it), you won't lose all your eBooks that you bought through my Payhip store if you downloaded them and stored them on a local storage device or some other kind of archive system.   One final advantage that is more for the author than for the reader, it is a better profit margin for direct sales than is for any of the other stores. The best percentage you can get in the ebook sales on any of the other stores is Amazon, which offers 70% for eBooks between $2.99 and $9.99. Whereas with Payhip, I get about 85% of each sale (minus sales tax and credit card processing fees). The Coupons of the Week we have been doing so far this year are a good example of that. I'm selling the Ghost audiobooks connected with the coupon for 50% off and the standard sales price is $11.99, which means you get them for about $5.99. Even though that's cheap, I still get almost as much money from a $5.99 sale than I would from a purchase on Audible or any of the other major audiobook platforms. Those are five reasons to buy direct from an author. I should note, it's just not good for the author. It offers many advantages for the reader as well.   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.

In this week's episode, I take a look at what goes into writing 10,000 words of a rough draft in a single day. Coupon of the Week returns! This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Serpent, Book #1 in the Ghost Armor series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: SERPENT50 The coupon code is valid through January 24, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for the new year, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 233 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January 3, 2025, making this the first episode of 2025, and we are a quarter of the way through the 21st Century. Today we are looking into what goes into a 10,000 word writing day and how I managed to do ten 10,000 writing word days in 2024. We'll also do Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing projects, and Question of the Week.   So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. As you might remember from last year, I did do Coupon of the Week for the blog last year, but I sort of fell off doing it in June and never got back around to it. But the new year is time for new endeavors, so we're doing Coupon of the Week again (hopefully in a more organized and sustainable way this time). So this week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Serpent, Book One in the Ghost Armor series, as excellent narrated by Hollis McCarthy at my Payhip store. The coupon code is SERPENT50, and that is SERPENT50 (all in caps). Again, that is SERPENT50. The coupon code is valid through January 24th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for the new year, we've got you covered. The coupon code and the store link will be in the show notes below. So that is this week's Coupon of the Week.   Now let's move on to my current writing projects. Every year for the past couple of years, I've published a short collection with all the short stories I published in the previous year, and I'm pleased to report that 2024: The complete Short Stories is available now and you can get it for $0.99 USD at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play Apple Books, Payhip, and Smashwords. It's only going to be 99 cents for the month of January, so now would be a good time to get that. I'm surprised how many people buy the anthology because I give away the short stories for free with all my newsletters throughout the year, but people have told me it's more convenient to have one bundle of the short stories that they just get for $0.99. So that's what we're going to do. You can get that for $0.99 through January 31st.   In writing progress, I am now currently 50,000 words into Shield of Deception, which puts me on chapter 12 of 31. So I think I'm between 35 and 40% of the way through the rough draft. It depends on how long the book's going to end up being, but I think it's going to be around 110 to 120,000 words. I'm also about 7,000 words into Ghost in the Assembly, and if all goes well, I'm hoping Shield of Deception will come out this month and Ghost in the Assembly will come out in February, but that may slip by a month because as I said, Shield of Deception is going to be a very long book.   In audiobook news, proofing is underway for Cloak of Masks, so I'm confident that will be out in January and that is excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. Leanne Woodward is currently recording Orc-Hoard, the fourth book in the Rivah Half-Elven series. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:03:06 Question of the Week   Now let's do Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: do you make New Year's Resolutions? No wrong answers, obviously. The inspiration for the question was the fact that I posted this on New Year's Day. I had a few responses to this. Mary says: No, I did do a few things getting cleaned up on the day and switched the calendars at midnight.   Bob says: Never have. I feel it's best to resolve problems as they occur.   Cheryl says: Not anymore. I never kept them, so I gave up making them.   Gary says: Not resolutions per se. It is a good time though, to take stock and evaluate whether I'm doing the things I should be doing to get where I would like to be.   Tracy says: Nope, roll the dice and go! LOL.   Jean says: I'm just good with making it through the year. Still intact, LOL.   I can't argue with that.   Venus says: The last resolution I made, many years ago, was to never make another New Year's Resolution.   For myself, no, I don't really do New Year's Resolutions. I suppose my writing goals for 2025 might qualify, but I have enough books that I essentially own a small publisher now, so it's just sensible to make good business goals for the year.   In my personal life, if I need to make some kind of change, I try to do it at once. The most successful personal changes I've made throughout my life usually tend to be in late spring or summer, not at New Year's Eve. What I actually did on New Year's Eve instead of making resolutions was eat mozzarella sticks, watch a movie, and play video games, which made for a pretty enjoyable New Year's Eve. I wonder if New Year's Resolutions are kind of a zombie cultural artifact since it seems like not too many people actually make them anymore, but that would be beyond the scope of this podcast episode.   00:04:51 Main Topic of the Week: Anatomy of a 10,000 Word Day (side note: all times are based on a 12 hour, not 24 hour clock)   Now let's move on to our main topic for the week, the anatomy of a 10,000 word day. On December 2nd, 2024, I wrote 10,000 words of Orc-Hoard in one day. It was my ninth 10,000 word day of 2024. A few people who are interested in writing asked about the logistics of it, like how did I actually pull it off, that kind of thing. That seems like a reasonable question since not too many people have 10,000 word days.   So let's discuss this a bit. I think for myself, the main two components of a 10,000 word day are one, I don't have anything else I absolutely have to do that day. Two, I don't have any unexpected interruptions that require time and attention. Since I had a grand total of ten 10,000 word days in 2024, you can see how rare these two circumstances are. If there are 365 days between January 1st and December 31st, then the conditions for a 10,000 word day only happen 2% of the time.   First, let's take a look at precisely what I actually did on December 2nd, 2024. I should note this is lightly censored to protect family details, but overall, it is accurate for my schedule on December 2nd. At 6:45 AM, I woke up. At 7:10, I made coffee, checked various accounts to make sure nothing got hacked overnight, checked and answered email, set up social media posts for the day, and wrote 250 words of Shield of Deception because that was my secondary project at the time. At 8:30, I proceeded to the gym and spent an hour exercising. At 9:30, I returned from the gym, showered, and cleaned up. At 9:45, I used the electric leaf blower to get some light snow off the sidewalk and porch. Thankfully, this did not take very long because if there had been enough snow that I would need to break out the shovel and the snow blower, then there wouldn't have been a 10,000 word day. At 10:00, I started writing and I did absolutely nothing else but write for the next several hours. At 12:00 PM I stopped for lunch, and at that point in the day I had written 2,700 words of Orc-Hoard so far. At 12:45, I finished lunch and returned to writing and did nothing else until 2:00. At 2:00, I made some coffee and paused to answer some texts and emails that had come in, and at that point I had written 5,100 words of Orc-Hoard for the day. At 2:20, I resumed writing, did nothing else but write for the next several hours, and by 4:45, I reached the 10,000 word mark of Orc-Hoard. At 5:00, I made dinner and cleaned up afterwards. At 6:00, I wrote another 250 words of Shield of Deception and I set up social media and blog posts for the next day. I answered a few emails and texts and I checked various ad platforms to see how they were performing. At 7:00, I stopped doing writing and work-related things for the day.   As you can see on December 2nd, I didn't have any unexpected interruptions that demanded attention, and I didn't have anything else that I had to do that day, which as I've mentioned before, is really rare. So I'm pleased that I made the most of it.   By contrast, let's look at the next day, December 3rd. I only wrote 6,500 words that day, which is still a good number, but I had numerous other things I had to do and there were several interruptions. I needed to email some people with tax questions. I needed to fill out a fair bit of paperwork for tax compliance related to those questions. I had to make several changes to my ads, and I also needed to go grocery shopping. Additionally, several people came to the front door and a couple of packages were delivered, and therefore I had to stop writing and go answer the door a bunch of times. Obviously, none of these things were bad or particularly onerous. Even the tax paperwork wasn't all that bad as these things go, but they still took up time and had to be done.   Additionally, interruptions are sometimes tricky because in all honesty, I'm not as mentally agile as I used to be when I was younger, and I have a harder time switching tasks abruptly. Like 14 years ago, I could go on my lunch break, slam out 2,000 words, and then go back to work without missing a beat. But that was 14 years ago/15 years ago now. Nowadays, I find it harder to get back to what I was doing before I was interrupted. So the fewer interruptions I have, whether planned or unplanned, the more I will write. When I say do nothing else but write for the next two hours, that is exactly what I meant. No internet browsing, no social media, no playing with my phone, no Photoshop, no checking one thing quickly, just a word processor and a lot of typing.   For those long stretches, I typically use what's called the Pomodoro Method, 25 minutes of uninterrupted activity followed by five minute break before doing it again. I used to check email during those five minute breaks, but that can quickly get out of control. So instead I started playing classic Super Mario Brothers on the Switch during those five minute breaks. That is different enough from writing that makes for a good mental reset and the game loads quickly so I don't waste my break time waiting for the game to load. Similar vintage platform games also make for good Pomodoro breaks. For the actual timer part, I just use the timer app on my phone since that's good enough for what I need it to do. I've had a couple days where I was at like 8,000 words by 3:30 PM and something came up, so then I powered through an extra 2,000 words at night. I try to avoid writing a lot at night because it's good to give the brain rest, but I will if I decide it's necessary. I should note that I've been a full-time writer for nearly a decade now, so that means I have the time to do a 10,000 word day when the circumstances are right, and indeed it's in my best interest to do so.   Back when I had a full-time job, I think I only had one 10,000 word day ever. I was snowed in on a Saturday and there was nothing else to do, so I wrote 10,000 words that day. I think it was for Frostborn: The Master Thief, if I remember right, specifically the part with the wyvern. But since I am now a full-time writer, obviously it is in everyone's best interest if I get as many words down as possible every day when I'm working on a rough draft. I should also note that I don't really think this kind of workflow, the one that I've been using for years, is mentally right for most people. If I'm really interested in something like writing, I focus on it to an intense degree that I think most people would find unsustainable and mentally unhealthy if they tried to do it. So if you're a writer and a 10,000 word day sounds unimaginable, I really don't think you should beat yourself up about it.   So that is how I do a 10,000 word day. Circumstances have to be just right, which is why it doesn't happen all that often, but it's probably for the best. A 10,000 word day is, I have to admit, a lot of mental effort, which is why I very rarely have them back to back.   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 listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.

In this week's episode, we share six tips and tricks for writing while traveling. 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 231 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December the 13th, 2024, and today we're discussing tips for writing while traveling, which seems a timely topic as the Christmas holiday is coming up. First, we'll have an update on my current writing projects and do Question of the Week.   For my current writing projects, I'm very pleased to report that Orc-Hoard, the fourth book in the Rivah Half-Elven series is now out. You can get it at Amazon US, UK, Australia, Canada, and in Kindle Unlimited.   I am also very pleased to report that I have now published a million new words of fiction for 2024, which is the first time I've been able to do that in a year since 2020. I will probably talk more about that in an upcoming episode. Now that Orc-Hoard is done, my main project is Shield of Deception, the fourth book in the Shield War series. I'm 11,000 words into that and I'm hoping to have that out in January 2025, if all goes well. My secondary project will be Ghost in the Assembly. I haven't actually started that. I'm still in the outline writing phase, but I'm hoping that will be out in February or potentially March, depending on how long it takes to write Shield of Deception.   In audiobook news, Ghost in the Tombs is now out in audiobook (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) and you can get it at Audible, Chirp, and most of the usual other audiobook stores. She's also recording Cloak of Masks for us right now, and that should be out in January, if all goes well.   00:01:29 Question of the Week   Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: where do you obtain free media like free ebooks, free audiobooks, free movies, and so forth? There are no wrong answers though for obvious reasons please keep answers limited to legal media sources. No piracy, please.   The inspiration for this question was our 12 Days of Short Story Christmas, during which I'll give away a new free short story every business day until December 23rd. If you want some of those free short stories, head to my website now. They will remain free at my Payhip store until December 31st. Now on to answers from Question of the Week.   Our first response is from Grimlar who says: Well, it's not exactly free, but I do find myself buying books from LMBPN publishing every Saturday for $1 each (their new releases from earlier in the week, usually Thursday or earlier). They drop the price of new books for Saturday as a loyalty bonus for their readers. Also, when a series has been completed, they tend to release a box set (or several for a long series), also priced at a dollar per box. They tend to release several books a week, which is handy, provided you like their stuff, which is mostly urban fantasy with some fantasy and some sci-fi. As I said, not free, but does make reading a much more budget friendly pastime.   I should note that LMBPN publishing also puts nearly all their stuff in Kindle Unlimited so if you're paying for a Kindle Unlimited subscription already, that is an easy way to check out their books.   David says: Some places I buy ebooks and audiobooks from offer some free material from time to time. So when I'm looking for something new I stumble across the odd book that is free that I am interested in, when I do stumble across these free offerings, I sometimes look to see if these authors have other free books. I don't bother with free movies.   Jeanne says: I get emails from BookBub, which sometimes has free ebooks, but most of the ebooks are between $0.99 and $2.99. That's probably actually how I came across you (you being Jonathan Moeller in this case). Otherwise, Kobo has a selection of free ebooks, if small.   Jenny says: I love Libby, and back when it was available, Axis 360 and Hoopla. I'm not sure if they've just gone from my library or gone forever. (Side note from transcriptionist: Axis 360 changed names to Boundless in 2023. Hoopla is still in business.)   Adeline says: The only time I ever received free items is when they're directly given away by the owner. Downloading virtual freebies from somewhere just seems wrong since they would still belong to someone. Although I don't have any movie subscription services myself, I still don't download free movies.   Bonnie says: I use Amazon for ebooks. I usually pay quite often though. I get a free town newspaper every two weeks. I don't watch TV anymore, so that isn't an issue.   Rob says: Amazon (you can search and order by cost) and authors do free downloads with their newsletter, not just Jonathan Moeller, but PA Mason, Kelly Armstrong, etc.   Chris says: Kindle Library, following you online gets me updates.   For myself, I get free ebooks through Libby (the local library system's ebook app) and very rarely audiobooks as well. I also, if I see something I like on the Kindle store that's free, I will download that right away. For free and legal movies and TV shows, I usually go to Tubi, which is free but ad supported and has a surprisingly large collection of stuff. So that's it for Question of the Week.   00:04:38 Main Topic of the Week: Writing While Traveling   Now onto our main topic this week, tips and tricks for writing while traveling, since of course many people travel over the Christmas holidays, so this seems like a timely topic.   Two principles to start with: First, think of why you are trying to write while you're traveling. Is this something you really need to be doing and more to the point, is this really something you should be doing? This obviously depends on the nature of your trip. If you are traveling for business reasons and you're sitting in an airport for four hours waiting for your flight and then you have a five hour flight, that would be an excellent time to get some writing done since otherwise, you would just be like everyone else in the airport paying too much for coffee and staring at your phone. If you are on the kind of trip that is a vacation, it might be a good idea to put aside writing while you are doing that just for the sake of your own mental health. If you are on a trip that involves a lot of family obligations, like for example, a funeral, then it might be a good idea just to set aside writing for that time, focus on the emotional needs of the moment and then pick it back up once the trip is over. The other thing to keep in mind if why you are writing is if you have a deadline. That sort of focuses the mind quite a bit and if you have a deadline, you're going to have to plan accordingly. The other thing to keep in mind is flexibility, why you are writing and flexibility because as we know, modern travel is utter chaos. I mean, it was worse in the past. I mean, Odysseus tried to get home from the Siege of Troy and got lost for 10 years, which is less likely nowadays, but travel is still unpleasant and a lot of things can go wrong, and you have to be flexible and seize the moment when you can and accept that sometimes things are beyond your control. If you are working on a deadline while you are traveling, then you'll have to treat it like any other remote work job while you are traveling. Having a true external writing deadline means you need to plan your vacation or trip differently and in a more structured way if possible. You absolutely need to plan this with your traveling companions in advance (if you're traveling with people), so everyone's prepared for this and pick your destination based on internet access instead of relying on standard hotel Wi-Fi because as we all know if you travel, standard hotel Wi-Fi generally is pretty terrible. You may need to bring some sort of mobile hotspot with you or pay extra to use your phone as a mobile hotspot while you are traveling.   If you are genuinely on a deadline and don't want to burn through your mobile data, check the internet setup of your destination before you arrive. It might also be wise to check on guest internet use policies at nearby libraries or universities if your destination does not have reliable internet and you'll need to use the internet for a significant amount of time. Many of these places require registration or a fee for non-residents/non-students but tend to have far more reliable internet than coffee shops or hotels.   Also, if you're in the phase of writing where you're writing your rough draft, if you're not editing and relying on an online editing tool like Grammarly or Pro Writing Aid, then you can probably do without internet if you absolutely have to. If you're just writing, just open up your laptop, sit down and write, it actually might be beneficial to have the internet off if you are prone to being distracted by the internet, but if you do need internet, bear that in mind.   For the next part of this episode, we're going to focus on the second type of writing while traveling, the feeling that many writers have that they should be writing while traveling or on vacation and fear of missing progress or falling out of their hard-won routine. I'll also provide some suggestions if you decide you want to write while traveling in spite of the various obstacles you might face.   If you don't have a deadline and this isn't a necessity for you and you really want to get some writing done while you're traveling, you need to ask yourself why. Writing because you want to means you can be flexible, but you still want to plan your expectations in advance to make the trip smoother and to deal with things in accordance with reality (always a good idea).   If you're not on a deadline and you don't have to be doing this, why do you want to write while traveling? Do you just want to keep the streak going by at least writing something? Do you want to keep your normal writing routine exactly? Are the reasons why you want to write more important than the personal, work, or family obligations on this trip? Like I said before, there are some trips where it's really in the best interest if you put aside any writing or work for the time and focus on the needs of the trip, whether that's a vacation by yourself or a family vacation, a family gathering such as a holiday or a funeral or another family gathering that's a bit happier than a funeral, like a graduation or a wedding or a baptism, that kind of thing. Do you want a soothing writing retreat at a lakeside cabin, but really you're spending a week with ten relatives in a cabin that you just rented? Then you might need to rethink your expectations for writing during that week. Now onto some tips for writing while traveling.   #1: If possible, plan the time. Note that this may not always be possible. You may have to carve out your own time to get writing done because it's definitely not a group activity, especially if you are on vacation with friends or family or something of that nature. Are you going to be able to sneak in half an hour of writing while everyone else is off on the boat or going to town for ice cream? That's a far more realistic of a goal in that circumstance than an imagined weeklong writing retreat.   Here's a recent example for myself. Over Thanksgiving before dinner, I was the only one who was not taking a nap in the house. I was the only one who was awake. I could have used that time to read or play video games, but instead I pulled out my computer and wrote a thousand words of Orc-Hoard. Now obviously there is nothing wrong with playing video games or reading or quietly browsing the internet in that circumstance, but I felt like what I really wanted to do in that moment while everyone else was taking their naps was to get a thousand words down. So that's what I did, and that's also a good example of a flexibility of seizing the moment when it presents itself.   I should also note that traveling is definitely not the time to start a radical new habit. If you can't get out of bed before 07:00 during a normal day, getting up to write at 04:30 while traveling is unrealistic, especially if you're staying up later, dealing with jet lag, or not sleeping well as usual, since it's often difficult to get a decent night's sleep in a hotel or somebody's guest room.   One long block of writing time may be more realistic than every day of the trip, especially if you're traveling with groups or with small children. Maybe you use the train ride or flight (or better yet, the seemingly endless wait for a delayed flight) as your writing time for the trip, and don't worry about the days at your destination. Like I mentioned before, if you're stuck at the airport waiting four hours before a flight will take you on a three-day trip and you get 3,000 words written during those four hours, you've probably got your trip writing covered.   #2: If possible, minimize distractions/create a working setup. Find a low traffic area if you're going to write such as the guest bedroom or your hotel room or something. Some hotels have work areas or lounges that are more tucked away from the lobby because hotel lobbies can get pretty noisy, especially nowadays when people seem compelled to bring their dogs with them into hotels. We also cover how to minimize distractions pretty extensively in our November Writing Challenge episodes, specifically Episodes 225 and 226, so you can listen to those tips there.   #3: I think this might be the most important tip: find small windows of opportunity. In other words, be flexible. Find short bursts of opportunities to write such as when you're in line for the rental car or waiting for your coffee at a busy coffee shop. These short bursts of two to three minutes might be the most realistic goal for traveling while writing, especially if you can teach yourself to write on your phone with your thumbs.   This might sound a bit outlandish, but I do know people who do this and have written entire books thumb typing on their phones on their commute from rural Britain to London every day. Then you will give yourself a big leg up because there are small, modern laptops you can use pretty effectively in small moments and carry with you, but everyone carries their phones with them most of the time nowadays, so you can whip out your phone and thumb type out a few paragraphs while you're waiting in line. That would be to your advantage, and honestly, it's probably a better use of your time in line than idly browsing social media or the internet on your phone.   #4:  Find a way to store ideas on the fly (especially important for short bursts of writing). You can use the Notes app or voice memos on your phone. Test this before the trip so it feels like instinct to do, to write down things quickly or to record paragraphs or carry a small pocket notebook with a pen. I should note for that myself, I only very rarely write ideas down because I have lots of ideas and I've always figured that if the idea is good, it'll come back to me when I think about it later, and if it's no good, I'll forget about it. I's sort of a survival of the fittest for ideas inside my head, but a lot of people's brains don't work that way, so it's a good idea if your brain doesn't work that way to write down ideas as they come to you.   #5: Be realistic about your goal, and this also ties into being flexible and having a realistic idea of what's going to happen on your trip. Is it worth pausing writing to have undivided time with family/ friends on this trip or is it worth pausing writing so you can relax (for example, if you're going on vacation or if you are visiting family, whether for a happy occasion like a wedding or a graduation or for a sad occasion like a funeral)?   Believe it or not, coming from me who was just boasting about publishing a million new words of fiction this year, there are some advantages to pausing writing for a while when you're compelled to do so by something like a trip. The potential positives: you can come back fresh to your work and your progress, especially after seeing lots of new things. That can work well with some people and help someone out of a rut.   Another advantage is if you're traveling, you don't have to deal with traveling with your laptop or additional tech equipment just for writing purposes or risk getting them damaged or lost. It's a lot easier to travel with a modern smartphone than it is with a modern laptop. This can also give you more enjoyable and focused time with family on vacation, which will help if you need to focus on writing instead of them at some later point, like for example, not making your second cousin's play because of a later deadline won't feel like a pattern of neglect if you just spent a week visiting them at the lake. This can also believe it or not, help with family strife because if you are frustrated with not meeting your writing goals while on your vacation, but if you give yourself permission to take a break, you won't be frustrated and you will probably be better company for any people you are visiting. The advantage is you can enjoy your vacation and spend time with your family or friends being fully present in the moment and not being distracted by what you have to do.   For myself, I've been publishing for…in the coming April, I will have been self-publishing for 14 years and I've veered back and forth at different times over this over the years. There are some trips I've gone on where I've done a significant bit of writing at the time, and there are other trips I've gone on where I haven't done any writing at all and focused on the moment. Again, it really depends on the circumstances of the trip. If, for example, I'm visiting family and everyone's taking naps in the afternoon, why not whip out my laptop and start typing and see if I can get out a thousand words before everyone wakes up and it's time for dinner? But other trips, for example, I've spent all day in the car driving from various national monuments and landmarks, and if you're doing that, that is really not a good time to attempt any writing for those kinds of trips, and so I did not do any writing on those kinds of trips.   Let me use myself as an example here. This coming Christmas holiday between Christmas Eve and about December 29th/December 30th, I'm not planning on doing any writing at all. I might do some writing if, for example, everyone's taking a nap or everyone's out doing errands or on phone calls or something and I have nothing else to do, so I might as well whip out my laptop and see if I can squeeze out a thousand words, but for the most part, I'm planning to focus on the holiday and not do any writing or very much writing between Christmas Eve and the 29th and the 30th or thereabouts. Then usually if I do that kind of thing where I have to take a couple days off or a weekend off or that kind of thing, I feel pretty refreshed and eager to get back at it once I am done with the trip and the vacation or the holiday is over.   Additionally, is it more realistic to use the trip for inspiration instead of getting writing done? You could visit museums related to what you're writing about, historical sites or buildings, or visit new cities. If you're planning to set a book there someday. Thinking of it as a research/inspiration trip may help with a feeling of guilt from not writing and make the trip more enjoyable.   What I've been doing lately is, as I've mentioned before frequently on this podcast, I usually do my own covers now, and that requires, of course, a steady supply of stock photos. So when I'm on a trip lately, if I see something scenic, it's time to whip out the camera and take a few pictures because modern smartphone cameras are good enough and produce high enough resolution images that you can use them on book covers. Several of the book covers I have published this year with my books have elements in them that were taken from photos I took while I was on a trip. So that is one example of how I shut off writing entirely during these trips, but then still take a lot of pictures that I can use for later stock photo use in my book covers.   #6: And now for tip number six that I'm going to emphasize quite a bit, if you are in fact writing while you are traveling, make sure you have a method for backing up your work. This is so important. I'm going to repeat it again. Make sure you have a method for backing up your work to the cloud or a flash drive or something. One of the risks of traveling is that your laptop can be lost, damaged, or stolen, and if you don't have a backup of what you're working on the laptop, you will lose all your work, which is one of the most disheartening feelings you can have.   Fortunately, there are many, many low-cost options to back up your work. You could use a flash drive and copy your work to a flash drive at the end of every session. The advantage of that is your work's in two places. The disadvantage of that is that a flash drive like laptop can be lost, damaged, or stolen, so it's a good idea to use a cloud solution. We talked about finding reliable internet, but you might want to just find just enough internet to connect to a cloud service like Dropbox or Google Drive or OneDrive or Apple Service and then back up your work to the cloud, and that way if your laptop is lost, damaged or stolen, you will not lose your progress. It's an interesting thing nowadays that laptops, as expensive they can be, are often less valuable to their users than the data they contain. The data is the important part, and you want to make sure that you back it up regularly. Even if you don't have a cloud provider, you can just email yourself the file every day of your work progress, so that way if your laptop is again lost, damaged, or stolen, you have a backup copy in your email account.   Recently, I was talking to a relative who is subscribed to Dropbox and he's complaining that he's paying, I think it's like $90 a year for a Dropbox to back up his laptop, and I told him to think of it as the computer equivalent of car insurance. I mean, in the ideal world, if you have car insurance and you get into a car accident, the insurance company will declare your car totaled and write you a check for the value of the car that will help you get your next vehicle. Having a cloud subscription like that is the equivalent of car insurance for computers so that way if once again, repeat it with me, if your computer is lost, damaged, or stolen, all your data is safely backed up in the cloud and you can download it right away to your next computer. You can tell I used to work in IT because I'm really banging on about this, but if you are traveling and you are working, make sure you have a good backup solution for your work. This will avoid, trust me, much later heartbreak.   So to wrap up, I'd say what the main thing I've learned for many years of doing this is that if you want to write while you are traveling, be flexible, which is something I have to admit runs against my personality because I do have a very rigid and routine driven personality, and it was totally up to me, I would do exactly the same thing, exactly the same time every day, but obviously life doesn't work that way.   One must learn flexibility, and flexibility is especially important while traveling. I'd say that is the biggest thing to keep in mind if you want to write while traveling, accept that sometimes you're not going to get any writing done during your trip and that is for the best or accept that other times that there may be moments where if you need to, you can write a thousand words while you're waiting at the airport or everyone else you're visiting is on the phone or running errands.   So I hope these tips and tricks will help you if you decide to write while you are traveling. So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

In this week's episode, we continue our November Writing Challenge, and take a look at the most common roadblocks writers face. We also check in with our transcriptionist, and see how she is progressing in our November Writing Challenge. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 227 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November the 15th, 2024, and today we are discussing part three of our November Writing Challenge, which will deal with overcoming roadblocks in your writing progress. First we'll have an update on my current writing projects and then we will have Question of the Week, and then we'll get to our main topic of overcoming roadblocks. First up, writing projects. I am almost/very nearly done with Cloak of Illusion. In fact, I would have finished completely yesterday, but I had some unexpected home repairs come up and now that those are resolved, as soon as this podcast recording is completed, I'm hoping to finish up completely on Cloak of Illusion and publish it this weekend. So hopefully when this show comes out on Monday the 18th, the book should be showing up on the various ebook stores. Be sure to subscribe to my new release newsletter as well and you will get a free Nadia short story called Trick or Treat in ebook form. I am 24,000 words into Orc Hoard, which will be the next Rivah book, and I'm hoping to have that out in December as my final book of 2024. My secondary project while I'm working on that will also be Shield of Deception because I am hoping to have that out as my first book in 2025. Hard to believe we're about halfway through the 2020s already. In audiobook news, Shield of Conquest came out this week and you should be able to get it at all the usual audiobook stores, and that is excellently narrated by Brad Wills. Cloak of Spears, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy, should be out before too much longer as well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:01:36 Question of the Week Now on to Question of the Week, which had a lot of responses this week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: do you buy any hardback books? No wrong answers, obviously. I asked this question because I was reading an article about for many traditionally published authors, hardbacks used to be the primary source of royalties. Nowadays, for many authors, that has been superseded by audiobooks. Since I'm indie, my main source of revenue has always been ebooks. We had many different responses to this question. JL says: I only read ebooks now. I have not bought a physical book in over a decade. Surabhi says: Hardcovers, being very expensive, are a big no-no for me. I'd love to be able to afford hardcovers, it's always either paperbacks or ebooks. Justin says: If I'm getting paper, I will do my best to make it hardback. Paperback books have a limited lifespan and number of readings in them compared to hardback books. Most of my book purchasing is ebooks but reference works and great stories get the hardback treatment. Mary says: Only if there's no paperback. Dave says: Ebooks and audiobooks all the way. They're generally cheaper or easier to read, or with audiobooks I can do other things while I listen. Also as I get older, being able to increase the font size makes it easier to read. I definitely agree with Dave on that, let me tell ya. Jenny says: Can't afford it usually. My hardcover budget goes to RPG books. I myself do have quite a few RPG books, which is amusing because I don't actually play the game but I just like looking at the artwork. Juana says: Yes. I have 60+ signed editions of authors I like. Some paperbacks of the Frostborn series (Wonder who wrote those?). That is indeed a mystery. Catriona says: I used to collect hardbacks of favorite authors- buy each new release e.g. Terry Pratchett. But when I moved from Hong Kong to Thailand I got rid of most of my fiction books and bought the Kindle versions. Shipping after COVID was just extortionate! Morgan says: I don't really buy physical books anymore. My brain is too fried to read so I mostly do audiobooks while I work. I only have so much money, so it is hard to justify buying a physical copy of a book I already have the audio copy for when I know I probably won't physically read it. Gary says: I prefer hardbacks. When buying new though, I generally buy paperbacks unless it is for reference or one of my favorite authors. I always check though because now the hardbacks are often not much more. Jeanne says: Depends on the book. I would totally invest in hardcover copies of Lord of the Rings, for example. I am currently investing in leatherbound versions of the Word on Fire Bible, which is a step up from the hardcover. Authors I don't know or who I read for light fun, I'll get as ebooks. Marilyn says: No, but used to buy only hardback books. Ran out of room on my bookshelves and didn't like to get rid of my books. I ended up buying an ereader. I have 1,729 books. I do have a few hardbacks but not many. Not everything is in an electronic format. When I used to travel, my suitcase would be full of books. Now I have room for clothes. That is one nice advantage of the ebook revolution. Back in the day when I would pack for a trip, I would have to choose which books I would bring but now you can just bring your phone and you're set. MG says: If I can get a hardback I do, but I haven't bought any recently. Barbara says: I purchase very few print books these days and those I do purchase tend to be theology related. Whether I purchase hard or soft bound print books will depend on the availability and price. And since I'm no longer in seminary (I graduated in 2021), my theology books tend to be digital because that's what I read. If I purchase print books, I'd run out of room to store them. Especially since I'm already out of bookshelf space. Michael says: Not really, not anymore. They take up too much space. I might buy a very posh one if it looks amazing (stuff from the Folio Society perhaps) but that's it. Bonnie says: I mainly read ebooks now. I think the last hardcover I bought was Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon. Jeff says: Since I got a Kindle in 2010, I haven't bought a physical book. I am approaching 500 ebooks. I was a SF Book Club member for many, many years so I do have hundreds of hardcover books. A lot of them are stored in totes because of lack of room. Juan says: Used to. Space is a factor now. So now only for my son because I don't want him to have an electronic device in his face so much, but usually the first thing I do at a bookstore when I see a good book is look for it on Apple Books. Usually half the price or so. Always less expensive as well. Barbara says: Used to buy lots of books, got at least 3,00 but with arthritis in my hands, I'm now stuck with ebooks. Got at least 3,000 of them, too. I've got to get rid of some of my physical books, but I'll still keep the ones that aren't replaceable. John says: I only buy collectible editions at this point, or if there isn't an ebook for something I want to reread (but then it's usually paperback). Sometimes old hardbacks have been cheaper than the Kindle versions. When I reread Wheel of Time a few years ago in anticipation of the Amazon series that was the case. Ended up just donating the books just a couple of years later. Carol says: I do love the feel of a hardcover book, the smell, the sound of pages turning, but I'm fully converted to ebooks. So convenient, can read anywhere, carry everywhere, so sadly I haven't bought a physical book for years. Cheryl says: I only have hardbacks of the “classics” as collections to hand down to my grandchildren. Haven't bought any paper versions of books for a few years now and they were paperbacks. Most were on Kindle. Venus says: I will buy certain books in hardcover but only the ones I wish to have available after a collapse of society. David says: I have always preferred hardback, but space constraints have left only those of my favorite authors. I have over 2,000 books on my Kindle. Michael says: I do. For myself, I do buy hardbacks but still very, very selectively. If Timothy Zahn, Jim Butcher, and a few other select authors I've been reading for decades have a new hardcover, I'll buy it. Otherwise, it's ebooks or paperbacks. For nonfiction books, I'm a bit less choosy. If I read say, a historical ebook and liked it, I might get the hardback or possibly the paperback to keep as a reference book. It's interesting from the general consensus of the comments that it seems like ebooks are the dominant format for books now and that if you really want to know if you're someone's favorite author or not, see if they buy your hardbacks. Given the expense and space premium of hardbacks, that's how you know they really like your book.   00:07:43: Main Topic of the Week: November Writing Challenge Now on our main topic of the week, week three of our November Writing Challenge. The topic we are discussing this week is overcoming roadblocks. If you're not familiar with our podcast series for November, you can listen to the previous two episodes, and we have a short summary here. If you feel like you're missing out when others are working on bigger writing challenges this month and you want to start writing but not to feel overwhelmed, a smaller writing challenge for the absolute beginner, 300 words a day (or some other small number of your choosing). The key is that it should be small and something you can manage daily. As I mentioned on previous episodes with this topic, I wonder if National Novel of Writing Month is akin do a sort of crash diet for people where you can lose weight very quickly, let's say like five pounds in a month, but then once you do that, you go back to your old habits. In fact, you go back to your old habits with as much force as before and you end up gaining 10 pounds and you're worse off than you were before. I think a more gradual writing challenge might be akin to losing one pound a month, but you keep it off and that adds up over time. So follow along with our podcast transcriptionist who has never finished writing a book and feels overwhelmed at the ideas of starting one. We can follow her progress and see what advice I have for her as she faces writing challenges. So week three, overcoming roadblocks. If you've ever done any writing or you've ever had anything to write, as you know, there are many roadblocks that can come up to impede your writing progress. The first ones we'll address are logistical roadblocks and we'll recap some points from Episode 220: 8 Tips For Finishing Your Rough Draft. Perhaps one of the biggest roadblocks is time. It's trying to find the time to write. I found is a good idea to schedule your writing time and take advantage of smaller moments of opportunity to write. There is a difference between the perfect time to write and the available time to write. As I've said many times before, the perfect is the enemy of the possible or even the achievable. You might have in your head the image of the perfect time to write and the perfect environment. That may take a lot of work to achieve and be difficult to find. Additionally, I found that many people in their days have what tend to be wasted chunks of time that you kind of have to waste based on the circumstances, like you're in a waiting room, you're on hold, or you are sitting in a room with nothing to do. You have to watch for somebody to arrive or wait for the phone to ring, that kind of thing. There are a lot of ways to pass the time that way. If you're in, for example, the doctor's waiting room, you see everyone sitting on there on their phones reading the news or whatever, but that could be an excellent time to get some writing done. You could obtain a cheap laptop like a netbook type laptop or you could even teach yourself to write on your phone with your thumbs. Those kind of chunks of wasted time throughout the day are an excellent time to squeeze out a couple hundred words and if you can squeeze out a couple hundred words every day, that will add up very quickly. The biggest enemy of finding writing time I found are the many distractions we have in our day-to-day lives. And in fact, I was just talking about your phone. If you have your phone with you, that's a built-in distraction machine where you could maybe write 15 words and then reward yourself by checking your email or your Facebook or whatever. And then before you know it, you've been on your phone for 20 minutes and your writing time has disappeared. The same thing obviously can happen if you're writing on a laptop or a desktop computer or whatever. To manage these distractions, there's a couple of different tricks. You could just shut off the internet on your phone for a while and not turn it on again until you've reached your writing goal. If you find being distracted on your phone or your computer is a consistent problem, you could use apps or browser extensions to manage digital distractions that will prevent, say notifications from interrupting you, whether from email or turning off the internet and keeping from getting into it until a set period of time has passed. For environmental distractions (and what I mean by environmental distractions are noise, people interrupting you and so forth), it can be a good idea to find a place where you'll face fewer interruptions. At various times, I have written in a school or a university or a public library where people tend not to bother strangers too much and therefore, if you sit quietly and get on with your typing, no one's going to bother you. Some people enjoy writing in a coffee shop. I've never really found that to be an enjoyable experience. I have done that many times based on what the circumstances were at the time, but if it was up to me, my favorite writing place would be in my office with the door shut and headphones on and music playing and I'm just writing away. But life doesn't always give us that luxury, so I have written in other locations, but if you can figure out the best way to give yourself a distraction free writing environment, even if it's just noise canceling headphones, that might be the way to go.   Another thing to watch out for that can eat up your time is writing adjacent tasks, things that are connected to writing but not actually writing itself, such as researching, outlining, reading about writing, listening to podcasts about writing, et cetera. These are all keeping you from the goal of getting your words down, which is and the ultimate purpose of our November Writing Challenge, to get your words done every day. Some of these things may be necessary, but you can do them later and some of them are not necessary and not helpful to your productivity, like reading about writing or social media relating to writing or authors is only giving you the illusion of productivity rather than actual productivity. There may be value in these activities, but they are not helping you get the words down on the page.   So let's move on to what could be a more difficult type of roadblocks, the mental roadblocks, roadblocks where you just don't feel confident or you don't feel like you want to write or you don't even feel like you're good at writing and you're wasting your time by writing. So motivation is a thing to consider. It's like you might want to write down a few reasons why you started a writing challenge in November. Why do you want to write? Why is this important to you? Do you want to be able to finish a novel and say that you finished a novel? Do you want to create something cool that's similar to the vision of the creative things you see in your head when you think about it? And what's the best outcome of you writing each day and what's the best-case scenario of what will happen if you keep writing? It might be a good idea to consider all of these things. If you feel bad at writing or feel that you're not good enough, that seems to be a bigger problem for many people. There are a couple tips and tricks that you can use to work around that. The first thing is to don't revise as you go. Don't revise, don't look back. Just keep going. Get it all down on page as fast as you can and then keep going. And the secret is if you're writing a rough draft, you can ignore your inner critic because the point of the rough draft is to get all the words on the page and then you fix them later in editing. An amusing anecdote about that-one of my audiobook narrators wanted to get caught up on projects and he asked if I could send him the rough draft chapters and then as I was writing the book and then he could narrate the rough draft chapters and then he could make any changes I made in editing later. I had to turn him down because the truth is I do a lot of editing on my rough drafts, like Cloak of Illusion was originally 96,000 words, and I think when all the editing is done, it'll be like 94,000 words, maybe 93,500. So that's a lot of things eliminated. I moved around a lot of scenes. I changed a character's name six times, which is one of the reasons why I had to turn down that idea from the narrator because when I introduced a new character, sometimes I change the character's name four or five times during the course of writing until I'm finally satisfied that this is what the character's name should be. So imagine having to go back and rerecord that all the time, but that returns to my original point, where it's best to just ignore your inner critic while you are writing and just get all the words down on page and you can sort them through later. I found editing to be something of a less harrowing process than writing the rough draft. A metaphor I've used before is that a couple years ago, actually, well more than a couple years now, I moved into a third-floor apartment with no elevator, and so I had to carry all my books up those stairs to the new apartment, which since I had a lot of books at the time, was a lot of work (this was before ebooks). Once all the books were carried upstairs to the apartment, only then could I take them out of the boxes and put them on the shelves. That was a lot easier than carrying all those books up three flights of stairs, let me tell you. But I use that as a metaphor to compare the writing process, the first draft is carrying all the books up the stairs and then arranging them on the library shelves as the editing process. Another metaphor that people have found helpful is that the rough draft is like building a sand castle. You first have to drag all the sand to your sandbox and only then is it time to start building the sandcastle. You got to fill up that sandbox first. Now what to do if you hate what you're writing, you absolutely hate it. You don't like what you're doing and you're dragging yourself to the word processor every day. It might be time to ask yourself a couple of hard questions. And the hardest one is, is this really what you want to write? Are you writing something that you want to write or are you trying to write something that you think would sell well or market well to the audience? I talked a bit about this way back in Episode 191: The Worst Writing Advice, about writing to market. Writing to market, if you go too far with it, is a bad idea because by the time you finish and the book is ready to sell, the market may have already grown tired of the trend and moved on to dystopian mermaid stories or something else. Readers also have a sense of when a story is rushed or written in a way that the author hates, not always but very often sort of picked up that the writer hated what they were writing and didn't want to be doing it. It's much better to write something that you're excited to write. You can do a little bit of writing to market in that you look what's popular and say something like, hey, romantic suspense is popular and I enjoy romantic suspense and I want to write romantic suspense. So go ahead and do that. Something else to keep in mind is that tastes change. I saw an interesting article the other day arguing that sort of cynical anti-heroes and deconstruction of popular tropes is going to become less and less popular because that was very popular in the US in the 2000s and the early 2010s when the US in general was more stable and more prosperous. Although I don't think anyone would disagree to say that the United States in the 2020s, thanks to Covid and a variety of other factors, seems to be less stable and less prosperous than it was 20 years ago. And so times are more troubled, then people have less of an appetite and troubled times for cynical anti-heroes and are more drawn to straightforward tales of noble heroes prevailing over evil, whatever the genre might be, whether fantasy or mystery or thriller or whatever. That's the kind of thing to keep in mind with how taste change. So you're really better off writing what you want to write rather than chasing trends because the trends we were just talking about went over a 20 year period. But trends on a smaller level can change very quickly within the space of a few years or even a few months. So you should write in a genre that interests you and you should write characters that you respect and characters that are dealing with an action and conflict that you find interesting. That is one way to hold your interest as you're writing is because you like the characters, you like what you're writing, and you want to see what happens next.   Another problem that you might face if you hate what you're writing is that you might be writing something boring that doesn't need to be in the book. Mystery writer Elmore Leonard famously said in his rules for writing, try to leave out the parts that readers skip. In other words, leave out the boring stuff. So if you're writing a scene and you don't enjoy writing the scene, and you're not looking forward to writing the scene, and you find it boring, maybe it's time to ask yourself: does this scene really need to be in the book? We've all read books that had scenes where it was clear the writer was trying to fill space or thought necessary to go into more detail of, for example, a thousand mile river journey than was really necessary for the plot. If something's boring, just cut it out. There's a famous story that veteran actors who are really good at their craft will sometimes convince the director to cut out dialogue when they say that the actor can convey the meaning of the scene with just the look or expression rather than clunky dialogue. And that is often the case for these experienced actors and is very often the case for writers as well. So if you find yourself struggling with a particular scene, it might just be a good idea to cut it out or sum it up in a paragraph. Like if you have difficulty writing a journey, you could say, just sum it up in a paragraph that they got on a plane and went from New York to Los Angeles. There's no reason to devote two chapters to that. So those are our tips this week for overcoming roadblocks in your writing. Let's have an update from our transcriptionist on her progress with our November writing challenge. “An episode on roadblocks is good timing because I hit some roadblocks last week. There was a day where I wasn't able to get time to write because of what was happening in real life, but since I have been averaging over my goal a day, I still averaged 363 words per day this week, even with missing a day. It took me an average of 13 minutes each day. I wrote out a plan for the challenge that said I could miss a day under specific circumstances and my word count for previous days could apply to that day or if I didn't have extra words, I would make up the words on a Saturday, so I didn't beat up myself or feel like I failed the challenge for missing a day. I had a plan for if I missed a day.” So that seems like a good approach to planning the challenge. And she had a few questions for me actually. The main question for me was: how do you manage distractions? For myself, I use a couple of different techniques. I've mentioned before when I'm writing new stuff, my main method is the Pomodoro method. That's where you set up a timer for 25 minutes, turn off the internet, and just focus on your task for 25 minutes. And I found that if I adhere properly to the Pomodoro method, I can usually get about 1,000 to 1,100 words every Pomodoro for 25 minutes. To reset my brain between Pomodoros, I will usually play Classic Super Mario Brothers on the Switch for five minutes (because you're supposed to take breaks between Pomodoros) and then back to a 25 minute Pomodoro. I do try to hit a minimum word count during the day, ideally 5,000 to 6,000. If I get more, great. If something goes wrong, I tend to have a fallback position if of like 3,000 words. That's usually good on a busy day. I do revise my goals if something comes up because sometimes things come up that you have to pay attention to immediately and it can't wait. Home repair is a big one. For example, a couple times I have this very old wooden fence on my property that I really need to get replaced, and sometimes the wind will knock something loose and a couple times I've had the wind knock the beams of a segment loose from a fence post. If I spot that right away and fix it immediately, it's not a problem. But if I miss it and the entire fence segment falls over, then that's like a couple hours, maybe even a half a day repair job to fix that. So sometimes you come across things like that that need to be addressed immediately. And if that happens, I just roll with it. I try to fix the problem as quick as I can and then try to get as many words as I can in the time that's left, which is why I talked about having a fallback position of 3,000 words if something goes wrong. Sometimes you just lose the entire day to writing until something more important comes up and that's just the way it is. But if you have a no writing day, don't despair and remember the words of Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind: Tomorrow is another day. If you have a bad writing day, that doesn't mean tomorrow has to be a bad writing day and you get another swing at the ball, so to speak. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show and Week Three of our November Writing Challenge. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts. 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.

In this week's episode, we continue with our November Writing Challenge, and discuss how outlining can be a helpful tool in writing your novel and building a writing habit. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 226 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November the 8th, 2024 and today we are discussing Part 2 of our November Writing Challenge and that will mostly discuss the usefulness of making outlines. Before we get into that, we will have an update on my current writing projects and Question of the Week. We will also close out the episode with a preview of the upcoming audiobook Cloak of Spears, as narrated by Hollis McCarthy. First up, writing progress. The rough draft of Cloak of Illusion is done at about 96,000 words, and I'm about 25% of the way through the first editing pass. I also wrote a short story called Trick or Treat that will be a companion to the book. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of that short story when Cloak of Illusion comes out, hopefully before the end of November. So now would be an excellent time to subscribe to my new release newsletter. After Cloak of Illusion is published, my next project will be Orc Hoard, the 4th book in the Rivah Half-Elven series, and I'm about 21,000 words into that. In audiobook news, as you may have already heard, Cloak of Spears is done. That will be narrated by Hollis McCarthy and it is working its way through processing right now. Shield of Conquest narrated by Brad Wills is also still working its way through processing on the various audiobook platforms. So you can get both audiobooks on my Payhip store right now if you don't want to wait. So that is where I met with my writing projects. 00:01:25 Question of the Week Now let's talk about Question of the Week. It's time for Question of the Week, designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite book cover (like in terms of the artwork, the design, etcetera)? No wrong answers, obviously. We had a few answers this week. Justin says: For that, I go back to the guilty pleasures of my youth, a teenager on a Burroughs kick at the time, digging for paperbacks in a secondhand bookstore. Savage Pellucidar, cover by Frank Franzetta (the 1974 Ace edition reprint), which I still have stashed away. Franzetta was an incredible artist. I love his Sea Witch and Death Dealer, but we're talking about book covers here. Savage Pellucidar was the one for me. Mary says: Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon. Then, that cover was a work of art with three detachable bands. Surabhi says: Hard to choose one. I personally love those young adult “Book Tok” book covers: Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows, The Cruel Prince. I don't know. Something about such covers immediately sparks interest in me. Randy says he always liked the Heinlein juvenile covers. Gary S. says: This was difficult for me because I like hardcovers, but I like to take the jacket off while I read so it doesn't get torn. Consequently, I seldom look at the covers. Gary B says: Anne McCaffrey's The White Dragon. I've got a poster/artwork of it and pretty much anything by Michael Whelan. Becca says: Stoner by Tad Williams, pretty much tops my list of favorite covers, then maybe The Dragonstone by McKiernan. Catriona says: Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic. MG says: That's quite difficult to answer, but I have a Return of the King copy with this Alan Lee cover, going to have to go with this. For myself, I think I would go with a hardback edition of The Silmarillion from the late 1990s. I think it was published in ‘99. It was illustrated by Ted Nasmith and the cover image shows Maglor throwing the final Silmaril into the sea in despair for his deeds. If you know the context of that scene, it's an amazingly powerful cover. So that is it for Question of the Week and tune in again for next week's Question of the Week. 00:03:22 Main Topic of the Week Now it's time to our main topic for our second week of our November Writing Challenge. This week we're going to talk about building story structure and how outlining can help with this. If you haven't heard of my November Writing Challenge, the idea is that you write 300 words or a similarly small number every day in hopes of building up a small but sustainable writing habit. I was thinking of NaNoWriMo, where you write 1600 words a day in an effort to get to 50,000 words a month, is well and good for someone like me, where I essentially write a book every month unless something comes up. But for someone starting out, it can be a bit like the sort of crash diet where you lose 5 pounds in a month and then gain 10 back over the next two months as your habits snap back. That's because you didn't lose the weight through sustainable means, so that is the goal with the November writing challenge: to build the base of a sustainable writing habit. So let's talk about how story structure can help you do that. In last week's episode, I mentioned that making the outline of your story can help with the process of writing. In this week's episode, we're going to go into more detail about story structure and conflict. Knowing how these work in your stories is essential to building an outline. You will find that having a proper structure to your story makes it easier to write, in the same way that having a proper foundation for your house makes it easier to construct. We'll talk about what I call the five iron laws of storytelling and the importance of your story having conflict and at the end of the episode, we will get a quick update from my podcast transcriptionist, who is following along with the November Writing Challenge. We will see how that is working out for her so far. So first, why write an outline? I think the main value of writing an outline, especially for beginning writers, is that it forces you to think about the story in advance and forces you to work out any potential plot holes in advance, since it's very easy to find yourself writing yourself into a corner and not knowing how to proceed. Obviously, writing an outline is not for everyone, and some writers say it impairs their creativity and they can't write with an outline. And that's fine, if you know that about yourself. But if you're just starting out, you may not be experienced enough to realize that about your writing style, and you may in fact benefit quite a bit from having written an outline in advance. So with that in mind, what does an outline need? First thing you need to understand is the shape of the story. Who is the protagonist? What is the protagonist's goal? What is the conflict, and what will the protagonist have to do to resolve that conflict? You can, if you want, put in the number of chapters in the outline. The way I usually do it is I write a 2,000 word or so synopsis of the book, and then I chop it up into chapters, though lately my final drafts don't have the same number of chapters as the outline because as I go through, I'll think of things to improve or scenes to move around and so forth. You may find a similar experience when writing from an outline yourself. It is nothing to worry about and can happen. It's also important to keep in mind that the conflict does need to escalate, and you do need to have a strong central conflict. So what do I mean by having a protagonist with the conflict that escalates and he takes action to it? This is something I actually have talked about in this podcast quite a bit, and in my nonfiction book Storytelling: How to Write a Novel. I have something I (rather tongue in cheek) call the five iron laws of storytelling, where if you want to write a good, compelling story, you need to have these five rules you should follow. Now, this is not, you know, true at all times in all places. But I do think you will probably get good results by following these five rules. Now what are these five rules, the five iron laws of storytelling? #1: The protagonist must have a problem that results in a conflict. #2: The protagonist's problem and conflict must be consequential and have real stakes. #3 The protagonist must take action and struggle to resolve his or her conflict and problem. #4 The protagonist must face challenges and setbacks, and his or her efforts to resolve the problem may even backfire. #5, The ending must absolutely provide satisfactory emotional resolution to the problems raised in the story. That might be the most important one of all. Where outlining can help you with this is if you see the story laid out in an outline as in a chart in something like Plottr or something like that, you can look it over and see- do I have a protagonist who has a interesting problem? Is the problem consequential for the protagonist? Is the protagonist trying to resolve the conflict? Is the protagonist experiencing setbacks and challenges, and perhaps even unintended consequences as he or she tries to resolve the problem? And finally, is the resolution emotionally satisfying? It doesn't have to be a happy ending. It doesn't have to be a totally sad ending. It can be a bittersweet ending. But whatever the ending, it has to resolve the conflict of the story in an emotionally satisfactory manner. Anything else can be absolutely disastrous. So if you are writing an outline for your novel or story, and you follow these five iron laws of storytelling, then I think you are on good track to have a good, well written story with a conflict and a protagonist that readers will find enjoyable and interesting. It is important to have a good conflict in the story. You can jump back to Episode 222 of the podcast, in which we talked about story conflicts, which offered much valuable advice on introducing conflicts. Some of the key points of that episode are there are many different types of conflict the story can have. The word conflict by its very nature seems to pull up images of like, violent conflict. That's often the word we use to describe conflict, to describe violence as conflict, but it doesn't have to be a violent conflict at all. It can be, you know, certain types of legal thrillers. There's no violence at all. It can be, you know, conflict between a man and a woman who are romantically attracted to each other but are unable to resolve these feelings, which can, you know, that kind of conflict drives a significant portion of the entire publishing industry. Ideally, a story should have multiple conflicts and even different types of conflict. There are numerous ways to add conflict into a story. They include putting characters into an unfamiliar environment, forcing your characters into making decisions, and having different characters face the same conflict in different ways. For more details on that, you can check out Episode 222 of this podcast. For tips and tricks on introducing more conflicts into your novel, I would recommend Episode 110 of this podcast, Three Techniques for Starting Your Novel and Introducing Conflict. In Episode 110, I said that there are lots of fun and exciting ways to introduce the conflict. I say fun and exciting because this is often where the story starts getting quite energetic. In a fantasy novel, it might be when the hero's village is attacked by orcs. In a mystery story, it's when someone stumbles across a dead body. In a thriller novel, perhaps the hero finds that a sinister terror plot is already well underway. The conflict can also be introduced more sedately. In an action-themed book, it is easy to introduce the conflict via sudden violence, the attack of orcs, or a surprise murder. Other kinds of stories may not involve so much physical danger. The central conflict of most romance novels, for example, is whether or not in the heroine and the love interest will get together and whether or not they can overcome the assorted obstacles preventing them from having a relationship. Romance novels might introduce conflict by having the love interest antagonize the heroine in some way, which is a common trope. Perhaps the love interest is a lawyer who represents the heroine's business rival, or the heroine is a local law enforcement official and the love interest is an FBI agent who threatens to take over her case. Regardless of how the conflict is introduced, the most important part of the conflict is that it must compel the protagonist to take action. If the conflict or the antagonist isn't serious enough to force the protagonist to act, then nothing happens and you don't have a story, so that perhaps is the main take away from conflict. The conflict has to be emotionally significant for the protagonist, and the protagonist has to take action to resolve it, even if the action makes things worse or causes setbacks. If you have a passive protagonist, that will very quickly turn off quite a few readers. So to sum up, the advantage of outlining is that it lets you work through potential problems in advance, and what you want in the outline is a protagonist with an emotionally relatable problem, a protagonist who takes action to resolve the problem, and a resolution to the story that is emotionally satisfying in terms of the conflict being resolved. The five iron laws of storytelling are a good checklist to look over your outline and make sure that you have a good, solid story structure. You can use them in fact as a checklist to see whether you think your outline is going to work and whether or not you can write a, you know, satisfying novel off it. So now we come to the update from my transcriptionist. As I mentioned, she was doing our November Writing Challenge and as part of our series of shows on that, she will send in weekly updates with her progress. Here is how she did this past week. “My goal for the challenge is 300 words a day. I picked a number that felt really low to help with the problem I have of not starting something when the goal is too undefined or too big. I also tend to do something intensely or not at all, with most days tending to the latter when in real life or obstacles get in the way. 300 words a day felt like something I could commit to without any worry, provided nothing really major comes up this month. So far I'm averaging 484 words per day and it's taking me an average of 15 minutes per day. I picked a specific chapter from my outline that was not the introduction I've been stuck on and a specific time of day to write. Doing both has made the process easier. In that vein, my questions for you are: do you write chapters or any pieces of the story out of order, or do you stick to the outline order when writing? Do you recommend people try writing out of order if they feel stuck?” So those are both interesting questions. For the first one, do you write chapters or any pieces of the story out of order, or do you stick to outline order when writing? I almost always write in the order of my outline. What changes is that when editing, I will very often split chapters up and move them around because I tend to write long chapters. In the editing for Cloak of Illusion so far, one chapter was like 10,000 words and another was 7,000 words, both of which are too long to be chapters. So the 10,000 word chapter got split up into three smaller ones and rearranged. The 7,000 word one got split into two chapters and moved around. So to give a shorter answer to that question, the answer would be no. When writing I tend to stick to the outline, but during editing I do tend to move things around as I think works best for the story. But editing is a different topic entirely. The second question: do you recommend people try writing it out of order if they feel stuck? You can try that. The pros are if you feel stuck on a particular scene, you can go ahead and write a different scene and then come back to that scene later. Or maybe it will turn out that the reason you're stuck is because the story didn't need the scene. You know, I do know some people who do write from an outline, but then tend to write out of order. The downside of that is if you're not careful, you can get your story's internal continuity mixed up a bit, but then that is another problem to fix in editing once the rough draft is finished, since right now we're at the stage where you get all the words down on the page or the word processor and then worry about fixing them later. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful and that you are finding our November Writing Challenge series to be useful as well. A reminder that you 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. 00:15:45 Audio excerpt from Cloak of Spears, as narrated by Hollis McCarthy  

In this week's episode we take a look at a November Writing Challenge and offer tips for new writers to develop a sustainable writing habit. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 225 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November the 1st 2024 and today we are discussing part one of our November Writing Challenge. Before we get into that, we will talk about my current writing projects- we'll see where I'm at with that and do Question of the Week (because we did have time for Question of the Week this week). First up, writing progress. I am 85,000 words into Cloak of Illusion, and I am hoping to finish the rough draft next week, if all goes well. I think we'll end up about in the neighborhood of 100,000 words for the rough draft (with possibly 5,000 words either way, see how it goes). I'm also 17,000 words into Orc Hoard.  That will be the 4th Rivah Half-Elven book, and I'm hoping to have that out in December before the end of the calendar year. In audiobook news, production on Shield of Conquest is done. It's all paid for and ready, and it's just working its way through processing on various platforms, so it should be available soon. And you get it on my Payhip store right now, if you don't want to wait for the other platforms. Audio for Cloak of Spears is almost done. I should have a file to proof soon, which is very exciting. And then Hollis McCarthy, who did Cloak of Spears, is also going to be working on Ghost in the Tombs and that should be out before too much longer and also Shield of Conquest was excellently narrated by Brad Wills. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. 00:01:30 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: do you keep a record of the books you have read? Obviously Goodreads is a giant website designed to do just that, but there are other methods, obviously. This question was inspired by one of those other methods. I was at a Barnes and Noble the other day and was bemused by the giant wall of reading journals that you can use to keep track of the books you have read. This elicited quite a few responses, this Question of the Week. They tend to fall into one of two camps, as we shall soon see. Joaquim says: No. No time, at least not for the physical books, even an app supporting barcodes was not successful and was later discontinued. For ebooks it's different because all your books are available on a list in Kindle/Digital Editions/Calibre (depending on their type). Justin says: No, it would look like bragging. I am a speed reader and don't watch TV. Reading is my primary mode of leisure. JD says: I have never even considered making a reading log. Surely that would be time better used for reading. AM says: I use a dot grid journal to make my own reading log and enjoy customizing what I track and adding some artistic embellishments. It's just a fun offline project for me and it made me self-conscious of what I read when I tracked on Goodreads. Adeline says: not keeping track at all. Doing that at the rate I go through books would just be a loss of a lot of time which could be spent reading. Barbara says: No, I don't keep any record of the books I read. I've been a voracious reader since I figured out what the alphabet was for back in first grade, used to get in trouble in class for reading ahead. I read fiction and nonfiction, although not equally. I have favorite authors, some of whose books I reread regularly. My digital library contains over 2,000 books, most of which I've read and while I think I don't read all that fast, in reality I read something over 700 words per minute. What's worse, I retain most of what I read, but if someone wants to keep track of what he or she reads, that doesn't bother me at all. Different strokes for different folks, as the song says. Jesse says: If I pick one up I have already read and don't immediately recognize it within a paragraph or two, it is probably time for a reread. Roger says: I buy a book before I read it, so my record is either on my bookshelves or on the Kindle. Kim says: I used to note in each paper version when I read/reread the books. Since ebooks, I keep a spreadsheet of book title and series, author, date read, major characters, reading order, my own personal ranking. Helps me keep track of authors, their series, crossovers, same-universe stories, and when the next books are coming out. I track all of that. Brandy says: It's impossible for me to do so. I reread whole series each time the new book comes out (yes, from the beginning). I'll often proofread, read for review, read for pleasure, reference, and beta. I'm also a foreign language and capture reader for translation of books. It was recommended therapy to help with linear retention after seizures and was always my main hobby. Jenny says: I use Goodreads but wish there was a better alternative. Tracy says: I just use Goodreads. Becca says: Since I started reading so much on Kindle, I've been letting it keep track of which books I've read. Me by myself, never kept track except in grade school when we had reading achievements. So it looks like the common options were either nothing or Goodreads, but one other person did what I did, which is I've kept a spreadsheet of every book I've read since 2010, since it felt like I was reading less than I used to, and I wanted to keep track of it quantifiably, since hard data is better than feelings. So I think in the last 14 years, the most books I've read in a single year is around 110 and the lowest would be a little over 40, though I think this year I will probably end up around somewhere around 75. My spreadsheets are not as detailed as Kim's. I just keep track of the day I started, the day I finished the title, the author's name, the genre, and whether or not it is an ebook or a paperback book. 00:05:12 Main Topic: Week 1 of November Writing Challenge So on to our main topic of the week: week one of our November Writing Challenge. What do I mean by that? I talked a little bit about it last week, but what I mean is that I do get lots of questions about how to start writing or questions about whether or not National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo is worth doing. The difficulty of that is NaNoWriMo the organization is currently experiencing troubles. They've had some problems with some of their volunteers and this year they had a big blow up where they endorsed artificial intelligence in writing in a way that offended most of their user base and as I mentioned last week, I'm wondering whether that sort of shock therapy of writing 50,000 words in 30 days is the best approach for everybody. I mean, for some people it's a good thing. I usually write more than 50,000 words every month, but that's my job. But for someone else who's starting out, that kind of shock approach might be a bit like yo-yo dieting. We talked about that last week, how it's better to lose 1 pound a month and have it stay off than it is to lose 5 pounds a month only for you to change habits and then gain 10 pounds back. I wonder for some people National Novel Writing Month might be the equivalent of that sort of yo-yo crash diet where you make this massive effort and that burns you out and you give up on it again. If it feels like you're missing out when others are working on a bigger writing challenge this month and you want to start writing but feel overwhelmed, how about a smaller, more manageable writing challenge for the absolute beginner? That is what our November Writing Challenge will be-maybe 300 words a day or some other small number of your choosing, whether 300 or 500 or 1,000 or some other number. The key should be that the key is that it should be something small and something that you can realistically manage daily based on your current schedule and responsibilities and health and so forth. The inspiration for this idea was, as you may know, for the last year I've had a transcriptionist working on my podcast, which has been very helpful because that's something I would never have had the time to do myself. She too wants to write a novel and has started writing one and has experienced challenges trying to start one. She often says she has felt overwhelmed at the idea of starting one, and so let's follow along with her progress this month as well. So let's start. #1: What do you need to begin? Number one is a common question, technology/equipment. Someone once came to be concerned that they couldn't start writing because they didn't have software that “real” writers used only to be surprised that I used Microsoft Word and have been using Microsoft Word pretty consistently for the last 10 years. However, you don't even need to use Scrivener, Microsoft Word, or some other fancy software. I wrote Ghost in the Storm and Soul of Serpents and a couple of other books entirely using LibreOffice on Ubuntu Linux, which is of course free. That was back in like 2012/2013/2014 and back then I was more enamored of writing on, you know, small 10 inch screen laptops that I would install Ubuntu on and then enjoy the portability of them, that I could write anywhere using these very small laptops. That, however, was 10 years ago, and both the writer in question (me) and my eyes are 10 years older. These days I prefer to write on the biggest screen possible whenever possible, and my preferred laptop has a 17 inch screen which is less portable but definitely easier on the eyes. But the point is you don't need to spend a lot of money on software. You can write in Word on a cheap Windows 11 laptop. You can write on LibreOffice, which is and remains 100% free. You could write on a Chromebook using Google Docs. All you actually need is a word processor and some way to back up your work. Don't just store it locally. If you are writing Google Docs, you could save to the cloud automatically. Many other cloud services offer free tiers, and you can even email it to yourself every day to keep a backup because that way, if your computer and your backup flash drive are lost or damaged or stolen, you don't lose all your work. Why can't you write using paper? You can if you want to. However, keeping track of progress would be tricky, because then you might have to do, ok, I'm going to write like, you know, a page a day instead of 300 words and then if you ever want to publish it, you will have to transcribe it to electronic format. So if you want to write on paper, go ahead and just to be aware that you are creating more work for yourself in the long term, if you are fine with that. #2: The second thing we need to do is make a plan. I would suggest writing at least a simple outline and then make a plan for your word count goal for the month of November, whether it's 300 words a day or something else. You can write without an outline. I find that it's for myself, it's easier to write with an outline, and if you're an absolute beginner, outlining in advance might help you work through some plotting problems you would have otherwise run into later on in the book. I would recommend blocking out time on your calendar for writing, even if it's only 5 minutes a day. Treat it like an appointment that you have to keep. You could churn out a few paragraphs on your lunch break or write a few sentences while on the bus or train ride home. I know of documented cases where people have written entire books on a commuter train using their phones and they thumb typed the entire rough draft. That might be a little extreme, though I imagine the younger generations who grew up with cell phones would be more comfortable with that, but it's certainly possible. This may be the most important part. Make a plan for what you will do if something happens and you can't write as planned, whether it's a family emergency, something with your kids, something medical, house problems, or just any of the other random stuff that can come up in the course of day-to-day life. Plan for this possibility and write out what you'll do if it can't happen on that day. It's very easy to skip writing when many other things take up your day, and in fact, if you're just starting out, pretty much everything else that happens in your life tends to be higher priority than writing. But if you only write when your day is perfect, you're not going to be writing much because perfect days are few and very far between in life. If you can make a plan for what to do if you have something come up and try to keep to your writing appointment, that will probably be the best way of making progress. #3: The third thing we have to do is to prepare your mindset for writing and this is a big one, because people very often talk themselves out of doing things even before they start, and writers in particular seem to be very prone to this because they will talk themselves out of starting or psych themselves out halfway through the book or fall into the trap of endlessly repolishing the first chapter over and over until it is perfect. So what are the most common mental mindset pitfalls that writers can encounter? The first one, of course, is perfectionism/fear of starting. The ways to combat this are to realize that it is hard to be a beginner, but everyone was a beginner once upon a time. You will get better with practice. Cloak of Illusion is going to be my 157th book but a long time ago, I just had one book or zero books that I was struggling to finish. It's also a bad idea to edit as you go. Just keep going. A metaphor I've used that people have told me has found is helpful (from a quote from Shannon Hale) is that writing is like building a sandcastle in an empty sandbox. The first job of course, is to drag the bag of sand into the sandbox and fill up the sandbox, and the second step is to then actually build the sandcastle, which is editing. Creating the rough draft is filling up the sandbox and then the editing process is building the sandcastle but it's a bad idea to start building the sandcastle before you fill up the sandbox because you might psych yourself out and not finish filling up the sandbox, which is what you really need to do. It doesn't matter if it's good at first, it just needs to get done. Get the words down for the day. It's also a good idea to find a way to silence your inner critic and the best way to do that is to not edit as you go. If you don't go back and constantly revise and tinker, then you are less likely to start doubting yourself. There's a time and place for revising and tinkering and editing, but that is after your rough draft is done. It is important to do things in their proper order. Another metaphor I use to explain this is once upon a time, I moved into an apartment that was on the third floor of a building with no elevator, and I have a lot of books. Naturally I had to carry all those books up three flights of stairs and into the new apartment. By the time I was done, I was probably in the best shape of my life. I've found that is a useful metaphor for writing, because writing the first draft is carrying all those books up to the third floor of the apartment, and the editing process is once you have all the books in the apartment, the editing process, is arranging them properly on the shelf. Now you could start rearranging the books into proper order while they're still in the truck, but I think we'd all agree that was a waste of time because the books aren't getting out of the truck. They're not even going to stay in that order once you get them up the stairs. If you waste too much time rearranging the books in the truck, eventually the police are going to come by and complain that you're taking up the fire lane (not that this ever personally happened to me, of course). So it's good to finish the rough draft first and then focus on the editing. Another mindset challenge is telling yourself that you don't have time. We've already talked about a few ways to get around this. Start by making your goal small. Even if you write only 300 words a day, if you do it every day in November, you will have about 9,000 words by the end of the month, which could be a chapter, several chapters, or even a short story. For myself when I started writing, I was still working a full-time job. So what I would do in my lunch hour (my lunch hour was literally an hour) was I would scarf down my food in the first 10 minutes and then spend the remaining 50 minutes typing as fast as I could on my laptop before it was time to get back to work. I wrote several different books that way. You'll also find if you look honestly at your day, there are probably spots of wasted time where you could squeeze in a few 100 words on a phone or laptop if you brought it with you. For example, there are times in the day when I find myself just looking at memes on the Internet and if I was squeezed for time and could carve out some time there, that would be a few hundred words. If you find yourself waiting in a car to pick someone up, that is an excellent time to squeeze out a few hundred words. I've done that many times. Waiting rooms are good for that too, and any situation where you find yourself with dead time, like you're on hold, you're in a waiting room. You're waiting to pick someone up, you're on some form of public transit. If you have a cheap laptop or you can type on your phone, that is an excellent time to squeeze out a few words. Another possible mindset trap is just the intimidation factor of starting, and it might be helpful to remember back to when being creative didn't intimidate you, when creative work was a sort of play, and if you can recapture some of the playfulness of that, that may remove some of the intimidation factor. My transcriptionist found a quote from a writer named George Saunders on Dua Lipa's podcast, and he said, “so much of being an artist is trying to trick your habitual nature, which likes safety and security and repetition and being sure, trying to trick that person out and go back to the kid you were at 13 or 14 who was just overjoyed to be making something.” There is definitely something to be said for that, too, you know, as a way to get past the intimidation factor and some self-doubt. So those are some of the mindset trip traps we might fall into, and hopefully some techniques for getting past them. And finally, in future episodes, we will check in with my transcriptionist and see how she's doing with her writing progress, whether she has any questions. Since I'm recording this literally on the morning of November 1st, there's not any progress to report yet, but there is a question. Why do you think so many people want to write books but never start? And I think we talked about that pretty well in the episode. There's a lot of activation energy and you have to get over perfectionism and the fear of being laughed at and the time problem and just overall the fear of starting, but as other wiser people than me have said, 80%, maybe even 90% of life is just showing up and doing the work. Like for example, I never knew how to replace front porch steps, but when the front porch steps started rotting, the alternative was trying to find a carpenter, which is difficult and expensive, or figuring it out how to do it myself. So I watched some YouTube videos and bought some lumber and paint and figured out how to do it myself. Would a professional carpenter have done it better? Probably. However, last night was Trick or Treating and I had about 80 kids and their parents come up and down the porch steps to get candy. The porch steps held and not a single person fell in. So sometimes showing up really is just good enough. So anyone who is participating in some sort of writing challenge in November, whether NaNoWriMo or writing challenge month, if you want send any questions about the writing process and if time permits, I will include them in future episodes. You can send me an e-mail at jmcontact@jonathanmoeller.com or leave a comment on my blog or Facebook page. Please don't send me your story ideas or actual writing excerpts because I do not have time to read those and can't read them for legal reasons anyway. 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 that you can listen to all the back episodes with transcripts 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.    

In this week's episode, I take a look at why I don't set up preorders and I usually don't write prequels. I also share my thoughts about the video game STARFIELD. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 219 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 20th, 2024 and today we are discussing why I don't set up preorders for my books and why I prefer not to write prequels. Before we get to our main topic, we'll have an update on my current writing projects, Question of the Week, then we'll talk about a video game I recently enjoyed, and then we'll plunge on ahead to our main topic. First up, current writing and audiobook projects. I am pleased to report that Shield of Conquest is now completely finished and available. You can get it at all the usual ebook stores. It has been selling quite briskly and has been receiving good reviews. So thank you all for that. My next main project, which you can probably guess if you've been listening to the show for the last few months, is Ghost in the Tombs. As of this writing, I am 62,000 words into it, which I think puts me about 62% of the way through it, because I believe the rough draft will be around 100,000 words. I'm hoping to have that out towards the middle of October, if all goes well. I'm also 21,000 words into Cloak of Illusion. That should hopefully be out in November and I've just started what will be the fourth Rivah book, Orc-Hoard. It originally had been entitled Elven Sorcerer for the fourth Rivah book, but I decided to change the title to Orc-Hoard and that will be out in either December or January, if all goes well. In audiobook news, Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling is completely done and currently working its way through processing and the various audiobook platforms. You can get it at my Payhip store right now and it should be available at all the other stores in a couple of weeks. Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling was excellently narrated by CJ McAllister. Recording is almost done on Shield of Darkness, and hopefully we can approve the final version of that next week and then that'll work its way through processing and be available before too much longer. So that's where I am with my current writing and audiobook projects. 00:02:00 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is the most annoying video game enemy? Obviously, there is no profound reason behind this question, since we're talking about video games. I happened to be reading an article about the upcoming Starfield expansion, and the comments devolved into a rambling discussion of game design and most annoying enemies, which inspired this question. We had a good range of responses. Reader AM wrote in to say that her greatest video game enemy is her own hand-eye coordination. We've all been there, AM; we've all been there. Justin says: The Legend of Zelda series is a great bunch of video games, but they do have their annoying bits. I nominate the Like Like worm. To get sucked in and spit back out (minus your shield) is incredibly aggravating. I cannot count the number of shields I've lost to this adversary. Later versions steal money or health, but for me, you know, the annoyance of having to go back to town to get a replacement shield (while trying to avoid encounters) ranks up there. Legend of Zelda also has annoying characters. Navi is the most so- her cry of “Hey! Listen!” quickly becomes painful. I too remember the Like Like worm from the Legend of Zelda days and that was indeed very annoying. JD says: Cliff racers from Morrowind. Do I need to say more? Juana says: the vampire guarding the sewers in Vampire: the Masquerade-Bloodlines. You have to be maxed out in at least two disciplines to take them out. It's really difficult to get maximum disciplines. Ross says: at least for me, it's Cliff racers in Morrowind. They're so far out ahead of anything else, I can't even think of what I'd put in second place. Morgan says: not sure of all time, but in terms of more recent games, the Zoanthropes in Space Marine 2 are an absolute nightmare, especially when they come in pairs so one is always shielding the other. Jesse says: Seymour in Final Fantasy 10. Only boss I remember that you have to beat five times. Jenny says: that drum boss in Ocarina of Time. William says: Zelda 2 has no shortage of troublesome enemies, like the Iron Knuckles. It's probably for the best I never had the chance to play it back in the day without save states. Brandy says: The first multiplayer run through Diablo, where you're through the Easter Egg levels and every other flick of the mouse you're screaming “run away, run away!” or “hold still, so I might smite thee!” For myself, my answer would be those stupid Medusa Heads from the Castlevania series. If you've played any Castlevania game, you know what I'm talking about. You'll be climbing the stairs and the Medusa Head will somehow come in at exactly the right angle to avoid all your weapons and to knock you off the stairs to your death at the same time. Honestly, a lot of the old school Castlevania Games are much more enjoyable with save states on modern systems. A very strong runner up would be Lakitu from Super Mario Brothers. He's the guy in the cloud who drops all those Spiny Shells on your head. So we had quite a good range of responses this week, thought it appears that the Morrowind Cliff Racer may take the championship. 00:04:49 Thoughts on Starfield Speaking of video games, I actually wanted to talk about Starfield a little bit because I beat the main quest in Starfield this month. By my standards, this is fast. I first started playing Skyrim in 2011, and I finally beat the main quest in autumn 2020 on the Switch version, since that was during the height of COVID and there wasn't much else to do. By contrast, Starfield came out in September 2023, so I beat the main quest in just a little bit over a year. So here are my thoughts on the game. Overall, I would say I really liked it. It does capture the feel of being a competent space adventurer wandering around the galaxy. You can do bounty hunting, pirate hunting, mining, exploring, and a variety of other stuff. Back in the ‘90s, I really liked Wing Commander: Privateer, which had infinite random missions and Starfield kind of feels like an enormously expanded version of Privateer, or like Privateer with a Halo game attached to it, given the wide variety of firearms you can obtain. In the grand tradition of Bethesda Games, you don't even have to do the main quest or any of the scripted side quests. You can just wander around visiting random planets and fighting space pirates forever. Honestly, I probably spent more time playing randomly generated side missions than any of the scripted quests. That said, I very much liked some of the scripted side missions. The Vanguard plotline was the best of them, in my opinion. You have to help the United Colonies find the origins of a super deadly alien predator called the Terrormorph, and at the end there's a genuinely hard moral question: does the greater good justify the means for people in positions of authority? The game also improved quite a bit since launch with new patches. The updates added a city map feature which is massively useful and a Space Car you can use for driving across planetary surfaces, which makes a lot of the game's missions quite a bit simpler and easy. Now, while I enjoyed Starfield, I concede that many of its critics had a point about its weaknesses. The game relies a lot on procedural generation. Every time you land on a planet, a bunch of nearby dungeons and features are randomly generated. This can get repetitive, though honestly I don't mind that very much. It makes it easier to play the game in bite sized chunks when it's late and I'm tired and I just want to mow down some Space Pirates or something. What is annoying is that sometimes the procedurally generated locations don't match with the procedurally generated quests, which locks you out of finishing some of the randomly generated quests. That was really irritating, though it only tends to happen at very high levels. The game's main plot revolved around multiverse stuff, and as I've mentioned frequently before, I am not a big fan of the multiverse as a storytelling concept. However, it works better in a video game than in a movie or a book, and Starfield's implementation of it is quite clever. Many games have the New Game Plus concept where you beat the game and then you start a new game, but things are slightly different. In Starfield, when you beat the game, you go to a new universe, you lose all your possessions, but you keep all your skills and knowledge, so you're starting the new game at level 65 or whatever. Additionally, a lot of the quests are subtly altered because your character knows in advance what is going to happen from the previous universe, so you can get a better outcome than you did the last time, which is honestly a kind of a clever game mechanic, which makes it a compelling journey to go from universe to universe and to put right what once went wrong. Anyway, I enjoyed Starfield and I will definitely play the Shattered Space expansion, which comes out at the end of September, but enough talk about video games. 00:08:14 Main Topic of the Week: Preorders and Prequels This is writing podcast, so let's move on to our main topic, preorders and prequels. I have to admit preorders and prequel sounds like a really lame tabletop RPG for indie authors. Like if you roll a 20, your book gets picked up as an Amazon Daily deal for the US, but if you roll 1, your book file gets corrupted and you can't figure out how to fix it. Anyway, the inspiration for this alliterative title was that someone asked me about preorders, and someone else asked me about prequels within 24 hours. So let's start with prequels. Reader Juan writes in to ask about preorders: something I noticed about your books. There's never a preorder option on Apple Books. Is this by design? I know you self-publish so I didn't know if that was a publisher feature or if there's a way to preorder there. If not, no worries, I just know Apple takes a little longer to load the book. Preorders are available to self-publishers, but the reason I don't do preorders is by design. I never do preorders for a couple different reasons, which we'll go through right now. #1: the consequences of missing a preorder date are moderately negative. If you miss a preorder date on Amazon, you get locked out of doing another one for the following 12 months. I'm not sure what happens if you miss a preorder on Apple Books, but I suspect it's about the same level of penalty and this ties directly into reason two. #2 is that life is chaotic and unpredictable, and I absolutely hate making promises I end up unable to keep. Like if I get sick or something in Real Life comes along that I have to deal with immediately, I could easily miss a week of writing time, which would make hitting the preorder date either very stressful or impossible. #3: If I wrote like only two books a year, I might do preorders. That would give me enough of a cushion of time to make sure that everything is ready to go well in advance of the launch date. But I usually write and publish like ten books a year, sometimes more. With books coming out so frequently, organizing that many pre-orders would be a serious headache and sometimes I don't actually decide what I'm going to write next until the day comes and I actually sit down to start writing. Like at the end of 2023, I pretty much decided on impulse to finish writing Half-Elven Thief and had that be my last book of the year in 2023. So with the amount I write and publish, managing the logistics of so many pre-orders would be a serious headache. #4: And finally, reason number four and the most important reason: the worst consequence of missing a preorder is a loss of reader confidence. Without going into details, let's say there's been enough of that in the fantasy genre already, so preorders have too many negatives and not enough positives, at least for my situation. I'd rather just make a good faith effort of having things come out when I can and announcing them via my newsletter. Speaking of which, if you sign up for my newsletter, you get regular free short stories. Now onto prequels. Concerning prequels, reader Danny writes in to ask: May I suggest writing a series of prequels to the Cloak Game series? Shield of Conquest made me hope that it would be a prequel book to the Cloak Game series, a book that speaks about the invasion of Earth by the elves and brings some backstory of the relationship between Kathran Morvilind and Tarlia- a teacher and a student, and the discovery and invasion of Earth, or other back stories that were not developed enough. For example, what about Aiden, brother of Riordan, or Riordan's experience as a Shadow Hunter? Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of writing prequels. I have written a couple of prequel novels out of the 155 books I've written (Frostborn: The First Quest comes to mind) and sometimes I'll do short stories as a flashback. Probably the most recent example of that is Prophecy of the High Queen, the short story that describes the first meeting between Nadia and the High Queen written from the High Queen's perspective. The High Queen uses magic to look into Nadia's past and her various potential futures, and so the short story bounces all over the place in time. I have also written novels that kind of jump around in time. In Cloak of Iron, the scenes from Lauren Casey's perspective go back to even before the Cloak Game series actually started to set up why Lauren was desperate enough to save her brother that that she was willing to deal with someone like Mr. Shang of the Deathless Society. Or in the very first Nadia book, Games: Thief Trap, where we blur through the first twenty years of Nadia's life in the first chapter. That said, I do write the short stories in mind as bonus materials like the extra scenes on a movie DVD. However, at this point I don't think I would write a prequel novel, and I certainly wouldn't write a prequel series. Why not? It feels like prequels are sort of like procrastinating before you continue on the main story, which is likely what most readers really want. I've noticed some writers (again, without going into details) have a bad habit of writing prequels instead of getting on with the main story. Making yourself continue the main story instead of getting sidetracked by prequels or side quests is difficult, but it must be done for the greater good of the story. Additionally, a big problem with prequels is it's extremely difficult to generate narrative tension because you know in advance that certain characters are going to survive or certain situations are going to play out in a way you've already read in subsequent books. If I did, for example, my Andomhaim series as a prequel series, it would be set in a region of the world we've never visited and with characters we never encountered before, so that way there is a dramatic tension that the reader doesn't know how things are going to end and that will make the book more enjoyable. Also, some things are really better left to the reader's imagination, and that can include back stories. Writing fiction is in some ways an exercise in creating a line drawing and letting the imagination of the reader provide color and shadow. Like, since we've been talking about Nadia, here's someone describing her from a first-person perspective:  "A woman in a dark coat and black jeans sat across from me. She had red-tinged brown hair tied in a loose ponytail and pale grey eyes the color of knives. I thought she looked like she could stand to eat more. That, combined with the eyes, gave her a look of feverish, almost unsettling intensity. I probably outweighed her by a good ninety pounds, but I felt the sudden urge to reach for the gun I wasn't carrying." Now that's just a line drawing, right? Yet every reader will fill in that line drawing with something from his or her own imagination. In the same way, I think it is sometimes (even frequently) best to let the reader's imagination fill in the details of the character's backstory. Like Riordan- we know he tried to save his brother Aidan and failed. We know that he became a Shadow Hunter and that his first wife joined the Rebels and tried to murder him to score points with her new friends. I could write out a prequel series describing those events, but I think at this point it wouldn't be as vivid as the one that readers have generated in their imaginations. Besides, writing a prequel story would be a distraction from the main story. So that is why I don't set up preorders and I don't usually write prequels. 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 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.

In this week's episode, I review the movies and streaming shows I saw in the second half of summer 2024. The episode concludes with a preview of the audiobook of HALF-ORC PALADIN, as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 218 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 13th, 2024 and today we are discussing my Summer Movie Review Roundup, Part 2. Just to note to say that you may hear some odd background noises in this episode. My neighbor across the street is getting his roof replaced. I can't begrudge them that because no one likes a leaky roof, but it is slightly inconvenient because this is the only time today I have to record the podcast. So if you hear the occasional pop in the background, that is the sound of a nail gun driving shingles into a roof. Before we get to our main topics, let's have an update on my current writing projects and then we will do Question of the Week. First up, Shield of Conquest is very nearly done. I am about 2/3 of the way through the final round of editing and if all goes well, it should come out shortly after this episode is available, so be sure to check your favorite ebook retailer and see if it is out. Once that is done, I will be going full speed ahead on Ghost in the Tombs and I'm currently 48,000 words into that, so about halfway through the rough draft, give or take, depends on how long the rest of the book takes and how certain scenes in the final half of the book out. In audiobook news, Half-Orc Paladin is done, and it's now available on all the major audio stores: Audible, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Chirp, Kobo, Payhip, Spotify, and a couple others, and you can get it there. We will close out this episode with a preview of Half-Orc Paladin (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward). 00:01:30 Question of the Week Now let's have a Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite superhero movie? No wrong answers, of course (including “I don't like superhero movies”, but it turns out no one said that, so I guess superhero movies are quite popular). The inspiration for this question was that I was thinking about how superhero movies are such a major part of pop culture. Nowadays when people think of superhero movies, they usually think of Marvel and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there were major superhero movies before the whole Marvel Cinematic approach really got going in the 2000s/2010s and they've been obviously part of pop culture for a very long time, and as you could expect, we had a wide range of responses from this. Our first response was from JD, who says: If I had to pick just one, it would probably be Guardians of the Galaxy. The first film had a near perfect mix of action, drama, and comedy. For me, the best Batman film was the 1966 one starring Adam West. Joaquim says: In the last millennium, when I was a child, we had DC Comics and Marvel Comics. I did like Batman in DC, Spider-man and The Avengers in Marvel. In the movies, I did not particularly like Batman, but I like the early Marvel movies, Avengers 1 and Captain America 2 the most. Mary says: X-Men. Todd says: 1978 Superman. Visually at 15, I believed a man could fly. Juana says: My superhero is actually a couple - The Vision and Scarlet Witch (before they turned Vision into an emotionless thing a while back). What's interesting is that the guy who was in charge of Picard Season 3, which I quite liked, is apparently going to be running a Vision show for Marvel sometime in 2026 (assuming Disney doesn't run out of money first), so it should be interesting to see how it turns out. Stephen says: I know this is random- Shang Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings. I know it was not completely an original storyline, but I liked it a lot. I agree with Stephen. I thought Shang Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings was one of the stronger Marvel movies and it's too bad it hasn't had a sequel. Becca says: The Dark Knight trilogy. Those are the real Batman films for me. Ledger was certainly the best Joker. I do love the happier Batmans, too. I grew up on West's version of Batman. For me, V for Vendetta is my favorite superhero movie and one of my favorite movies ever. I usually watch it at least once a year. Michael says: Captain America: The First Avenger. Juliana says: Second Captain America. The spy aspect really married well with the superhero genre in this one. I agree with Juliana. I think Captain America: Winter Soldier is one of the better Marvel movies. Roger says: only because we're entering the season, The Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell. Andrew says: Deadpool and Wolverine, followed by The Dark Knight trilogy. James says: I know Fox's X-Men get a bad rap generally, but Days of Future Past was amazing. I'd have to go with that, with The Dark Knight, Thor: Ragnarok, and Wonder Woman as runner-ups. Cheryl says: don't really have favorites, but for eye candy, Thor. Catriona says: The original Christopher Reeve Superman. Jenny says: Mystery Men. Jeanne says: Megamind. Randy says: Christian Bale and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight movies are definitely in the top three but Iron Man has always been my favorite. Good story, good pacing, and Robert Downey Junior just nailed playing Tony Stark, in my opinion. Not to mention it kicked off the longest, largest, story movie arc to this day. BV says: Superman 1978. Terry says: Fifth Element. Gary says: Hancock. For myself, I think my favorite superhero movies would be the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Dark Knight trilogy. Strong performances, great action, and they managed to do something very difficult, namely bring a satisfying end to a superhero story arc. It almost feels like The Dark Knight movies are the “real” events of Batman and all the other comics and cartoons and movies are legends and exaggerations after the fact, like how the whole glittering mythos of King Arthur and the Round Table developed around an obscure Roman British warlord in the 500s AD. Also, Heath Ledger's version of the Joker was amazing. That said, for Marvel movies, which have been kind of the dominant form of superhero movies for the last decade, I think the best one of those would be Captain America: Winter Soldier (in my opinion). 00:05:45 Main Topic: Summer 2024 Movie/TV Roundup, Part 2 And now on to our main topic of this episode, my Summer 2024 Movie Roundup, Part 2. And if this movie roundup has a theme, it's miscellaneous. The reason for that is I did not actually watch all that many movies in the second half of the summer. There was no nefarious reason for that. I was just busy with travel and busy with multiple instances of home repair and busy finishing Half-Orc Paladin and Shield of Conquest. So I mostly watched some older stuff that I found on streaming, especially on Tubi, which has the delightful attribute of being free with ads. As usual, the movies are listed from my least favorite to my most favorite and the grades are totally subjective and based upon my own thoughts and opinions and nothing more substantial than that. So with that in mind, let's start out. First up is The Burbs, which came out in 1989. It's a dark comedy/horror movie satire starring Tom Hanks as Ray, a suburban homeowner with a wife and a son. On vacation for the week, Ray becomes obsessed with the Klopeks, a new family that has moved on to his street. The Klopeks have no interest in maintaining their property and show signs of other odd activities: going out only at night, constant digging in the backyard, and strange noises and lights coming from their basement. Soon, Ray and his two neighbors become determined to find out just what the Klopeks are up to. It was darkly funny, though you could tell that the ending had been rewritten a few times. The movie couldn't decide if it wanted to be a satire of clannish homeowners or to totally validate their concerns, or both. I think it tried for both and couldn't quite get there. Though it does kind of show how much the United States has changed or possibly declined in the last 35 years. Ray and his friends are shown as kind of losers, but they live in enormous, well-maintained houses. It's like how Homer Simpson in the first couple seasons of The Simpsons was shown as a bumbling loser, but yet he could afford to live in a four bedroom house, his wife didn't work most of the time, they had two cars and three children, and all without Homer having a college degree. By the standards of 2024, Homer Simpson lived like a king. Amusing anecdote-one scene in The Burbs was clearly inspired by A Fistful of Dollars, which I talk about more below. Overall grade: C Next up is The Batman vs. Dracula, an animated movie which came out in 2005. In this movie, Batman goes up against Count Dracula. This was probably as dark and gory as something can be while still technically remaining targeted at children. When a robbery goes bad, the Penguin accidentally releases Count Dracula from his tomb and becomes the Vampire Lord's new chief servant. Dracula is fascinated by the modern world, but he's especially fascinated by Batman since for obvious reasons he admires Batman's bat-themed motif. Dracula offers Batman the chance to become his chief lieutenant, which Batman refuses and Dracula takes that personally. He'll get his revenge by turning Gotham City into a city of the undead and taking Bruce Wayne's girlfriend, Vicki Vale, as his new vampire bride. Unless, of course, Batman stops him. It was interesting how neatly Dracula slots into becoming a good enemy for Batman. After all, in the original Dracula novel, Dracula's nemesis Van Helsing was definitely a man of science who brought logic, reason, and scientific method to his fight against Dracula. Batman is also a man of science in the sense that he's a detective, so he does some detective work to unravel Dracula's weaknesses and to build weapons to use against him. Overall Grade: B Next up is Set It Up, which came out in 2018. This is a romantic comedy that reminded me a bit of the more cynical 1940s-era romcoms like The Shop Around the Corner. The female lead Harper works as a personal assistant for a workaholic female sports writer who terrorizes her employees. The male lead Charlie works for workaholic male venture capitalist who also terrorizes his employees. Both their bosses are miserable, demanding people who make everyone around them unhappy. One day, both Charlie and Harper are dispatched to get dinner for their bosses and end up fighting over the last available delivery man. However, in the wake of the encounter, Harper hatches a plan. Both she and Charlie know everything about their respective bosses, so why not manipulate their calendars and schedules so they fall in love? They might be more cheerful, or at the very least they'll be in the office less frequently. Charlie has his misgivings about this plan, but after one more unfortunate encounter with his boss, decides to embark upon Harper's plan. Of course, Charlie has a high maintenance girlfriend who wants him to make a lot more money, and Harper is trying to find a boyfriend, but as per the rules of romcoms, perhaps Charlie and Harper will have more in common than they might think. This had a bit more crude humor than I might prefer but was still enjoyable. It did remind me quite a bit of the more cynical ‘30s and ‘40s movies like My Man Godfrey or the Shop around the Corner. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Bank of Dave, which came out in 2023. This is basically the cynical British version of a Hallmark movie, but with better production values. It is very, very loosely based on the activities of Dave Fishwick, a successful van dealer in the north of England who decides to start a local bank for local people, feeling that the Big London banks have lost sight of that. To do that, he recruits a London lawyer named Hugh to help him navigate a labyrinth of regulation around financial institutions. Of course the big banks dislike this idea and come after Dave hard. Dave is definitely the local Big Man, and it's interesting that humanity's default mode of government seems to be Local Big Man. However, if one must have a Big Man, one could only hope he is as benevolent as Dave. The movie was pretty funny, though a lot of the humor comes from the UK's class and regional divides, which are rather more pronounced than in the United States. Here in the United States, you can drive for 300 miles and be in the same state the entire time, and the local culture won't change all that much. The cliche is that the US East Coast and the US West Coast look down upon flyover country, but you can drive something like 1,000 miles from New York before you even get to Flyover Country. If you drive 300 miles in the UK, you've probably gone through six or seven regional accents and local traditions. The Bank of Dave does kind of turn into a Hallmark movie since Hugh falls for David's doctor niece. So basically a romance with the backdrop of British class/regional struggle as comedy. Overall grade: B Next up is Cool Runnings, which came out in 1993. A sports comedy film very (and I mean very loosely) based on the debut of the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team in the 1988 Winter Olympics. When sprinter Derice Bannock is unable to qualify for the Jamaican Olympic team due to an accident, he decides to instead to start a bobsled team to represent Jamaica in the Games. To do this, he recruits washed up former bobsledder Blitzer (played by John Candy) to act as the team's coach. What follows is a pretty good example of a sports movie. The team must come together and perform while overcoming their own personal challenges and inner conflicts, especially Coach Blitzer, who has to dig deep and overcome his past to effectively coach the team. It's interesting that sports movies tend to follow one of two trajectories. Either the team rallies and wins the championship, or they don't win the championship and nonetheless achieve moral victory by overcoming their internal difficulties in learning to work together. I won't spoil which path Cool Runnings follows. Overall Grade: B Next up is Uncle Buck, which came out in 1989. This is a coming-of-age comedy film about a 40 year old man, oddly enough. I did think this was pretty funny. Bob and Cindy are a married couple with three children living in the suburbs of Chicago, and when Cindy's father has a heart attack, they need to rush to his side. Due to the unexpected nature of the news, they have to find someone to watch the kids while they're gone. In desperation, they turned to Bob's brother Buck, who alternates between working for his girlfriend at her tire company and making money on rigged horse races. While Buck is kind of a loser, he's basically a decent guy, just averse to responsibility and settling down. He quickly steps up to take care of the children, though he conflicts with the oldest daughter Tia, who is in the grips of a full-blown adolescent rebellion. Buck soon realizes that he's come to a crossroads in his life, which is reinforced when Tia runs away to a party for the weekend. Slightly dark in places, but definitely more family friendly than many ‘80s comedies. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is the Adjustment Bureau, which came out in 2011. It is a science fiction romantic thriller based on the Philip K. Dick story, which is a very odd sentence to say, but it's true. Matt Damon plays David Norris, a congressman from New York who just lost the Senate race. Preparing for his concession speech. He meets Elise (played by Emily Blunt) and is immediately smitten with her. A month later, he runs into her by accident on a bus and receives her phone number. However, soon mysterious suited men with unusual powers arrive and burn the paper with the phone number. The men explain to David that they are The Adjustment Bureau, charged with making sure history unfolds according to the mysterious Plan. The Plan says that David can never see Elise again. David of course is not the sort of guy to take that lying down, so he soon finds himself trying to outwit the Time Cops and find Elise. It was interesting that The Adjustment Bureau was very similar to the Time Variance Authority from the Marvel Loki show, so I wonder if they drew on some of the same sources of inspiration. An interesting movie and worth watching. It actually wrestled with the oldest philosophical question in Western civilization: are all things predestined or do we have free will? Or is it somehow both? I have to admit that the scene where Elise dunked David's BlackBerry in coffee was very satisfying to me personally, since I had a lot of support headaches with Blackberries back in the 2000s. Overall Grade: B+ Now, finally the favorite thing I saw in the second half of the summer 2024: A Fistful of Dollars, which came out in 1964. This was the first Spaghetti Western I've seen, which means it's Italian director Sergio Leone's sort of stylized version of what the Old West was like. Of course, the movie actually ripped off the Akira Kurosawa samurai movie Yojimbo. In fact, it was so heavily ripped off Yojimbo that Kurosawa sued, settled out of court, and received 15% of A Fistful of Dollars' revenue. Apparently Kurosawa made more from the settlement than he did from Yojimbo. Legal troubles aside, it was quite good and I could see how it heavily influenced many subsequent movies. For example, the Star Wars character of Boba Fett was inspired by A Fistful of Dollars and Boba Fett in turn inspired the Mandalorian. Stephen King's rather disappointing Dark Tower series was inspired by Dollars as well. And there are many other examples, such as the scene in The Burbs I had mentioned above earlier. Anyway, Clint Eastwood plays The Stranger, a mercenary gunslinger who seems to be drifting from town to town without a purpose. He arrives at San Miguel, a US-Mexican border town that is dominated by two crime families at each other's throats, the Rojos and the Baxters. Both clans seek to hire The Stranger for their organizations and the gunslinger begins playing them off each other for personal profit. As mercenary and as ruthless as he is, The Stranger seems to have a core of honor to him. A couple of times he goes out of his way to help people because he can, which sometimes gets him into trouble. Definitely worth watching as a classic film. Overall Grade: A 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, often with transcripts (note: transcripts are available from Episodes 140 onward). If you enjoy the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In this week's episode, I take a look at 7 things you should not put on a book cover, and also discuss how I used to write tech nonfiction. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 216 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is August the 30th, 2024, and today we're considering seven things that you should not put on your book cover. We'll also talk a little bit about how I used to write tech books and have Question of the Week. Last week we also had a bit of a problem with the microphone levels. Hopefully that should now be adjusted and the sound should not be bouncing around randomly throughout the episode. So first up, updates on my writing progress. I am currently done with the rough draft of Shield of Conquest, 97,500 words written in 21 days. Right now, I'm writing a companion short story, The First Command. That will be a short story that my newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook form when Shield of Conquest comes out, hopefully sometime in September. I'm also 40,000 words into Ghosts in the Tombs, which will be the next main project after Shield of Conquest is out. I'm 10,000 words into Cloak of Titans, which hopefully will be around November. In audiobook news, the recording for Half-Orc Paladin is done. That will be excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. And if all goes well, that should wend its way through the various audiobook stores and be available soon. 00:01:19 Question of the Week Now let's do Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire enjoyable discussion of interesting topics. This week's question: what is your favorite movie in the fantasy genre? No wrong answers obviously, but I think it's an interesting question because I suspect fantasy is a lot harder as a genre to bring to film than police procedurals or romantic comedies. Quite a few responses for this one. Mary says: The Princess Bride. Justin says: The Lord of the Rings trilogy is in a category by itself. A faithful (given the constraints) adaptation of the greatest fantasy story of all time. Conan is very good, but The Princess Bride is what I watch over and over again. Barbara says: Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. I know it's animated, but I watch it every chance I get. Even hunted down the soundtrack. It was our go to entertainment when my husband and I were dating and right after we were married. William says: Watching Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits as a child was an impactful experience for me. Personally, I don't really see the need to adapt perfectly good books into movies where you can make a perfectly good original movie instead like Star Wars. Martin says: Lord of the Rings has an epic quality about it and has everything. One of my favorite fantasy films is Stardust. It's a great journey for the characters involved and has a wonderful mix of magic and action. Jenny says: Legend and Labyrinth are iconic to me and Dark Crystal. Lord of the Rings is epic though, I agree. A different Barbara says: Got to be Labyrinth. Bowie was spectacular. Not a fan of Lord of the Rings. Gary says: Lord of the Rings is pretty obvious, but I've always liked Time Bandits. BV says: Hand down, Lord of the Rings and the upcoming movie Shield Knight (which is not terribly likely). Bonnie says: Willow is number one, then the original Dune. Yeah, I know-quite the spectrum. Juana says: Lord of the Rings and Fantastic Voyage. David says: Don't forget Krull. Tom says: Lord of the Rings, then Stardust. Rewatched those so many times. AL says: Willow also had a terrible plot. I think my second choice would be Bright, lol. And then the last Dungeons and Dragons movie. Jeanne says: Without question, Lord of the Rings. Darla says: Geez people, every movie you mentioned makes me want to see them again. There are so many good and not so good fantasy movies. I would say Lord of the Rings plus Rings of Power on Amazon. A really old movie from my brain is Scanners. Although the acting was totally terrible, the concept was intriguing. And finally, Pippa says: Lord of the Rings, then Willow. So yeah, we can see from those answers that Lord of the Rings is definitely the category winner, which agrees with my own assessment. For myself, I think the overwhelming answer would have to be Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. In my opinion, and your opinion may vary, The Lord of the Rings movie set the bar very high, so the trilogy is kind of in its own category. You can watch them 20 years later and they hold up well in a way a lot of stuff from 20 years ago does not. But with that said, I think my second favorite fantasy film would be the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian, since it does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of the original stories and the soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is superb. The Anvil of Crom track is excellent. Also, James Earl Jones plays an evil sorcerer/cult leader named Thulsa Doom, which is of course excellent, although after reading all the comments and thinking about it, I think Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves from 2023 would be tied with Conan the Barbarian in my second place fantasy film. 00:04:38 Reflections on Writing Tech Books Now onto a slightly different topic, how I used to write tech books. I can always tell when the school year starts because suddenly I have numerous orders for the paperback copies of the Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide and the Windows Command Line Beginner's Guide. This happens because some professors have recommended them for their classes because the books are one- low cost and two- a good introduction to the topic. If you've only discovered my writing recently, and by recently I mean within the last six years or so, you might not know this, but I used to do a lot of tech writing. That was in fact my first successful attempt at writing from the Internet, tech blogging back in the second half of the 2000s. When I started self-publishing in 2011, I also wrote a bunch of tech books and Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide and Windows Command Line Beginner's Guide are definitely the most successful of them. Around 2018/early 2019 I stopped tech writing due to lack of time and the fact that fiction turned out to be much more lucrative. That said, I occasionally get snide remarks and people saying well, why paid $0.99 for an ebook? All this information is available for free on the Internet or YouTube. That is true. However, it overlooks the fact that people learn information in different ways. For some people, having the information laid out step by step in a book is the best introduction to the topic. And the books are intended for absolute beginners. Part of the experience of being an absolute beginner is that you don't even know the proper questions to ask, which means it's hard to find research. It's hard to research and find relevant information on the Internet. It's said that experts know what they don't know. If you're a beginner, you don't even know what you don't know yet. That means you don't know what to Google or look for on YouTube. Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide and Windows Command Line Beginner's Guide were intended to give people a good beginning foundation on the topic. And since the books have been out for 12 years, I think I've achieved that achieved that goal. I've gotten many emails from people who found themselves suddenly forced to use Linux. My favorite was from a teacher who unexpectedly found himself teaching a high school computer science class one week before it actually began. They said that the book helped them come to grips with the Linux Command Line. I'm glad that was helpful. I'm glad that the book has helped people, which is why I've kept them at $0.99 for over a decade now. And if you are learning command line for the first time and you're one of the people who bought the book recently, I hope it is helpful. 00:07:00 Main Topic: 7 Things You Shouldn't Put on Your Book Cover Our main topic this week is seven things you shouldn't put on your book cover. We have talked a lot about book cover design and related topics on this podcast so I thought would be a good idea to take a look at seven things you shouldn't put on your book cover. It is a delicate balance to get a cover that is eye-catching and represents what you want people to know about your book without being either offensive or boring. Studying other covers in your genre is a great start for learning how to make successful covers and to match what people expect to see on a cover. Amazon has a broad “material we deem inappropriate or offensive” sentence in its guidance about inappropriate covers. So how do you know what makes for an inappropriate cover? As a general rule, over my book covers I've avoided any sort of nudity and no weapons pointed at the reader. If you have weapons on your cover, such as swords or guns or whatever, they should not be pointed at the reader. More specific questions you can ask yourself about whether something is inappropriate for book cover are: would someone be embarrassed or nervous to be seen with this book cover on the subway? Thanks to ereaders and phones, you can read whatever you want on the subway or the bus without people knowing what you're reading but if you have a paper book, would you be embarrassed to be seen with this cover in public? Would you have to hide this cover from a grandparent, a former teacher, or a teenager? Is this the kind of cover you would not want them to see? Would a newspaper be uncomfortable printing this cover as part of a story and would a local bookstore not be excited to have this cover in their window for the entire community to see? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, you may want to rethink your book cover. And now on to our actual list of seven things you should not put on your book cover. #1: Awards that no one has heard of or bestseller lists besides the New York Times. If your book has won an award that isn't super well known like the Hugo or the National Book Award or the Edgar, etcetera, it shouldn't take up real estate on your cover. It's definitely not worth chasing some of those random tiny book awards that focus on Indies, some of which are more sketchy than others, just to have a shiny gold metal on your cover. If people don't know the award, it's at best confusing and at worst makes it look like the book couldn't win a real award. New York Times is the only bestseller list the average reader would care about, maybe USA Today if you were on it before it ended. And similarly, advertising your Amazon ranking on your cover is cringey and looks desperate, so unless you've won a prestigious award that people who are outside the book world would have heard of, it's probably a good idea to not put any awards on your book cover. #2: Low resolution images and text and font that can't be read in thumbnail. Both too small and too stylized are problems. Test out your thumbnail on both color and an E Ink screens because you want it to be comprehensible and legible in both formats in thumbnail. Low resolution or pixelated images make your book look cheap and low effort, which will be especially noticeable and regrettable in print versions. Never zoom into a JPEG unless the JPEG is high enough resolution to support it. In any kind of photo editing or cover design, you want to work with the highest resolution photos possible because there naturally are more pixels to work with, and then you can do more things with it or zoom in a bit without it becoming appearing pixelated, which is not possible with low resolution images. So you'll want to avoid those for your book cover. #3 of things you should not put on your book cover are images you don't own or AI generated images. Copyright matters. If you don't own the image or a license to use it, you're infringing on someone's copyright and they can respond legally or send take down notices to the places where your book is sold. Be careful about using Creative Commons sites, since copyrighted work frequently ends up on those sites. Also, many Creative Common photos are restricted from commercial use and/or the artists require attribution. Tread carefully and make sure you understand the conditions for using images with Creative Common licenses. For myself, I source my images either from reputable stack photo sites like Dreamstime.com or I use pictures I've taken myself, or I use images generated by Daz 3D. Because of the way DAS 3D licensing works, you can use any 2D images you generate from their 3D assets. If you generate a 2D image from those assets, you have the right to use it. As for AI generated images, read Amazon's and the other site's instructions on the use of the AI carefully before making something with the assistance of AI or wholly by AI. It's possible Amazon and the other bookstores in the future may somehow penalize work created with AI, so it's not worth risking future problems by not disclosing AI use properly. Also, many people feel very strongly negative feelings about AI Art and associate it with books created using ChatGPT. As of right now on Amazon, if you publish a book, there is a check box you have to check saying that no elements of the book or its cover were created using AI. If you don't check that then your book has a little notice once published saying created with the assistance of AI, which can of course turn people off. And I suspect that Amazon added that so that if some point the legal environment turns against AI, they have a quick and easy way to say they're in compliance and getting rid of most of the AI generated content on their site. So for now, I would strongly recommend that you avoid using AI generated images on your cover. #4: The fourth thing you shouldn't put on your book cover is ineffective review quotes. One or two word reviews on covers like “magical” or “thrilling book” saying nothing about the book and make it look like there wasn't much that was positive to say in the reviews. Conversely, long reviews take up too much space on the cover and end up being hard to read. Someone who isn't well known or a celebrity public figure outside of your genre will look odd or someone who uses a random five star review from Goodreads, like for example Beth from Milwaukee says “I couldn't put it down.” Since the reader likely doesn't know Beth from Milwaukee, it's hard to be excited about her opinion or use Beth from Milwaukee's taste to compare with their own. Many people (often correctly) assume that the reviewer is paid or incentivized to write the review, and that it isn't sincere. For a public figure/celebrity/author, their review on your cover could be a liability later on if they end up associated with some type of scandal or crime. There is a major scandal going down right now with a major fantasy writer who, it turns out may have been involved in many inappropriate relationships (some of them may have been criminal, though none of this had been confirmed yet), and I bet a lot of people who have this major fantasy author's blurb quotes on their book cover are kind of wishing they could take it off right now. Another potential pitfall is copyright, because technically anyone who writes reviews owns the copyright to that review. So if you quote, for example, from a random Amazon review, you technically don't have permission to do that unless you actually go out and get permission. So that is something to be aware of with quoting reviews on your cover. It's generally not worth the hassle in my opinion. #5: So the fifth thing you should not put on your book cover is scantily clad, shirtless, or nude people. Amazon does penalize authors for this, but the enforcement has always been rather inconsistent. The idea is that on Amazon there is what is something that's called “The Erotica Dungeon” where works that feature erotica or erotica style elements on their cover end up and they're not found by general search and you can only get to them through direct links. There's always problems with this, where people who actually do write erotica try to game the system so their books are visible outside of “The Erotica Dungeon” and people who don't write erotica but are mistakenly classified as it end up in “The Erotica Dungeon.” One of the surefire ways to end up in “The Erotica Dungeon” is to have scantily clad, shirtless, or nude people on your book cover. Amazon says book covers are not supposed to contain pornography, which is an intentionally vague warning from Amazon, which means they can interpret it however they want and they need to. Some people find any amount of scantily clad people on a book cover to be gross, awkward, offensive, or embarrassing, even without having to carry the physical book cover around in public or at home. Some people think it makes the book looks like it's from the 1980s or the Fabio era of romance novels, and some people think it means the book is low quality or just erotica. Overall, I found that this tends to get enforced on Amazon when people complain about it, so overall it's best to avoid having scantily clad people in your book cover because it can become a problem for you later on. And in my opinion, in general, it's just in poor taste. #6: The sixth thing you shouldn't have on your book cover is explicit violence/gore. Some people find this a little tricky to define because if you have, for example, on your book cover you have a man holding a sword and he's like making a dramatic pose, is that violence? Not really, no. But if you have the man, you know, driving the sword into someone's, you know, mouth and blood is exploding on the back of the guy's head, then that is definitely violence and will lead to your book being flagged. It's very hard to incorporate violence and gore well on your cover and could lead to your book getting flagged. You'll notice that most with thriller or horror stories, which are often very violent. You know, the typical thriller story has, you know, the hero mowing down a bunch of bad guys and horror stories, often are quite violent, especially ones with, you know, serial killers or slashers. But they often don't have scenes from the books on the covers. It's a common convention for thriller novel to have a man with his back to the camera walking towards like the US Capitol, or something under a moody dramatic sky and a horror novel will have, like, you know, an abandoned looking house or a spooky looking forest on the cover or something of that nature. You notice that's not explicit violence. And it's a case where definitely less is more, and being understated is a better idea than being explicit. Anything that shows violence or abuse against children is very likely to be flagged, so avoid that. And then finally, guns on book covers used to be forbidden, but this seems less of a problem now, provided the gun isn't pointed at a person. I've had a couple of book covers where a person is holding a gun, some Nadia ones. Avenging Fire and the Silent Order covers used to have people holding like future guns on them, but so long as the gun isn't pointed at a person or at the reader, then generally you're probably going to be okay. So just keep in mind that sometimes with violence on book covers, less is definitely more. #7: The seventh and final thing that you should not have on your book cover is hate speech. Now hate speech is one of those things that is notoriously difficult to define, especially in the United States with the 1st Amendment and people constantly argue about what it is or what it isn't or whether something is hate speech or isn't. And of course there's a spectrum to it where someone says something that's very obviously hate speech and can't be construed in any other way to a whole range of other statements that could be interpreted in different ways. But when it comes to book covers, Amazon specifically defines hate speech as “what we determine to be hate speech” and does not give specifics. So that said, it's pretty easy to practically define it as anything that Amazon thinks makes it look bad or could harm their sales across the platform. So if you bear that in mind, it's probably pretty easy to avoid hate speech on your book cover, especially if you're writing about sensitive political topics. And again, that could be an example where once again you don't want to go too explicit, and it's probably fairly easy to avoid putting something that could be construed as hate speech on your book cover. So those are seven things you definitely do not want to put on your book cover. 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 on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your view on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In this week's episode, we take a look at the pros and cons of KDP Print and Ingram Spark, and see which one works best for helping indie authors make excellent print books. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 215 of the Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is August 23rd, 2024 and today we are looking at KDP Print and Ingram Spark and seeing which is the better choice for indie authors seeking to make print books. Before we get to our main topic, we will have an update on my current writing projects and the Question of the Week. My current main project is Shield of Conquest and I pleased to report I am 74,000 words into it, which puts me on Chapter 16 of 23. It helps that I had a 10,000 word day for it this week and another 10,000 word day for last week, which of course really moves the needle forward. I am also 37,000 words into Ghosts in the Tombs, which will be my next book after Shield of Conquest. Then after Shield of Conquest will come Cloak of Illusion and I am 7,000 words into that. So good progress all around. In audiobook news, recording for Half-Orc Paladin is almost done. Hopefully that should be wrapped up next week and then that will be available in audiobook before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects. 00:01:10 Question of the Week Now let's take a look at Question of the Week. I haven't had time to do Question of the Week since July, so let's do one now: If you enjoy reading about history, what is your favorite historical period to read about? No wrong answers, obviously. We had a range of responses to this one. Our first responses from Justin who says: My favorite historical periods are Roman (both Republic and The Empire) and American French and Indian War through The Civil War. The US was blessed to have the leaders that founded it. They were not perfect, but they were very good indeed. What's interesting about that is if you read any biographies about George Washington, you'll find out what he probably wanted more than anything in life was prestige and recognition and I think deep down, he very much would have liked to have been, you know, King George The First of The United States, but at the moment of crisis, he was able to refuse the crown and be only president, be only Mr. President, instead of a king. So that is probably one of the reasons the United States has lasted as long as it has. Our next response comes from AM who says: The 1964-965 World's Fair in New York is a moment when the American corporate optimism of the ‘50s came crashing into the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination and growing civil unrest (some of which was caused by the fair organizer's policies and decisions as an urban planner in New York City). It introduced both video calls and Belgian waffles to the General American public. It also had a massive impact on pop culture and several of the attractions Disney created for it still exist today: The Carousel of Progress, It's a Small World, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, and the pieces of Ford's Magic Skyway that are still viewable via Disneyland's railroad. Our next comment is from Sue, who says: for me, definitely Medieval/Tudor history, although I love all history. I was one of the few of my year at school who chose to study history rather than geography. Maybe that's why I get easily lost in a new place, lol. William says: I have had the feeling that I should read more on the Holy Roman Empire, but all those princedoms and rulers with complex family names makes it a bit daunting. He is entirely right about that. The history of the Holy Roman Empire is indeed quite complicated. Catriona says: I have two. The English Civil War and Medieval British history pre-Norman invasion. Although truth be told, I love history in all respects. I left the UK 20 years ago and have been in Asia ever since, and am in awe of Angkor Wat, the Great Wall of China, and the history here. Andrew says: The US Civil War. My dad bought a war game in the early ‘80s and got me hooked, followed by Napoleonic Wars. Jeanne says: I've been recently reading a lot on early British history, from the Roman period to the early Medieval period. The history of the British Isles is fascinating because it is made of so many different peoples, languages, and cultures that have all had an influence on modern Great Britain. Barbara says: early English history for me. Anything from William the Conqueror to Richard the Lionheart and Prince John. Richard was popular at the time because of the chivalry, but John was a much better ruler even though he was hated. And John says: Europe 1500 through 1700, also known as “Knights with Guns.” For myself, it's hard to pin down since it will be whatever catches my interest at any given time. Like when I visited the battlefield of Chickamauga in 2022, I went on a long reading spiral about the US Civil War. When I watched Season Four of The Crown, I wound up reading about Thatcher-era Britain to see all the many details that the show got wrong. When I recently read Ghost on the Throne about the Diadochi, the heirs of Alexander the Great, I did a lot of supplemental reading about Alexander the Great and the Wars of the Diadochi as well. Back in 2010, I beat Medieval 2: Total War as the Byzantine Empire faction, so after that I did kind of a deep dive on Byzantine history. All that said, I think two historical periods I read about the most are the second half of the Roman Republic, specifically from the 2nd Punic War to the victory of Augustus and the high Medieval period of Western Europe from about the Norman conquest to the Black Death. I had to laugh when the “how often does your boyfriend think about the Roman Empire?” meme was popular last year because I do actually think about the Roman Republic/Empire a lot, but mostly to mine it for inspiration for fantasy novels. Obviously, the High Medieval period also provides a lot of potential ideas for fantasy books. That said, those two historical periods offer a lot of examples of a fascinating riddle that has no answer: can a good person also be an effective leader who acts in the best interests of his people? Like, Caesar Augustus and King Henry I of England were in questionably very bad men who did a lot of very bad things, yet they're rated among the more effective Roman emperors and English kings because they brought peace and order to their respective realms, whether their realms wanted it or not. Monastic chroniclers at the time said that in King Henry's day, a virgin girl carrying a bag of gold could travel unharmed across England, and while this is obviously a political exaggeration, Henry did in fact impose peace and order on England during his reign. Of course, a bad man can often be a bad leader as well, but I'm afraid one of the unfortunate realities of the human condition is that effective leadership does require a good deal of ruthlessness, and you see a lot of that in both the Roman and in the Medieval periods- bad men who were good leaders and bad men who were also bad leaders. 00:06:33 Main Topic: KDP Print vs. Ingram Spark But this is not a history podcast. This is a podcast about writing and indie publishing, so let's move on over to our main topic, whether KDP Print or Ingram Spark would be better for indies to use to produce their print books. There's an obvious question to ask first: why have print books? There's a couple of different reasons. Some people prefer print books (not as many as they used to), but some people still read print books over ebooks whenever possible. Some people enjoy books both as physical objects and collectibles, and some people enjoy giving books as a gift. Giving a physical book to someone is generally a more satisfying experience than emailing them a code to download the book off their favorite ereader. It is also easier to share print books between people. That way you can read the book and give it to a family member or friend who wants to read it as well without having to purchase an additional copy. It is also an additional source of revenue for indie authors, not a huge source (with certain exceptions). Most indie authors will make more from their ebooks than they will from their print books, but there is potential revenue in print books as well. I checked right before I started recording this podcast and of the money I made from Amazon in 2024 so far this year, about 1.8% of it came from print books. You might say 1.8%, that's not that much. But in this economic climate, I don't think anyone who wants to stay in business should turn away an additional 1.8 percent of revenue. Both KDP Print and Ingram Spark use what's called on demand printing, and we should explain what that is before we go any further. Printing books for self-published writers used to be kind of a nightmarish experience. You might, if you're familiar with the publishing industry at all, might have heard the old joke about how that if you self-publish, you're going to end up with a garage full of books and that did in fact happen to many people. They decided in the 2000s and before that they wanted to self-publish their own books. So they had a contract with the printer and the printer would probably have like a minimum order of like 5,000 copies or something. So you'd have to buy that, and then you'd have your garage full of boxes of books and you'd have to hand sell or find a way to sell all those books one at a time. It was a very unpleasant experience and I'm glad I never tried it, and that I'm fortunate enough to live at a time when the technology has improved quite a bit. Print on demand works that basically it's like one copy is printed whenever you get one order; there's no inventory kept on hand. If you've bought indie books off Amazon, you might notice there's a bit of delay because the book first has to be printed and bound and then it gets shipped to you. This is by contrast to a traditional published book where if say, for example, Stephen King publishes a new novel, there will probably be an initial print round of like 100,000 copies or some equally large number, and then they'll only print more if those initial 100,000 copies sell out. This is a very inefficient and cumbersome system, so you can see why ebooks and print on demand are much more economical and environmentally friendly, if you are worried about that. That said, it doesn't actually have to be a choice of KDP Print versus Ingram Spark. They in some ways do different things, and as of today, August 23rd, 2024, you can use both essentially. They're not exclusive and you can do different kinds of print books through both. But we'll get to that in a little bit. Another important thing to be aware of as you're going to do print books is to have realistic expectations and mindset about it. I've noticed many new or younger authors have the dream they're going to get their book on a physical shelf in a physical store or library, but realistically that does not make a lot of financial sense for most people. Most authors (myself among them), will sell much more in ebooks than in the time it would take to chase down individual bookstores and individual libraries and try to sell print books to them. Bookstores and libraries are frequently overwhelmed with requests from indie authors, especially local indie authors, wanting to put their books in their stores. They may have created specific policies in response to that demand, and you may want to check their website before trying to get a local bookstore or a library to carry your book. If you do want to get your book into a physical store, it is an uphill battle, and frankly, it's probably not worth the time it would take you to sell to fight that battle. Shelf space in bookstores is both limited and shrinking, especially as bookstores sell more things like toys or stationery/lifestyle items which have a bigger profit margin than books, and you don't have the resources as an indie author to compete against the Big 5 for space on those shelves. Bookstores usually expect a discount of around 35 to 45% off retail as well, which means the higher cost of printing on demand makes this very difficult and gives indies the big disadvantage of getting a book into a bookstore. Now I know it sounds like I just was talking down print books quite a bit, but like I said, 1.8% extra revenue. So most of your print book sales will probably be online and probably from people who order directly, like your readers who most enjoy your book and want a physical copy for their collection or readers who will buy the physical book and give it as a gift to someone they want to give it as a present to. I should note that I've been talking about applies to fiction, but the rules are slightly different when it comes to nonfiction. I should note that my nonfiction book, the Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide across its entire lifetime, fully 25% of its sales have been in paperback. Because that is if people need specific nonfiction in print, especially if it's a technical nonfiction where they can refer back to it like my Linux book, then they will be more likely to order it in print. So that is something else to bear in mind as we now dive into the next section of the show, the difference between KDP Print and Ingram Spark. We will look at the pros and cons for both. For KDP Print (that is Amazon's program for selling print books on their site), the pros are it's obviously the best option for selling print books on Amazon, and it's not uncommon for people to use KDP Print for selling paper books on Amazon and then some other service for selling paper books at other online stores. There are no setup fees and there is a window where you can make changes without a fee. The reporting is either real time or real close to real time and you can see print sales next to ebook sales stats. Like when I was referencing various sales figures throughout the recording of the show, I just paused quickly to check on my KDP dashboard and was able to pull up the figures with a couple of clicks. Pricing is an advantage. Amazon offers the most favorable rate for selling directly on Amazon. In return, Amazon controls the minimum price for the book, kind of like they do for audiobooks, which is usually pretty similar to the cost of printing and shipping. When you set up a print book on KDP Print, Amazon will say based on its size, this is the minimum price. You have to sell at this price and you can't go any lower and then you can set the price however high you want. Usually it's best to set the price so that you get about $3 or so per copy or if you go into expand distribution, that you get dollar per copy of it sold. Expanded distribution, we're going to talk about right now in the con section of KDP Print. There are frequently issues with third party sellers. The problem is that KDP Print offers something called expanded distribution, where if you check that box, your book will be sold through Amazon on a variety of different sites like Barnes and Noble and other physical bookstores that have the online store for a reduced rate. So for example, if you sell a copy of your KDP Print book, you get $3 on Amazon, through expanded distribution you'd get like $1.00. The problem with that is it doesn't always work right. Many of the stores don't always integrate properly with Amazon, so the book will show up, but the cover will be missing or the book just won't show up at all, or some of the stores only update like every month or even quarterly sometimes. So that can be a problem as well. KDP Print, like many print on demand services, does not offer the ability to make books returnable, which is something bookstores expect and want, and most physical bookstores will not take a book that is not returnable. There's a cultural component there as well. Most physical bookstores, especially most independent physical bookstores, do not want to order books from their biggest enemy, Amazon, and will flatly refuse if you ask. Some and even a significant number of libraries are unable to order print books from Amazon or it requires more paperwork or effort for them to do so, and therefore they don't really want to bother. Now let's take a look at KDP Print's main rival Ingram Spark, which is another print on demand service. The premise for this is that Ingram Spark is much better at Amazon at selling books at non-Amazon bookstores, which of course makes a lot of sense. It's also easier to sell to libraries from Ingram Spark than it is from KDP Print. You do have more freedom in pricing the book, which you have to be careful for because it is possible to set things up so that you lose money with every book sale, which Amazon KDP Print does not let you do for obvious reasons. Opinions may differ, but some people do think the covers and interiors look nicer from Ingram Spark for than they do from KDP, and you can order bulk copies at wholesale prices, which you can't really do on KDP Print. You sort of can- you can order things at the author rates, but Ingram Spark has a bigger discount for that. You can also produce a bigger variety of books through Ingram Spark in different paperback sizes and different hardback sizes. So all that sounds good, but there is a pretty significant list of cons as well. There are set up fees for each title, which there are not for Amazon KDP Print. Additionally, if you make any change to the book whatsoever after it is published, any change at all, whether it's a new cover, fixing a typo in the text, whatever, you have to pay a fee for any change you make in the book after it is published. Unsurprisingly, it is harder to sell an Ingram Spark book on Amazon than it is anywhere else. Some people say (and I have no way of confirming this) that Amazon artificially increases the delivery times for these titles, but it's probably more likely is that Ingram Spark would have to print the book, ship it to Amazon, and then Amazon would have to ship it to the customer, which would add quite a bit of roundabout travel to the book, which is why some indie authors who are very into print sales tend to use KDB Print for any books that sell on Amazon, and they restrict those books to Amazon and sell their wide books at other bookstores using Ingram Spark. So what conclusion can we draw from this? If you only have time to pursue one, go with KDP Print since Amazon is the majority of print sales, especially in the US right now. That's what I do. If I wanted to do more elaborate paperback books, I would probably go through Ingram Spark, but KDP Print is pretty good at meeting my needs. Unless something changes drastically, I will probably keep doing that for the foreseeable future. However, if you have the time and the ability to do both, it is advantageous to do both. You will need separate ISBNs. You get an ISBN from Amazon and an ISBN from Ingram for the edition of the book you do through there. You could do books through KDP Print and have them just on Amazon and then have the books for the other stores, have those go through just Ingram Spark. This is a bit more work, but if you are an author who is very interested in print books or does a lot of business in print books, that may be advantageous for you to pursue. So to sum up, KDP Print is the simpler, easier option and is probably good enough for most indie authors, whereas Ingram Spark offers a lot more options but is more expensive to use and probably requires greater knowledge to use effectively. But remember, if you are an indie author, you probably will still be making most of your money on ebooks so don't stress out too much about the paper books. And as I mentioned before, my Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide, I got 25% of its revenue from its lifetime from the print book, but that means 75% of the revenue still came from the ebook. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

SHOW NOTES If this is your first time listening, Monica is the reason you are listening – she was my best friend but much more like a sister, mentor, mom and encourager for almost 20 years.  She was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma and in the 6 months that she lived, walked out a faith that most (including me called crazy).  I was honored to be her caretaker and lived out the most awful and awesome 6 months with her. This week I want to share the chapter on What is Faith Then? In the Dying to Be Healed book. I want to show you what I saw as I reflected on her journey that helped me on mine.  Next week, I'll share the chapter on Going After God. This will describe my ugly faith journey because of Monica's crazy faith.  Your faith is being tested now and there is no right or wrong to feel…you feel what you feel, so don't worry if you question God more than you praise him. Grief will flip life and everything you believe on its head.  What's important now is that you take action in the right direction… If you want to read more about Monica or her journey, go to the website, grief-the number2-great day.com and click on the book tab.  This is not a book on grief, it is a book about faith in the hardest of circumstances and may be helpful to you!   WORD of the Week   “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1) Song of the Week   This I Know by Monica King  (posted on FB)   Grief 2 Great Day Website - Connect with Me Click Here to take Action Now - “The First Year of Grief. How to Survive with Hope and Heal.”   Join The Grief Group for Christian Women on Facebook Read about Monica's entire Journey, Dying to Be Healed - Book - Grief2GreatDay   The holidays are over, but the struggle is NOT!  Hear from Those Who Have Walked Your Journey!  Holiday Grief Relief Summit (replay recording)   Visit my Church –Opendoor Church | Home  

In this week's episode, I rank the movies and streaming shows I saw in the first half of summer 2024. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction, Writing Updates, and Reader Question Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 210 of the Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 19th, 2024, and today we are discussing the movies and streaming shows I watched for the first half of summer 2024. Before that, we'll have an update on my current writing projects and then we will go into Question of the Week. So, my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that the rough draft of Half Orc Paladin is finished at about 81,500 words. Next up, I'm writing a short story called Paladin's Hunt that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook form when Half Orc Paladin is out, hopefully in early August. I'm also 23,000 words into Ghosts in the Tombs. I'm not 100% decided what I'm going to write next once Half Orc Paladin is out. I have to make a decision soon obviously, but it's probably going to be either Shield of Conquest or Cloak of Illusion. In audiobook news, the audiobook Wizard-Thief, as narrated by Leanne Woodward, is almost done. It's just got to get through the various approvals at the audiobook sites, so hopefully that should be out in early August. Recording is going to start very soon on Shield of Darkness. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects. We have a question about the Shield War series from reader EM, who writes in to ask: I was rereading Shield of Darkness and occurred to me that Connmar Pendragon would have had a much easier time finding his way to Owyllain if he had a Corsair Lord or whatever they called themselves back then, who had the Hidden Eye navigating for him. Am I right and this will be revealed in the Shield Wars series? No, Connmar did not have a Corsair or anyone with the Hidden Eye ability navigating for him, and he basically found his way to Owyllain by accident. At that time, there were people living on the Isle of Kordain, but they hadn't really coalesced around the Corsairs of the Isle of Kordain as their national identity yet. I mean the process was underway but hadn't reached the form it would by the time of the Frostborn series. And while some of them had the Hidden Eye ability, they hadn't quite fully understood what it meant yet, and they hadn't lived on the isle long enough for the mutilations from the dwarven engines to fully take hold. We'll reveal more details about that in Shield of Conquest when I write that as my next book or the book after my next book. 00:02:26 Question of the Week Now on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire enjoyable discussion of interesting topics. This week's question: subscription services such as Kindle Unlimited, Spotify, Netflix, Thrive Market and Xbox Game Pass are an inevitable part of modern life. If you have a subscription service, which one is your favorite? No wrong answers and bear in mind that “subscription services all cost too much and I hit them all with the fiery consuming heat of 1,000 cores of 1,000 suns” is a perfectly acceptable answer as well. Surabhi said: Disney Plus, because Marvel movies are my therapy. Ray says: I only use Bookbub and Google Play. Justin says: I do not use subscription services. I prefer to purchase the books, games, and programs I buy outright rather than rent them. Connectivity can be a problem where I am so being able to read, work, or play without being tethered to the Internet is a good thing. That is something to keep in mind when considering a subscription service. If you have questionable Internet connectivity in your area, that may not be the best choice to sign up for a subscription service that relies on the Internet. Our next comment is from Venus, who says: I can't afford any subscriptions services, although if Barnes and Noble did one for ebooks, I'd consider working something out. I refuse to support Amazon and don't like the fact that apparently books on Kindle Unlimited can't be anywhere else. That is indeed one of the annoying features of the Kindle Unlimited program, which is why only four of my 153 novels are currently on Kindle Unlimited. Barbara says: my husband and daughter subscribe to some streaming services, but I'm not sure which ones. I don't subscribe to any. I don't watch television. I already own the games I play and I purchased my digital books so I don't have to give them back. John says: I think I get by far the most bang for the buck from Amazon Prime, but my favorite subscription service is probably my local weekly seafood delivery service, Sea Forager. Bonnie says: I gave up the ones I had because I don't watch TV anymore and can't afford it. I have Prime, but only really use it for ebooks. If I need background noise, I use local radio. Local radio remains free, so I suppose that is the most cost effective of all the subscription services. Juana says: Kindle seems to have the most content and good price. I looked at the other platforms, too. Becca says: I have Prime and agree it has a ton of benefits. I canceled Netflix because it doesn't work on my TV. Hulu has some great shows (I recommend Crazy Fun Park, an Australian teen show about ghosts and friendships and changes. Surprisingly mature and well-acted). William says: given the sheer quantity of great Star Wars series that Disney produces, theirs is hard to beat. Gary says: Spotify. David says: for value, you can't beat Prime: movies, free shipping, and music. Netflix is very good for original content and Hulu for old stuff. And Joseph says: I also have Prime mostly for the free shipping. Everything else there is just a bonus. I also have Kindle Unlimited. Totally worth it for me as I read daily and read two or three hundred books a year. That is down from 400 to 500 the first couple years of retirement. It is diverse enough that I can always find a good read. For myself, the one I enjoy most is Nintendo Switch Online. I'll pay for a month of Netflix when they have something I want to see and then we'll cancel again after I've seen it.  I used to have Xbox Game Pass, but all I ever actually play on the Xbox is Skyrim, Starfield, and the first three Halo games, so there is no point in keeping it. But Nintendo Switch Online lets you get the classic Mario and Zelda games from the NES and Super Nintendo era. Given that Nintendo's attitude towards the legacy properties tends to veer between complete indifference and wrathful litigation depending upon the month, it's good that Nintendo offers a relatively affordable way to get them legally because at my age, sometimes the best way to relax at the end of the night is to just play a few levels of the original Super Mario Brothers. So that's it for Question of the Week this week. 00:06:26 Main Topic: Summer 2024 Movie/TV Show Review And now let's move on to our main topic: 2024 Summer Movie Roundup, Part 1. Summer always has a lot of movies, so I usually split the Summer Movie Roundup post in two halves and this would be Part 1. I was surprised at the number of sports movies I watched this time, since, as I've mentioned before, I don't usually follow professional sports all that closely. That said, while the NFL and the NBA might not have quite the cultural hegemony they had at their peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, they're still hugely central to American culture. I don't think you can really understand the United States without grasping the central role of professional sports in mainstream culture. I expect there's a similar phenomenon with association football clubs in the UK and many European countries. Besides, one of the abilities of good storytelling is to make you interested in a story about a topic you might not otherwise care about, like athletic shoes. So here are the movies and shows I watched in the first half of summer 2024, ranked from worst to best. As always, the rankings are totally subjective and based on nothing but my own opinions and observations. So first up is Madam Webb, which came out in 2024. Oofffff. This wasn't quite the crime against cinema that the Internet thought it was, but it still wasn't great. Sony has the rights to a bunch of Spider-man adjacent characters, and the company is holding those in a death grip and has been trying to make a Spider-man Cinematic Universe happen for some time, with mixed results. The Tom Hardy Venom movies had been pretty good, the others, not so much. The plot of Madam Webb: cynical and jaded EMT Cassandra Webb works with her partner Ben Parker (later in the Uncle Ben of Spider-man fame) and is almost drowned in an accident. While drowned, Cassandra starts developing precognition and clairvoyant powers. She starts seeing visions of three young women who will be murdered by a powerful real estate developer named Ezekiel. Turns out that Ezekiel has Spider-man powers that also include precognition, and he wants to kill the girls before they someday kill him. The scenes where Cassandra wonders if she is going mad, but gradually starts to realize that she can see the future were actually quite good and cleverly laid out since they did in sort of a time loop where she experiences the event before it happens. That said, this movie could have been an interesting concept, but it didn't really work. For one thing, the dialogue was just clunky. Dialogue is a hard, hard art to master, both in movies and writing novels (as I know first-hand). But Madame Webb didn't get there. Many of the dialogue scenes were just wooden. Additionally, the movie felt padded and drawn out, which is interesting because the runtime was under two hours. Ultimately, I think Madam Webb succumbed to the illness of a shared cinematic universe. It felt like the incomplete prologue to a more interesting movie, and not every side character in the Spider-man mythos needs an origin story. The trick to making a shared cinematic universe is that each movie must stand alone on its own, especially in the beginning, and the stories have to be interesting. Madam Webb, alas, couldn't quite manage either. Overall grade: D- Next up is The Acolyte, a streaming series which came out in 2024. There is quite a furor about this show on social media, but you can't believe most of what you see on social media. To be blunt about it, I've come to believe that social media is designed to induce mental illness in as many of its users as possible in order to increase their time spent on the site, which in turn raises ad revenue. Very cynical. But I suspect that's the basic business model of Facebook and YouTube, which is why you see so much rage-filled clickbait on both sites, since that's what drives engagement and increases revenue, but that's a problem beyond the scope of a movie review podcast episode. Back to The Acolyte. I would say that The Acolyte wasn't the crime against cinema that YouTube thought it was but instead an uneven mixture of some strong points and some weaknesses. The plot: former Jedi Osha has left the Order and is working as a mechanic on a trade federation starship. Meanwhile, a woman who looks exactly like her has started murdering Jedi Masters. Osha is arrested for the murders, but her former teacher, Jedi master Sol, quickly figures out that the murderer is in fact Osha's twin sister Mae, who has been presumed dead for the last sixteen years. Osha reluctantly tagged along with Sol to help track down Mae, which means she needs to delve into the dark secrets of her past and discover who trained Mae to be a Jedi killing assassin. The Jedi assume a renegade member of the Order must have trained Mae because the Sith had been extinct for a long, long time. Or have they? This show did have its strong points. The lightsaber fights looked good and were fun to watch. Lee Junge-jae as Sol, Manny Jacinto as Qimir, Charlie Bennett as Yord, and Dafne Keen as Jecki all gave good performances. In particular, they stole episode 5, which was overall the strongest episode of the series. The design of the Sith Lord's helmet (dubbed Darth Teeth or Smilo Ren by the Internet) was good. The nods to the old Expanded Universe, like cortosis ore, were nice. There was enough of a compelling mystery -who is the Sith Lord and what actually happened in the twin's past- that can hook the viewer through to the end of the series. The show also did a good job of showing how complacent and political the Jedi had become, to the point where 100 years later the Jedi High Council would meet with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine every day for thirteen years and completely failed to realize that he was in fact the Sith Master who had been pulling the strings all along. That said, I think the show did have four significant problems. 1: the whole good twin/evil twin thing was kind of lame. Playing identical twins is hard for any actor, and sometimes I had a hard time keeping track of whether Osha or Mae was in a particular scene. I kind of wish the characters had been brother and sister, or at least not identical twins so they had been easier to tell apart. 2: As much as I appreciated the nods to the Expanded Universe, I think it relied too heavily on them and assumed the audience had a high level of Star Wars knowledge, like the weird Force cult where Osha and Mae grew up. In the Expanded Universe, there are all kinds of weird half-baked cults with an incomplete knowledge of the Force that run into serious problems when they encounter an actual Jedi or an actual Sith. One advantage of visual media over novels is that it's much easier to show instead of tell, but I don't think Acolyte explained its premises well. The Mandalorian explained its premises better, gradually exposing the viewer to the Mandalorian's culture as he dealt with the Monster of the Week. Mando gradually learned about the Force and the Jedi, a race of enemy sorcerers, as he tried to save The Child from the Imperial Remnant. By contrast, The Acolyte kind of dropped viewers into the middle of things, didn't bother to explain any ambiguities, and simply assumed they would all understand the references. 3: The problem with the Jedi Order is that its philosophy is essentially stupid. The reason for that is that Jedi philosophy is basically a highly watered-down version of 1970s style Hollywood Buddhism, which is itself a tremendously watered down version of actual Buddhism. The Jedi are basically left with “don't feel fear or anger” and “don't get attached to people” but lack the religious and philosophical underpinnings which would allow those concepts to make sense in actual Buddhism. In real life, eventually we learn that both suppressing anger and fear or allowing it to dominate us is unhealthy. Both anger and fear serve useful functions. Fear warns of danger and anger is a good response when one is forced into circumstances where you have no choice but to fight. Anger and fear make for good servants, but awful masters, but Jedi philosophy completely misses that point. 4th and finally: the show was the wrong genre for the kind of moral relativism it had. Moral relativism worked well in Andor, which was a spy thriller about criminals gradually realizing that they had to fight the Empire and do terrible things while doing it. That worked because Andor was a spy thriller. By contrast, The Acolyte was about Kung Fu space wizards using space magic that literally comes in good and evil flavors. Moral relativism works less well in that kind of setting where there is literally good or evil space magic. So I would say Acolyte was a mixed bag. I admit, if there's a second season, I'll watch it just because I want to see what happens, but given Disney's significant financial woes, that seems unlikely. Overall grade: C- Next up is Unfrosted, which came out in 2024. It is an absurdist comedic retelling of the creation of the Pop Tart breakfast food, told as sort of a parody of corporate biopics like Ford versus Ferrari and Air (which we will talk about later this episode). This movie was silly and kind of dumb, but it knew it was silly and kind of dumb and so leaned into it and therefore worked. Jerry Seinfeld plays Bob Cabana, a high-ranking employee of the Kellogg cereal company, which is locked in a bitter rivalry with the Post cereal company for the breakfast market. One day Cabana uncovers everyone at Post is working on something that will upend the breakfast market, a fruit filled breakfast pastry that can be toasted. Alarmed with this information, the CEO of Kellogg, Edsel Kellogg III (played by Jim Gaffigan as a sort of parody of ‘60s era U.S. business executives), launches a crash effort to match Post's effort. Cabana must recruit a heist style team to build Kellogg's breakfast pastry, including numerous obscure figures from 1960s pop culture. The race is on to build the Pop Tart. Anyway, this was an entertaining movie, but it has no connection to factual accuracy. Also, Bill Burr was hilarious as President Kennedy. Overall grade: B- Next up is The Hit Man, which came out in 2023. It is an amusing cross between a dark comedy and a sort of Hitchcockian thriller. Glenn Powell plays Gary Johnson, a mild mannered and somewhat ineffective philosophy professor. Due to his skill with electronics and microphones, he frequently helps out the police with sting operations. One day, the officer who usually goes in for sting operations gets suspended for beating up some teenagers and having it go viral on viral on YouTube. Gary is drafted at the last minute to go undercover as a hit man and get a suspect to contract his services. Gary does it so well that the Police Department uses him more and more and Gary starts disappearing into his roles as various hit men in a sequence which is quite funny. This works well until Gary meets Madison, a woman who wants him to kill her abusive husband. Gary talks her out of it and starts seeing her, a situation which quickly escalates out of control. It was interesting that the movie went through a sudden genre shift about 1/3 of the way through, from dark comedy to love story, a bit darker than I usually prefer, to be honest, but enjoyable nonetheless if you don't mind the strong language. That said, I watched this right after Madam Webb and the contrast between Webb's clunky and wooden dialogue and the much better written Hitman was night and day. What was interesting was that the movie only cost $8.8 million to make. Given the economic climate, I expect we will see more of this: movies that have to be disciplined about keeping the cost down, as opposed to the enormous 295 million budgets of something like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Overall grade: B- Next up is Boss Level, which came out in 2021. This movie is best described as Groundhog's Day but as an action movie. Former Special Forces soldier Roy Pulver, played by Frank Grillo, is caught in a time loop that repeats the same day over and over again, which always ends with him getting killed by assassins that have been hired to hunt him down. This happened after he tried to reconnect with his former girlfriend, a scientist working on a secret project overseen by the sinister Colonel Ventor, played by Mel Gibson. For a variety of reasons, let's just say at this point in his career, Gibson is very believable in a villain role. At first, Roy succumbs to despair in the time loop, but then decides to spend the endless day trying to reconnect with his estranged son. Eventually, this causes him to rally and fight back against the loop and he realizes that his ex-girlfriend deliberately put him into the time loop because he was the only person she knew who could stop Colonel Ventor's evil plans for his project, which turns out to be a time machine. I'd say the biggest weakness of the movie is the opening, which is a sort of record scratch “you're probably wondering how I got here” opening I complained about in Episode 203 of this podcast. Also, I think it maybe should have been five to 10 minutes longer. The ending is sort of implied but it would have been far more satisfying to have actually been shown what would happen. But overall, I like this movie. Solid B-level thriller/science fiction stuff. It's interesting to compare this to Groundhog's Day because Groundhog Day had to spend so much time establishing the premise because the plot idea of a time loop wasn't as widely known back then as it is now, whereas nowadays you just say “Groundhog Day loop” and most people will immediately know what you're talking about. Overall Grade: B Next up is Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which came out in 2024. This wasn't quite as good as Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but I still enjoyed it. In this one, Ian Spengler's daughter, her good-natured boyfriend, and her teenage children have returned to New York City to restart the Ghostbusters business. They were bankrolled by original Ghostbuster Winston Zeddmore, who is now a wealthy businessman funding a variety of ghostbusting projects. When one of Zeddmore's employees stumbles across a dangerous artifact holding a powerful ice ghost, both the new and original Ghostbusters must team up to save the day. I really like how the new Ghostbusters films handle the original characters. The original characters are no longer the main focus but they're now mentoring the new characters and providing advice and support. I like this a lot better than the Disney/Lucasfilm approach of the original character as being sad old losers that the new characters must rebel against and then surpass. It was also great that actor William Atherton returned as government apparatchik Walter Peck. Back in the first movie, Peck was an officious EPA inspector who accidentally released a ghost horde upon New York. In the grand American political tradition of tradition of failing upward, he is now the mayor of New York City and still hopes to disband the Ghostbusters. I think the movie's biggest weakness was that it was too complicated and there were a lot of different characters and moving parts to keep track of. Overall grade: B Next up is Inside Out 2, which came out in 2024. It is a terrifying descent into the nightmarish hellscape that has the mind of the average teenage girl. I am, of course joking (though, if you have teenagers, you know that I'm only mostly joking) but Inside Out 2 is a strong follow up to the first movie. In the first movie, the anthropomorphized representations of emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust) tried to control themselves inside the mind of young girl Riley. At the start of the second movie, Riley is now 13 and doing pretty well, but then puberty kicks in. Suddenly new emotions arrive in her head: Ennui, Envy, Embarrassment, and Anxiety. Anxiety in particular runs amuck and seizes control of Riley's mind. As Anxiety starts to send Riley spiraling out of control, the other emotions have to rally behind Joy and find a way to save Riley's mind and sense of self. It is both quite funny and poignant. I can see why this movie cleared a billion dollars. As of early July 2024, is the biggest box office movie of the year so far. Overall grade: A Next up is Ford versus Ferrari, which came out in 2019. This is a biopic of the rivalry between Ford Motor Company and Ferrari in the 1960s, which is an interesting bit of history. In the ‘60s, Ford Motor Company, under the leadership of Henry Ford II (founder Henry Ford's grandson), decided it needed a cooler image, much like how Microsoft bought a bunch of indie gaming studios in the 2010s so Xbox would seem cooler. So Ford Motor Company spent years negotiating with Enzo Ferrari to buy Ferrari's company. At the last minute, negotiations collapsed and Ferrari famously went on a rant insulting Ford as an ugly company that made ugly cars and also called Ford II a lesser man compared to his famous grandfather. This was a major public failure and humiliation for Ford Motor Company, and needless to say Ford II took this very, very personally. He threw a ton of resources behind Ford's racing car project with one goal: beat Ferrari at the famous Le Mans 24 hour race. To pull this off, Ford recruited Carroll Shelby (played by Matt Damon), a former racing driver who turned to race car designing because a heart condition no longer let him race. Shelby needed a driver, so he recruited Ken Miles (played by Christian Bale), a talented driver and mechanic with a combative streak and knack for making enemies. Shelby, Miles, and their team set out to build the GT40, Ford's first proper racing car. Since this is all in the historical record, it's not a spoiler to say that they succeeded in the 1966 Le Mans race. Ford Cars finished in first, second, and third positions, locking out Ferrari entirely from the podium. This was a very enjoyable biopic. All the actors disappear into their roles and give strong performances. The racing scenes all look cool. It is also interesting from a historical perspective to see how the Ford executives had a very bad habit of acting like feudal lords who would dictate their will to the consumer rather than what they actually were, which is merchants who needed to give the customer what they wanted. This attitude was one of several reasons the US auto industry hit very hard times in the 1970s. I'd say the only thing wrong with the movie is that it feels too long, though for the life of me I'm not sure what they could have cut. Overall grade: A Next up is The Last Dance, which originally came out in 2020. I originally watched this back during peak COVID, but after watching Air (which I will discuss shortly), I decided to watch this again to refresh my memory. The Last Dance is a documentary about the Chicago Bulls NBA team and the renowned three-peat champion streak back in the 1990s. I have to admit it is an amusing feeling to have lived long enough that things I lived through are now considered history and have prestige Netflix documentaries made about them. The documentary mostly revolves around the career of Michael Jordan, though it includes interviews with many other people involved in the experience of the Bulls championship run, including brief interviews with two ex U.S. Presidents. The documentary got a lot of criticism for focusing too heavily on Jordan and portraying him in a positive light, especially from the other members of the 1990s Bulls team. Interestingly, I thought Jordan did not really come across all that great on the show. He seemed somewhat vindictive and petty and prone to holding on to grudges for decades. He was presented as the sort of man who is afflicted with an all-consuming competitive streak, who is irresistibly compelled to win at everything he does, even if it's a casual golf game between friendly acquaintances. For that matter, professional basketball players in general all tend to be highly competitive type A personalities who like to win and hate to lose. Getting them all to agree on an account of events beyond the objectively observable facts is probably impossible. Despite that, I suspect the simple fact is that the Bulls would not have won their championships without Jordan. There's no denying that Jordan was probably one of the most famous people on Earth in the 1990s. Honestly, no one can stand up to that kind of scrutiny well, especially after a personal tragedy like when Jordan's father was murdered in the mid-1990s. When Jordan talks about how winning requires complete focus and absolute dedication, I'm afraid that he's right. Winning in the competition at a level like the NBA does require 110% focus, even to the detriment of every other aspect of one's life. I've heard athletes say that champions have no balance and Jordan himself seems to be a living example of both the benefits and the extremely high personal costs of that. Amusing anecdote: when I originally watched this documentary in late 2020, I texted my brother that he should check it out because I thought he would enjoy it. His response was something along the line said he had seen when it first came out on ESPN and I really ought to engage with the culture more. Overall grade: A Now for the best movie I saw in the first half of summer 2024 and that would be Air, which came out in 2023 and is related to our sports documentary topics. This is a movie about Michael Jordan and his family negotiating deal with Nike about the Air Jordan shoe. I didn't expect to like this movie very much, but it turns out it is quite excellent. As I mentioned earlier, in full disclosure, I have minimal interest in the NBA and while I could tell you the NBA team of the US state in which I currently reside, I think if pressed, off the top of my head, I could probably tell you the name of maybe five other NBA teams. Additionally, I lived through the 1990s and had no money for all of it, and so at the time I really resented the peer pressure around Air Jordan shoes and other sports apparel, because that stuff was always so expensive. As I mentioned, I had no money. All that aside, that shows Air was a good movie because it made me care about a story involving a topic in which I have no interest and perhaps mildly dislike. Anyway, the movie's plot is set in 1984. Matt Damon (back again) plays Sonny Vaccaro, who was working with Nike's struggling basketball shoe division. At the time, Nike was the biggest maker of running shoes in the US that had only a minimal presence in the basketball shoe market. Vaccaro has the idea of building a shoe brand entirely around an upcoming young NBA rookie named Michael Jordan. At the time, this was an enormous gamble and had never been done before, but needless to say, it paid off for the company in a big, big way. All the actors gave good performances and the dialogue was sharply written, simultaneously conveying the character of the speaker and moving the plot forward. If you want to learn how to write good dialogue, you could do much worse than to watch Air. I recommend this movie, even if like me, you have zero interest in sports apparel. Perhaps that is one of the functions of art, to give you glimpses of worlds into which you would otherwise never visit. Overall grade: A+ So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you find the show enjoyable and useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on 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.

In this week's episode, we'll take a look at five tips for creating distinctive character voices and viewpoints within your novel. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Update Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 209 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 12th, 2024 and today we are discussing five tips for creating vivid characterizations. Before we get into that, we'll have some writing progress updates, a couple of questions from readers, Question of the Week, and then we'll get on to our main topic. So for my current writing projects, I'm pleased to report that Shield of Darkness is out and selling briskly, and you can get it at all the usual places: Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. It's had a very strong response so far and thank you for that. I'm glad you guys are enjoying the book. Now that Shield of Darkness is out, my next project is Half-Orc Paladin. I am pleased to report I'm currently on Chapter 10 of 16, which puts me at 60,000 words. Yesterday I had a 10,000 word day while I was working on it, my sixth one of 2024. Good progress has been made. I'm hoping to have that book out preferably in early August. In audiobook news, the audiobook of Wizard-Thief as narrated by Leanne Woodward is almost finished. We've just got to finish proofing it and that should take place next week and hopefully the audiobook will be out towards the end of July or early August. Once Half-Orc Paladin is done, I have not 100% decided what I'm going to write next. I'm 20,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, so that could be next or I might write Shield of Conquest or Cloak of Illusion. We will see what I do when I get to the end of Half-Orc Paladin. But right now, I am focusing on Half-Orc Paladin and bringing that to completion. We have a reader question from BV, who asks: I saw an app called Scrivener, and I thought of what Jonathan uses. I'm an old mainframe COBOL/RPG developer and I know that the tech environment can really help. I tried Scrivener way back in 2014 and it was too complicated for me, too much. Granted, the app might have changed since then because 2014 feels to me at least like it was really recent, but it was in fact ten years ago. So for writing, I primarily use Microsoft Word for writing and editing and then I use Vellum on the Mac for the final ebook formatting. That's the way I do it right now. Nothing to say that it can't change. Maybe I might switch to LibreOffice again for writing as Microsoft continues to sort of circle the AI drain and adds more and more useless AI features to its products. 00:02:38 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite kind of sandwich? This got a lot of responses, as you might expect. Grimlar says: buttered oven bottom muffin, slice of lamb, medium mature slice of cheese, and a coating of salad cream. Justin says: the current sandwich at my house is turkey with provolone, lettuce, and tomato with mayonnaise on homemade sourdough. That actually sounds pretty good right now. Kevin says: bit boring here. Grilled cheese and bacon or BLT with mayo. Easily pleased, Michael says: can't beat a toasted cheese sandwich, which seems to be called a grilled cheese in the US, which has always baffled me. Ham is a good addition as well. I agree with Michael. That is a very good sandwich. Brandy says: old school. Tie between cold Jif creamy peanut butter and Concord grape jam or warm grilled Gruyere and Colby Jack on a good homemade bread (pumpernickel, oatmeal, wheat, or sourdough). Barbara says: Kind of a plain girl: toasted cheese and tomato. Annie says: toasted sandwich: ham, cheese, red onions, and tomato with butter and mayo. Jesse says: Italian sub with hot peppers. Steve says: I'd add some cheese because I'm a cheesy kind of guy and my spicy mustard has a bit of horseradish, too. Bonnie says: Maine Amatoes roast beef Italian (RB, cheese, onion, green pepper, pickled tomato, black olives, mayo, not oil. Jenny says: rare roast beef slices, sharp cheddar, and sourdough bread. I don't lubricate my sandwiches and prefer simple. Otherwise grilled cheese (extra sharp cheddar and gouda) or really anything with ham in there. Nick says: this is just perfect. Just make the beef pastrami. Jonah says: Panini. Genoa salami, roasted red peppers, onions, Jack and mozzarella cheese, good olive oil, and maybe a pesto. Gary says: there are lots of good ones, but if I can only have one, it has to be PB&J (crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jam). Andrew says: An MLT, a nice mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich where the mutton is so lean. I have to admit I did not know that was an actual sandwich. Randy says: hot and juicy pastrami with melted pepperjack cheese, diced red onion, mayo, and horseradish mustard on a lightly toasted sourdough hoagie. Dang it. Now I'm hungry. Craig says: club. Stacy says: grilled cheese. David says PB and J. Judy says peanut butter and grape jelly or a Philly cheesesteak. John says: tie between a really good Reuben or really authentic Philly cheesesteak. Croque Monsieur is a close second. Venus says: funniest sandwich story I ever heard was when my brother ordered a BLT and the waitress asked if he wanted any condiments on it. He said no and received bacon between two slices of bread. When I was younger, I used to eat BLTs that way. Just bacon and bread, though now that I'm older and recognize the benefits of vegetables in many areas of life, I do have BLTS with the lettuce and tomato. Juana says: BLT. For myself, the answer would be I think a sub with roast beef, ham, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, and a significant quantity of spicy mustard. The inspiration for this question was that I typed it up, it was almost lunch time and I'm hungry. It may have been a mistake to record this podcast before lunch because I am now quite hungry after reading all that, but onwards to our Main Topic of the Week. 00:06:02 Main Topic: How to Create Distinctive Characterizations and Character Voices in a Novel Now on to our Main Topic of the Week: how to create distinctive characterizations and character voices in a novel. We're going to go through five tips for that. I got to think about this because I just finished Shield of Darkness, which was quite a long book, and it had multiple point of views. My previous long series, the Dragonskull series, was mostly a single point of view throughout all nine books. Gareth Arban was the main character and though we started to have more point of view characters come in starting with the fifth book and especially in the final third of the series, Gareth was still the main character and had the most scenes. By contrast, Shield of Storms and the rest of the Shield War series is going to be multi point of view. As of right now, Ridmark Arban, Niara, Lika, and Nikomedes are going to be the main characters and we will have new point of view characters that start introducing in with the rest of the series. The point of view of the different chapters will rotate between them. I'm writing in in what's called limited third person, where you shift entirely to one person's perspective for a scene or chapter. For example, if I'm writing from Ridmark's perspective, we will see things from Ridmark's perspective and know what he's thinking. Omniscient third person, by contrast, is when the author jumps from person to person. For example, in a scene with both Ridmark and the Nikomedes, the author will let us know what they're both thinking and will see things through both their eyes. There is nothing wrong with this, as a skillful writer can do it quite well. I think Agatha Christie especially did it quite well, but it's generally easier and simpler to write in third person limited instead of third person omniscient. Of course, third person limited is only easier if you can make each point of view distinctive. You have to write a distinctive voice for each character and it can become a problem if all the characters all sound and think the same way. So how can you create a distinctive voice for each point of view character? There are a couple of different ways that you can do this. #1: Descriptions. When writing from a particular character's viewpoint in limited third person, obviously that character will see things through his or her own personal lens. This is a handy way to differentiate characters. For example, take the laptop I used to write this podcast script. I got it in the summer of 2023 where my previous laptop went to the big recycling bin in the sky and it's an HP Envy with a 17 inch screen, since I'm at a phase of life where I prefer to write with the Microsoft Word window maximized and the screen size zoomed way up. But someone who knows less about computers than I do wouldn't see an HP Envy, they'll just see a silver laptop with a big screen. Someone who only uses Mac laptops would just see it as a big chunky PC laptop and would think of it that way. Firearms are another good example of this. For example, according to the FBI website, the official side arm of an FBI agent is a Glock 19 M semi-automatic pistol, which holds 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition, but many people would not know this. They would see the weapon and think of it as just a black handgun or a black pistol, or may even describe it inaccurately, calling it a revolver or a machine gun. This variation in description would also extend to characters. Consider a woman who works as a school administrator. The school board chairman might think of her as the most reliable employee in the district and describe her that way. The students might describe her as the mean lady who works in the office. One of the teachers might think of her as my best friend. Another teacher might think of her as my cousin's nasty ex-wife. Which one of these characterizations of the woman are correct? Well, it depends on the particular point of view at the moment, and you can use that description to help differentiate your characters from one another. #2: Dialogue is another great way to differentiate characters from one another. No two people ever really have similar speech patterns. The school administrator in the previous example might always find a way to bring the conversation back around to her cats. A socially awkward computer programmer might start over sharing facts about topics that interest him. A taciturn electrician might only speak when necessary and prefer silence the rest of the time. A lawyer might talk in very precise sentences with every word exactly measured, especially a lawyer who is used to arguing in front of a judge. A common joke is that rather than asking why, the lawyer will always say on what basis? People will also talk about different things. They have favorite topics or are better or worse at handling emotionally sensitive discussions. People also have things they absolutely refuse to discuss under any circumstances and become angry if someone tries to force them to talk about these topics. Dialogue is also a place where it's best not to get too hung up on grammar, since you'll find that most people do not talk in grammatically perfect sentences. People often repeat themselves, respond to a question with another question or an irrelevant answer, and go off on tangents. The trick for writing dialogue is to try and catch a feeling of verisimilitude with the somewhat rambling nature of human conversation in general without getting too bogged down and trying to make it too realistic. You want to keep the story moving forward, after all. #3: Attitudes. Another good way to differentiate between point of view characters is attitude. How do they respond to things emotionally? This ties into both description and dialogue because the character's attitude will obviously influence how they describe things and how they talk. To return to the example of the school administrator above, a student with a cranky attitude might think of her as the mean lady in the office, while a teacher who is in a good mood and enjoys his or her work might think of her as Miss Jones from the school district. The character's mood will color how they describe their surroundings and how they relate to the characters around them. A character who is in a good mood would simply note a car braking in front of them in traffic and slow down. A character in a bad mood will likely rant about how the jerk in front brake checked them. This leads into the next aspect of character attitudes. How does a character react emotionally to events and other characters? One character might view having to stand in line for a while as a minor inconvenience and turn his or her thoughts elsewhere during the wait. Another character might fly into a rage with impatience and demand to speak to the manager over. The first character might dislike going to restaurants because he or she finds it embarrassing to be waited upon and will get through the experience with stiff politeness. The second character might love going to restaurants and makes all sorts of unreasonable demands upon the waiter. Character attitudes and how they emotionally react to situations and each other is an excellent way to differentiate characters and therefore create unique voice. #4: Knowledge. Another good way to distinguish between characters is their individual knowledge and can also help inform the descriptions. For example, during a recent road trip I was listening to the audiobook of Dark Angel by John Sanford and narrated by Robert Petkoff. In the book, two federal agents Letty Davenport and Rod Baxter are assigned to infiltrate a group of dangerous hackers. Letty is an expert on firearms and violence and very physically fit while Baxter is 60 pounds overweight but an expert in all aspects of hacking and computer crime. He doesn't know anything about guns, but he knows everything about breaking into a computer system whereas Letty has only a surface level grasp of computer crime. She knows what a ransomware attack is but nothing about how to actually execute one or repair one. This is a helpful way to distinguish between the character's point of view scenes like we talked about with description. As we said, one character might see a firearm and think it's a black rifle but a character with greater knowledge of guns would immediately identify it as an M16A2. Another character might see a van and just think of it as an old red van, but a character who works as a mechanic would identify it as a 1993 Ford Aerostar. #5: Subtext. Now we come to the great bane and hindrance of human communication, subtext. How characters react to subtext, whether they notice it, imagine it, or fail to detect it at all can help distinguish between character point of views and help create character voice. In this context, subtext refers to an additional implied meaning beyond the actual literal meaning of the spoken words. For example, a woman tells her boyfriend that she hears the Grand Canyon is nice in May. The subtext is that she wants him to plan a trip for them to the Grand Canyon, and the boyfriend may or may not pick up on this subtext. Communication failure of this sort is a common staple of sitcom plots, where many conflicts could be resolved if the participants were capable of communicating clearly. This is something of a cliched example, but we've all had examples in real life where we said something only to have our words totally misinterpreted. For example, say you say, “I don't like fish” and the person to whom you are speaking interprets that as “I hate your cooking.” That might not have been your meaning at all, but the comment was interpreted that way. Or an office manager observes that there are budget cuts. His employees immediately interpret that as impending layoffs when in fact, the manager simply meant that the budget for office supplies and computers has been cut. Subtext provides an excellent tool for distinguishing between characters. One character might completely miss subtext in conversation, while another might imagine subtexts that aren't there at all, like with the fish comment or another character who constantly speaks in subtext and gets annoyed when people don't pick up on their subtle meanings. Hopefully these five tips will help you craft characters with distinctive voices and viewpoints. So that's it for this week. After all that talk about sandwiches, I think I might go look for lunch myself. 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, often with transcripts. 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.

In this week's episode, I look at six ways indie authors can effectively work with audiobook narrators to produce great audiobooks. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Update Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 208 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 5th, 2024, and today we're discussing six tips for working with audiobook narrators. Before we do that, we'll have an update on my current writing projects and Question of the Week. For my current writing projects, I'm very pleased to say that Shield of Darkness is finally done and published. By the time this episode goes live on Monday, the book should be live at all the ebook stores and you pick it up at your ebook store of choice. It took a bit longer to write this one because I was obliged to take quite a bit of time off during the writing process, but I'm pleased to report it is finally done. My next project will be the third Rivah book, Half-Orc Paladin and I am 35,000 words into that one. I think the final book will end up being around 80,000 words, give or take. I'm also about 18,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs. Not sure when I would do that one. Possibly after Half-Orc Paladin. I might do another book after Half-Orc Paladin first, but we will see. In audiobook news, nothing has changed from what it was last week. Both Stealth and Spells Online: Leveling and Wizard-Thief are currently underway for production, which would ironically tie into my main topic of this week about working with audiobook narrators. 00:01:14 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's topic: your home Internet goes out, which means you can't use the Internet until your Internet service provider gets around to fixing it. What do you do instead? The inspiration for this question was that I wanted to play Starfield, but the Xbox Network services were down and I didn't feel like going through the settings to get the offline mode to work on my Xbox. So I wrote the blog post for Question of the Week instead. We had an interesting range of responses this week. Our first response is from Justin who says: if the Internet is down, I have many things to do. During leisure and recovery time, I can read, play games, and watch movies just fine without the Internet. Most of my computer games are old and do not require connection in order to function. World of Warcraft is the only exception to that, and I keep that around as much to chat with friends and family who play it. If I need to use the Internet (banking, ordering, directions, etcetera), my phone can act as a hotspot and as long as there's phone service, I have slow connectivity. Adrian says: I am lucky enough to live on an island where all the Internet is via fiber network and we have a minimum connection of 500 megabits per second and only have failures once a year at most and our phone network is about to change to 5G. Adrian is quite lucky here, I have to admit, because 500 megabits is very fast. Jonathan D. says: mostly I listen to my son complaining that he cannot watch YouTube videos and then tell him that when I was his age, we only had four TV channels. After that, I would wonder when I became more like my parents. I do have plenty of books, board games, DVDs, and offline computer games if it's a long-term outage. Joaquim says: this would be my day. Over the years we've amassed nearly five terabyte worth of movies and TV shows from tape video recorder, DVD video recorder, and online video recorder. Also, we have a lot of DVDs. My family would rather stream, even if we have it offline already. For music, we have a lot of CDs and MP3s. We would have an outage if a Caterpillar would cut the cable during driveway refurbishing. The last time this happened before smartphones were available, I used a Mini WLAN router as backup. Now I just bought a 5G smartphone, which can act as hotspot for up to 10 devices and has USB tethering for my router. I tested both modes and the speed was quite good. Surabhi says: my data was over for the day, so I read one of your books. I often have these days. I usually catch up on more homework or read some books. Have you watched Oppenheimer yet? I sadly missed the opportunity to watch it in theaters, but I streamed it recently and it was honestly well worth the hype. I read the screenplay before the movie for some reason and it added the experience for some reason. Nolan's screenplays always make for a nice experience. In fact, I did watch Oppenheimer in the theater back in July or August, when Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods was done, and I published it and finished the Dragonskull series. That was how I celebrated. I took a half day off and went to the theater to watch Oppenheimer and because it was like a three hour movie, you kind of have to take a half day off work to go watch Oppenheimer. I thought it was quite good and one of my favorite movies of 2023. Our next comment is from William, who says: this is also a good reminder to buy physical copies of games you really like. On a side note, I have had very few Internet outages that lasted very long since I switched to fiber, and nowadays you always have your phone for backup Internet anyway, so work can continue. Power outages, on the other hand, present more of a challenge, especially in winter. Becca says: do some gardening or read. Michael says: yeah, as others have said, I just tether to my phone instead if I wanted to use the Internet. If my phone signal is also gone, I just assume a global apocalypse and go hide in bed. Probably a sensible reaction to the situation. Mike says: well, I have books downloaded on my iPad and hundreds of other paper books to read and go outside and see the world. Braq says: I hope on my adventure motorcycle (Triumph Tiger 1200), then I find the nearest back road and a cold clear water stream and I fly fish till the sun goes down. Adeline says: hotspot off the phone, if I need to be online. It's happened before. It'll happen again. If I don't need to be online, I really just read one of your books on my phone, either on the sofa or wander out to the nearest park if the weather is good and read it there. Todd says: there's plenty to do without the Internet. I grew up in the ‘80s. Pet my dogs, read a book, play cards or dominos or another board game, make some tasty food. Work on a hobby. Go for a walk or bike ride. Maaike says: if the Internet goes down, I'll be drawing, painting, reading, or kayaking. Or maybe practicing martial arts or going for a run. Plenty of stuff left to do. Jenny says: my phone becomes a mobile hotspot. Juana says: read. Jesse says: guitar, paperbacks, and the occasional card game or tabletop game. I realized that for me, the question breaks down in two ways: if the Internet goes down while I'm working, or if the Internet goes down while I want to relax. If the Internet goes down while I'm working, it's not necessarily a huge deal. If I'm writing or editing, everything is downloaded locally anyway, so I would just keep on writing and editing until the Internet came back up. If the Internet goes down while I'm uploading an ebook or an audiobook or setting up ads or changing my website, that is in fact super annoying. However, I usually work on multiple books at a time. Right now, I'm finishing up the publishing process for Shield of Darkness, and I'm also writing Half-Orc Paladin and Ghost in the Tombs. So if I'm working on an online task, and the Internet goes out, then I'll switch to one of the books I'm currently working on and make progress with that. If the Internet goes down while I want to relax, I'll read a paper book (I still have lots of those) or watch a DVD. When Oppenheimer came out on Blu-ray (to tie it back to Oppenheimer), Christopher Nolan rather famously said that you should get it on Blu-ray so no evil streaming service could take it away. Obviously, Mr. Nolan had a financial motive for that statement, but he wasn't wrong. So if there is a movie I really like, I will attempt to get it on DVD or Blu-ray. 00:06:14 Main Topic of the Week: Working with Narrators on Audiobooks Now on to our main Topic of the Week: six tips for working with narrators on audiobooks. I decided to do this as a topic because at this point, I have had quite a lot of experience at this. I did my first self-funded audiobook back in 2018, so over half a decade now. You occasionally hear horror stories of indie authors and narrators that don't get along well or the entire thing falls apart and it turns into this mutual cycle of bitter recriminations and so forth. So with that in mind, I thought I would share six tips for how to have a good relationship with your narrator if you are an indie author who is producing audiobooks and how to work well with a narrator and hopefully have a good professional relationship. Tip #1: As with so many things, manage your expectations and understand what the narrator actually does. An audiobook narrator is a skilled professional, and it's not the same thing as reading a book aloud or having AI do it. A narrator has to perform the story and bring it alive (or if you're doing a nonfiction book, read it in a crisp and professional manner) and bring nuance and help to punctuate the story's emotional beats, which is, as with so many things in life, a lot harder than it looks from the outside. Be wary of doing it yourself or having a friend or relative do it if they don't have experience and don't know what they're doing. Joanna Penn, who is sort of an indie author guru, rather famously does a lot of her nonfiction audiobooks herself. However, I should point out that's not for everyone, and she took a bunch of classes and has practiced really hard to do it. She works hard to pull it off. If it's not something you have a passion in doing yourself and you're not willing to put in the work to become good enough to do it, then it is really better if you hire a narrator. For myself, I would not ever even remotely think of narrating my own audiobooks. If you're listening to this podcast, if you have a regular practice of listening to this podcast, I think we can all agree that nobody wants to pay $15 or spend an Audible credit to listen to me talk and attempt to narrate an audiobook for ten straight hours. Part of the reason for this is that the audiobook community is very savvy and has very high expectations for quality and narration. If the narrator isn't good, if there are technical problems with recording, the reviews will let you know and your audiobook won't sell. The flip side of that is a good narrator isn't cheap. Many audiobook narrators belong to the SAG-AFTRA/The Screen Actors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA has rules for everything. Audiobook narration is no different. If you are a member of SAG-AFTRA and you're an audiobook narrator, you are expected to charge between $200 and $400 per finished hour of audiobook narration. Now this might seem very high if you don't know about the work that goes into it. Like, oh, I'd like to get paid, you know, $350 an hour for work, but quite a lot of work goes into it. There's a lot of preparation for each individual hour. And then based on the way that ACX and Findaway are set up, the audiobook narrator is responsible for producing finished, mastered, and leveled files that will pass the quality standards of both ACX and Findaway and all the individual audiobook stores. This can be very hard if you don't know what you're doing, and many narrators will hire someone to, you know, master and level and edit their audiobook files. If they put the time in to learn the skills, they'll do it themselves. That still is quite time consuming because you've got to sit there and edit the files and get out any weird spaces and make sure everything sounds good and so forth. All that said, ACX does offer a program called royalty share, where instead of paying the narrator upfront, you and the narrator split the royalties of the audiobook for the next seven years. The plus of this is you can get the audiobook off the ground for very little cost to yourself if you're an indie author. The downside of this, from the narrator's point of view, is that it's a lot of work that they're basically doing on spec and if the audiobook doesn't sell any copies, and many audiobooks do not sell very many copies, then the audiobook narrator is out of luck. Additionally, a great deal of the very skilled narrators will not do royalty share. They will only work for payment on completion, and if they do royalty share, they will only do it as part of another deal where they're getting paid per finished hour anyway. Because of that, a lot of beginning narrators and narrators who just started out do royalty share. I'm not going to say that you can't find a good narrator doing royalty share because there are good talented narrators starting out doing royalty share. However, it is harder to find a good narrator who is doing royalty share and a lot of the very experienced narrators will have switched to doing payment per finished hour instead of attempting to do a royalty share. If you want a professionally done audiobook, odds are you are going to be paying between $200 and $400 per finished hour. If you are paying more than that (and you really shouldn't be), that means you have hired a celebrity narrator, you know, someone who would be recognizable from a movie or a TV show or whatever, and they're doing your audiobook. If you have a celebrity narrator, you are probably beyond the level of needing to listen to me for advice. So that is our first tip: make sure you understand what the narrator does. Make sure you have a good way of paying for your audiobook and make sure you know the difference between royalty share and payment per finished hour. #2: Our second tip is to do your homework before holding auditions. Typically the way both ACX and Findaway work is you put up the posting for your book, and then you say this is what I'm looking for and then narrators have the chance to audition. Findaway used to have a more guided process for that, but I'm not sure they do that anymore. And for the last couple of times I've looked for a new narrator, I've done it off ACX. I recommend the first thing you do before you write out your posting for your audiobook is to research narrators in your genre. Some narrators specialize in certain genres, but it's not unusual for narrators to work in several genres at once. And now the reason for this is because narrators (and I've had actual narrators actually tell me this is that) find it very helpful. The more specific you can be in your posting for your audiobook auditions, the more helpful they find it. So that to that end, it's a good idea to find short samples of narrators and books that fit the desired tone of your book. The Audible website is very useful for this, because if you've spent any time browsing the Audible website, you can play a sample of any audiobook that's up there, and you'll get a little three to five minute sample of the audiobook and the narrator that you can listen to. I find a good practice to be is when you're putting together an audiobook is to include a list of the kind of narrators and narrator styles you want. The last time I did a posting for a new audiobook, I said I am looking for something a bit similar to the way Michael Kramer narrated Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson and the way that Jonathan Davis narrated the Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover. Narrators do find that kind of thing very helpful, because that helps them dial in on what you are looking for. It's also a good idea for you as the author in producing this audiobook to know what you are looking for, because some narrators try to have a different voice for characters. Probably one of the more famous examples is Marc Thompson, who does a lot of the Star Wars novels. If you listen to them, like if you listen to his narration of Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn, he does a pretty good impression of Luke Skywalker. He does a pretty good impression of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian and all the other classic Star Wars characters and he tries to give distinctive voices to all the other characters in the book. When you're auditioning narrators, you also have to post a short excerpt of your book in order to give the narrator something to audition with. I found that it's best to keep this under 1,000 words or so. Auditions should not really be more than 5 minutes, I think. Remember, the narrators are doing this on spec. They don't get paid for auditioning and it's good to be respectful of everyone's time and not waste anyone's time. What I usually do is I pick for those 1,000 words (though sometimes it goes up to about 1,500 words) is pick three different scenes from the book. What I try to do is pick a dialogue heavy scene. I try to pick an action scene and then maybe a more emotionally heavy scene to see how the narrator handles each one of these different tones. That would give the narrator something to work with and show off their chops and then they know what I'm looking for, an audiobook that sounds like, you know, these other sample audiobooks I've mentioned. Here is about 1,000 words of the book for you to try it with and give it a try and we will see what happens. It's good to be very clear with what you want when you audition audiobook narrators. I think this is important. Not everyone does this, but I think they should. It's very good to have a specific deadline and a specific deadline by when you're going to make a decision. The last couple of times I've auditioned new narrators, I've said usually something along the lines of, the posting is live now, it's going to be open for a week (which will be the 12th) and I will listen to every audition I get before the 12th. By the time I close the auditions on the 12th, I will make a decision and make an offer by the 14th or 15th. That way no one's kept in suspense and is waiting forever. They know if they haven't heard from you by the, you know 14th or the 15th or the 16th, that they're not going to get the audiobook. I used to reply to every audition I got, but unfortunately that was just not possible. The last time I auditioned a new narrator, we got nearly 100 auditions, and it did take a lot of time to sort through them all, and I'm afraid there just wasn't time to respond to everybody. That said, I think it's also important when you put up the audiobook posting and say this is what I'm looking for, it's also important to be as open as possible during that process, so if narrators have questions for you, you can answer them. I've had narrators during this process email me and say, does this book have like explicit adult scenes or explicit scenes of, you know, violence or cruelty against animals or women or children, or anything of that nature? It's important to be open and you don't want anyone to narrate who's uncomfortable with that. I think being as open as possible during the audition process and answering any questions from narrators is important, but I definitely didn't have time to respond to nearly 100 different auditions, and you may not as well. #3: So we go on to Tip #3 now: actually choosing a narrator from the auditions. If you get a lot of auditions, it may take some time to sort through them all. Like I said before, the last time I held open auditions for a narrator got nearly 100 auditions for the book, and sorting through them would take some time. There are easy ways to eliminate, you know, potential auditions quite quickly, like if you specified an American accent and you got a British accent or if you specified a female narrator and you get auditions from male narrators and that kind of thing. Usually, I've found you can narrow it down to about maybe 10 or 12 of the best ones for the for the book, and then at that point you look a little more closely at them. What I usually do is look at how much they charge and how many Audible credits they have (by that mean how many audiobooks they've done). The more audiobooks a narrator has done, the more likely they're able to be reliable and that you can expect confidently that they'll be able to finish the work. It's less of a gamble to hire a narrator who's done 150 audiobooks as opposed to one who has done 3. This isn't to say that you can have a good result with someone who has done 3, but there is a different track record and potentially a different level of expectation there. Also, and this is just Due Diligence 101, it might be a good idea to Google the narrators and look over the search results. Make sure that, for example, they haven't been convicted of serious crimes or are wanted in a different state or expressed strong opinions that you yourself are not comfortable with. Like I said earlier in this episode, you want the narrator to be comfortable working with you and you want to be comfortable working with the narrator. If the narrator is expressing very strong opinions on social media that you happen to find personally distasteful for whatever reason, it might be best to choose someone else. Once you have narrowed it down and found a narrator who has the style you're looking for and the kind of track record in terms of completed credits that you're looking for, that is the time to make an offer. The offer will also include a deadline for when you want the audiobook done by. I've found it's best to be a little flexible in that deadline, if possible. Maybe extend it out two or three months into the future. That way if you've chosen a narrator who can't do it right away but it has time in that time space, they can do it. It might also be a good idea to go back and forth a bit and pin down the schedule exactly. Once you have chosen the narrator and you've extended an offer and once the narrator has accepted it, this is the point in the process where you do need to get them the book. They obviously need the manuscript of the book if they're going to read it, and I've also found it's best to send a spreadsheet with all the major character names and locations and a pronunciation guide. If you're just doing thrillers or mystery or contemporary romance, you probably don't need a pronunciation guide. You do need a guide for the characters and how they sound. For example, Julia is a middle-aged woman with a raspy voice and a thick Midwestern accent. I write science fiction and fantasy, and I frequently have names like Xothalaxiar, Agrimnalazur, and Seziravorna. Obviously the narrator is going to want a pronunciation guide, so what I usually do is I also read aloud the names in each in the location spreadsheet and the character spreadsheet and send that along to the narrator. #4: Let's move on to our fourth tip, which is understand that narrators all work differently. I've had some narrators who will send me the chapters over right away when they're done, and so then we tend to listen to the chapters in clumps of three to four the time until the book is done. I've had other narrators who wait until the entire book is done and send that all over at once, and then we listen to it. It's important to respect someone else's workflow in a way that you are hiring an expert and there's no point in hiring an expert if you don't listen to the expert's advice. Some narrators may have questions or want suggestions, while others may not have as many. It's always a good idea to answer these questions promptly so that there aren't delays in recording. Again, that's part of maintaining a good professional relationship with someone where if they have questions, you're available to address them promptly and as quickly as is reasonably possible. #5: Now on to our fifth tip: how to be a good collaborator. First, don't micromanage and don't ask for updates before the agreed upon deadlines. When you set up the book through ACX or Findaway, there's a default contract in there, and there's supposed to be a 15 minute sample by the first date and the finished book by the 2nd date. And if it's still not up to the deadline, that's not the time to send pestering emails. If you haven't gotten the book by the deadline, that's the time when you ask if anything is everything's going okay, if there's any questions, and so forth. Don't micromanage before that. Don't micromanage at all, and don't pester the narrator before the initially agreed upon deadlines. Additionally, don't be too picky. The time to be picky is in the audition process. Once you have gotten through the audition process and made your offer, you have hopefully selected the narrator you think will work best with what you want, and that is when you let the narrator get on with it and don't be overly critical. I've heard horror stories where the authors would reject the book because like the Welsh accent wasn't Snowdonia enough. It's before you choose a narrator during the audition process, that's when you're picky. Treat the narrator like a fellow professional and trust their judgment. Be willing to accept their suggestions. If you listen this podcast quite a bit, you know, my vocal performance skills are not necessarily the best, so if someone who has more experience with vocal performance than I do is going to make suggestion, I'm going to seriously consider it. Once you have received the finished audiobook, ideally you are supposed to have listened to it within seven business days, and by then you can either approve it or ask for changes, and ideally you want to do this as quickly as possible because the narrator doesn't get paid ‘til you finish and until the narrator's paid, you can't post the audiobook and sell it. You should only ask for corrections and changes if you have a very good reason for doing so, like there's something actually wrong, like a sentence was dropped, or a paragraph is missing, or the chapters are in the wrong order and that kind of stuff, you know, the usual kind of glitches and small problems that prop up in any major projects like this. Sometimes the software just derps and a sentence drops out, that kind of thing. You should not ask for changes that are not for good reasons, and by this I mean if you don't like a character's accent or you don't like the pronunciation of something. You should have addressed all of this before, when you sent over the pronunciations and when you sent over the character list and any other information. This kind of information needs to be shared before and the proofing process is not the place to address it. It should have been done before. Be quick when responding to questions, if possible. If you do find things that need to be fixed, like a missing word or a character has the wrong name, that kind of thing, the best way to send that to your narrator is to give a timestamp of where precisely where it is in the chapter. And then probably the sentence before and the sentence after that. That will let them quickly zoom in on any errors in the recording and fix it promptly. So be precise as you can with the requested changes. Give the chapter numbers and time stamps, and probably the sentence before and after that sentence. #6: Our sixth and final tip: once the audiobook is done, be sure to acknowledge the narrator's work. I believe the requirements for ACX or Findaway is that the narrator's name has to be on the audiobook cover, but I occasionally hear stories where the narrator isn't credited, which strikes me as absurd because the narrative put a lot of hard work into this audiobook. It might cost you a lot of money, but it was still a lot of hard work. The narrator should be credited for that. Be sure to make sure that you have read by or narrated by, and then the narrator's name on the cover for the audiobook. Also when you mentioned it on your social media and your website and your blog posts and so forth, you want to say this is the audiobook of whatever as narrated by the narrator. Because the audio narrator, in my very strongly held opinion, does deserve very strongly to be credited for the work on the audiobook. So that is it for this week. Those are my six tips for working with audiobook narrators. I hope you found them helpful. I suppose this episode by its nature is a rather limited episode because of the large mass of indie authors out there, only a small subset of subset of us are currently doing our own audiobooks. If someone is thinking about doing their own audiobooks and wondering about how to approach it, I hope this podcast episode was helpful. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. I remind you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. A quick note of thanks to my transcriptionist for helping me to organize my thoughts for this episode. 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.

In this week's episode, I take a look at different pricing tiers for selling ebooks, and discuss the pros and cons of each. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 206 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 21st, 2024 and today we are discussing ebook pricing and the pros and cons of different ebook price points. Before we get into that, we will have an update on my current writing projects and some discussion about Question of the Week. First up, my current writing projects. I am pleased to report that I have finished the rough draft of Shield of Darkness. It came in at 111,000 words, which I wrote in 31 days. It's amusing to look back. The book before that in the series, Shield of Storms, was 6,000 words shorter, but I actually wrote it in 35 days, but that was over December and January and I had taken an entire day off for the Christmas holidays back at the end of 2023. Next up, I will be writing a short story called Disciples that ties into the Shield War series and my newsletter subscribers will get that for free when Shield of Darkness comes out in ebook form, so it's a good time to sign up for my newsletter. After Shield of Darkness is out and published, my main focus will then be Half-Orc Paladin, and I think I'm 25 or 26,000 words into it (I'm not entirely sure off the top of my head). That's where I'm at with my current projects. Good news: the rough draft of Shield of Darkness is finally done. 00:01:20 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. This week's topic: what is your favorite food to eat while traveling? The inspiration for this question was the fact that I traveled somewhere around 1,200 miles in the last week before recording this episode. As you might expect, we had a range of answers. Justin says: nuts. Almonds, peanuts, or mixed nuts, roasted and salted. High in sodium, but non-perishable and high in protein. Like nuggets and fries, you can drive while eating them. Another advantage is the ability to easily put away uneaten nuts for later. And finally, no whining from vegans about the evils of consuming meat while in airport lounges. I have to admit I haven't had that personal experience yet, but I can see how that would be a plus. Our next comment is from Surabhi, who says I'm South Asian, so my award goes to samosa and Pani Puri. I'm pretty sure I pronounced that wrong. Our next comment is from Jesse, who says: hot dogs with pepperjack, jalapeños, and mustard. Weirdly cures most of what ails you. Scott says: sunflower seeds pass time for a for a time consuming or passing the time snack. Beef jerky is a choice for me also. The hardier and saltier, the better. John says: tacos as long as I'm west of the Mississippi and South of Dallas. Burger and fries otherwise. If I'm rolling cheap, I'll pack an ice chest to make sandwiches and chips. Juana says: I like to eat different regional foods, like a candy called cherry mash with chocolate and nuts covering cherry nougat. It used to be available in Kansas only. They don't serve a BLT above Tennessee or sweet cold tea in Maine. Michael says: well, I too am a fan of McDonald's. I usually go for the cheeseburger meal with fries and a Diet Coke. Usually consistent and my innards tolerate them well. Also driving friendly. The Diet Coke does tend to clear out the slight grease from the fries and the burgers- cleanses the palate, so to speak…fine dining at McDonald's. But if I'm near Philly, I always defer to a cheesesteak with fried onions. Alton says: don't eat a whole bag of baby carrots. You won't eat them for years afterwards. Good advice for us all! Juan says: be a foodie. I enjoy finding your remote mom and pop places in towns I drive through and enjoying the atmosphere. Sometimes the food is amazing, sometimes food is bleh, but I get to sit in a quaint spot in some obscure town and read a book, scroll Facebook, or just people watch. You could say that I'm more a “experience the travel” than a foodie person, I guess. I rarely eat in the car. I look for excuses to get out of the car. Typically for me is a 5 hour drive to a particular military installation a few times a year and stopping at different rural towns on the way. Todd says: Jack-in-the-Box breakfast sandwiches, especially when it's not breakfast hours. So if they serve them all day, I know my order is made fresh and it's reasonably healthy. Then I ruin any concept of healthiness with a big old Dr. Pepper. Roger says: bacon, brie, and cranberry mini baguette with rocket/arugula. Gary says: I like tacos from food trucks, pop-ups, or little family-owned shops. Hotel desk clerks know a surprising amount of places to get such things. Michael says: chocolate. John says: burritos. Around the West Coast, In and Out. And Bonnie says: I haven't traveled any real distance in years, occasional work trips under 150 miles. It's usually a large Dunkin' coffee and sausage, egg, and cheese wrap. For myself, I think my favorite food to eat while traveling is the McDonald's Chicken McNuggets and fries. I know objectively that McDonald's Chicken McNuggets and fries are not super healthy and I try to avoid fast food in general in my day-to-day life, with varying degrees of success. For that matter, there are far superior fries and nuggets over those obtained at McDonald's. However, McDonald's fries and nuggets offer several advantages to the weary traveler. I can eat them in the car without taking my eyes off the road or getting my hands messy. I don't need them with the dipping sauce. In the airport, I can eat them in the waiting lounge without making a huge mess. So for me that lands in the sweet spot of convenience, flavor, and not making a huge mess in the car while eating it. 00:05:09 Main Topic of the Week: Ebook Pricing Now on to our main topic this week: the topic of ebook pricing, which is often a very sensitive topic, especially among newer indie authors. Newer indie authors will sometimes have spent years or a year or a considerable amount of time writing their book, and they feel they should charge accordingly. Like, this was a year of work. Why should I not charge you $9.99 for it or $14.99? A new Stephen King book is $14.99, so why shouldn't I have that price? If I put a year of work on this or more, then why shouldn't I charge for it accordingly? After all, you can go to, you know, Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts or wherever get a coffee for $5. Why shouldn't the book cost more than a coffee since it's more work to produce the book than the coffee? I think that is thinking about ebook pricing the wrong way. You want to think of price as a marketing tool, not a statement on the worth or quality of your book. Some people will have checked their absolute favorite book out of the library and paid nothing for it and that doesn't mean the book is without value. I think you will want to price your books to move. Look for various options for promotional prices as part of your overall marketing strategy. Having a permanently free ebook isn't the instant guaranteed success it used to be, but it still works and we'll talk about that a bit more later in the episode. How you price the first three books in the series is crucial for later books. Don't disappoint the reader with a giant price price hike like $10 between books one and two in a series. Give them a reason to get further into the series. For myself, for my long series, what I'll usually do is set the first book free, set the second book to $0.99, and then after that, the rest of the books in the series will probably be $4.99. The reason I do that is because if you read the first book for free and get the second book for $0.99, then by the end of those two books you have a pretty good idea whether it will be worth your time and money to continue with the series. Charging the same amount as Stephen King or James Patterson for your book is not great marketing for a new, unknown author, or even for a relatively successful indie author. Stephen King and James Patterson can get away with charging that because they are Stephen King and James Patterson. I am not Stephen King or James Patterson and I'm pretty sure you are not, too. It's best to look at what the best-selling indie authors in your genre are charging and price closer to them when possible. People will very rarely pay premium prices (i.e. over $10.00) for fiction that is not from best-selling trad pub authors and even traditionally published authors have seen resistance to pricing over $15.00 for their books. I noticed about a lot of new books from the Bane science fiction and fantasy publishing house tend to be around the $9.99 mark or even the $8.99 mark, which is much more palatable. One thing to note also is that nonfiction readers are less price sensitive, especially in specialized or technical topics. Those readers are looking for a book that meets a need, so they're more concerned about finding a quality book on the exact topic than how much the book costs. Reviews matter more than price in this case. For example, a nonfiction guide about hiking the Grand Canyon full of instruction, maps, and so forth can command a much higher price than memoir about someone who hikes the Grand Canyon because the memoir is less interesting to that particular kind of reader than someone who needs any nonfiction book about the Grand Canyon. So for the next part of this episode, let's look at the pros and cons of the different tiers of pricing and for the sake of this episode, we've organized pricing into 5 tiers. The first tier of pricing is of course free. The purpose for that is obviously much easier to write a free book. It exposes the book to a greater audience than it might have otherwise. Since storage space is abundant, people don't hesitate if something looks interesting if it's free because you don't have to worry about hoarding ebooks the way you have to do about hoarding paper books. That said, free has several substantial cons to it as well. You're obviously not making any money off a free book unless the book is free temporarily for promotional pricing or the book is perma-free to promote a longer series and entice people to read future books. For a recent example from my own experience, Silent Order: Omnibus One was very recently free on BookBub and the only reason I did that is because it's the first three books in a 14 books series and I've seen excellent read through from that to paid books in the rest of the series, so it was a good marketing experiment that paid off. But if the only book I had was Silent Order: Omnibus One and there weren't 11 follow up books in the series, then making Silent Order: Omnibus One free would have just been a waste of my time. The second pricing tier is at $0.99 to $1.99. The pros of this include that $0.99 is a price point where for a lot of people, it would be an impulse buy. They don't think about it very much. It's a good price point for promotions such as BookBub and other book promotion sites like Bargain Booksy, Book Barbarian, and so forth, where if you lower your book to a temporary sale price like $0.99, you can advertise it much more effectively because as we said, $0.99 really is an impulse buy for many people. There are a couple of cons to this, too. The Amazon payouts for this price range are not as favorable. If you set your book to $0.99 on Amazon, you will get only 35%, whereas if you set it between $2.99 and $9.99 you'll get 70%, which we'll talk about a bit more shortly. Some readers feel like books in this price range suggests that the book will be low quality. Again, that's a matter of taste, but if you are temporarily promoting your book, you can get good results for $0.99. One thing to also note as well is that just because Amazon has a 35% rate, some of the other retailers do better. Google Play and Barnes and Noble will give you 70% of the $0.99 price point so you can do literally twice as well in terms of revenue from them and I believe Kobo gives you 45% of a $0.99 book. So you can make more money from them off of the other retailers as opposed to Amazon. One note of caution from my own experience: I wouldn't bother with the $1.99 price point. It seems to be sort of the halfway point between $0.99 and $2.99, where people just generally do not like buying things at the $1.99 price point, at least ebooks. I've had better luck with both $2.99 and $0.99 than I have with $1.99. So that is something to bear that to bear in mind, that I've never had much luck with $1.99 price point. That moves us up to our third tier of pricing, $2.99 to $4.99. The pros: over $2.99 is the more favorable Amazon payout range because then you get 70% of the sales price as opposed to 35%. Because of that, $2.99 is still a pretty common price for this reason, especially for the first books in many series. This price is still less than the smallest size Frappuccino at Starbucks, much less than a gallon of gas, so it is a price range that most readers accept. For myself, most of my novels now are at $4.99. For a while, for like 10 years practically, I kept them at $3.99, but when inflation started getting really bad towards the end of 2021 and through 2022, I moved everything up to $4.99 and I really haven't had many problems with that. I think we're at the sweet point between what is a fair price for the book and a price that the readers also accept as fair, which is an important Venn Diagram to master if you are an indie author. The cons of $2.99 to $4.99 are that the price is too high for promotions like BookBub. If you want to do a BookBub feature deal for your book, you are better off applying at $0.99 or free because BookBub is about discount books, not full price books. If your full price is $2.99 or $3.99 or $4.99, it's going to be hard to sell a BookBub, so $2.99 to $4.99 is generally a good regular price for your ebooks and then only go lower if it's part of a special promotion or if you want to make the first book in the series free. Now on to our 4th tier, $5.99 through $9.99. The pro is that you are still getting good payout rate from Amazon at this price point; you're still in the 70% range, which stops at $9.99 and readers are generally comfortable paying this range if they are already fans of the author and series. I haven't tried to go above $4.99 for my individual novels, because I don't want people to feel like I'm trying nickel and dime them. But I do know indie authors who do, and that it basically comes down to a personal decision if you feel comfortable doing that and your readership would support paying the higher price. The con is of course it's difficult to get new readers and do promotions at this price tier. If you want to do a sale where you make like the first book of your series free, you're dropping down to $0.99. As we mentioned earlier in the show, the jump in price from free or $0.99, to for example, $7.99 might be jarring enough that it will turn off readers and discourage them from buying the books later in the series. Now we come to the fifth and final tier of pricing, $10 and up. Pro is that the readers often accept this price tier for specialty nonfiction or technical books, especially if they are long books with a lot of images, maps, and details. I am thinking about things like RPG source books, travel guides like I mentioned earlier, technical nonfiction that involves a lot of diagrams and maybe like, pictures of engine parts. However, there are a lot of cons with pricing your ebook over $10. The biggest one is that you will only get 35% from Amazon. So if, for example, you set your book at $9.99 and sell it, you'll get about $7.00 depending on the sales tax and size of the ebook file and so forth. But if you set the book at $15 instead of $7.00, you will receive only $5.20, give or take, depending upon conversion rates. So it makes much more sense to price your e-book at $9.99 if you want to go that high instead of raising the price into around $14.99 or $19.99 because you will actually be making less money. You're selling fewer copies and getting paid less per copy, which is not a recipe for success. It also sets expectations sky high, because if you're paying that much for something, you want it to be perfect and it will repel all but the most devoted continuing readers, especially for fiction. If you're writing very specialist nonfiction, you might be able to get away with it, but you will sell fewer copies and probably not make as much per copy. So those are the pros and cons of the five different pricing tiers we're talking about. My thoughts on book pricing have evolved a little bit over the years, but not very much. I think overall if you are an indie author writing genre fiction, the best recipe for commercial success remains to write a long series and then make the first book free, the second book like $0.99, and then the rest of the books in the series to whatever the usual price for the series you set is (whether it's $2.99, $3.99, $4.99, or $5.99). Though to be honest, I would not price an ebook novel $5.99 myself. Your circumstances may vary. If I was starting out today, my advice to a new writer would be basically to do that: write a series and make the first book free, make the second book $0.99. and then keep writing books in the series. For myself, I don't think I would write another series with more than nine books in it because you get a little drop in read-through from book to book. I think Cloak Mage with Nadia is the last series I'm going to write with over nine books in it. I think ideally in the future, my length for a series would be 6 to 8 books and then once the series is over, I start over with a new series and then eventually once I get enough books out in the series, make the first one free, the second one $0.99, and the rest full price. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A quick note of thanks to my transcriptionist for helping to pull together through research for this episode. A reminder that you can listen to all back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts (transcripts are available for episodes 140 to the present). If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In this week's episode, I take a look back at my SILENT ORDER science fiction series, and answer twelve of the most common questions from readers about the books. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 205 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June the 14th, 2024 and today we are doing a question and answer session on my Silent Order science fiction series. Before we get to that, we will have an update on my current writing progress and then Question of the Week. My main project right now is Shield of Darkness, a sequel to Shield of Storms and the second book in the Shield War series. Progress has not been as quick as I would like, but there still has been progress and as of this recording, I am about 84,000 words into the rough draft. It really helped that I had a 10,000 word day on June 12th. That really propelled things forward. I'm not entirely sure how long the rough draft is going to be. I think it's probably going to end up around 120,000 words, maybe 115,000 words. We'll see when get there. But I'm still hoping to have it out in July, sometime after the 4th of July. After that is done, my next project will be Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I'm currently 24,000 words into that and I think that one will be around 75,000 words (give or take) once it's done. I'm also 9,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, but that will come out later in the year. In audiobook news, I'm pleased to report that the collection Tales of the Shield Knight, which contains sixteen stories from the Sevenfold Sword and the Dragontiarna series, is now out in audiobook, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. You can get that at Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books at the moment, and should gradually be making its way onto the other audiobook stores as it gets through processing. Be sure to subscribe to my new release newsletter because sometimes I will give away individual audio short stories for free from that collection in my newsletter. 00:01:50 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Our Question of the Week segment is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: if you read mystery novels, what was the first mystery novel you ever read? No, wrong answers obviously, and as you'd expect, we had quite a few different responses. Justin says: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was 12. I had chicken pox and was confined to my room. I begged my father for something to read, and he handed me a massive book, The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Two days later, I asked for other books by him. I'm still not a fan of mysteries, but Doyle was a great author. Our next comment is from Ray, who says: Hardy Boys, also Sherlock Holmes for school. As an adult, the first I recall by choice were the Father Blackie Mysteries by Andrew Greeley. Our next comment is from Jake who says: can't remember. It had to be back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. But I agree with you, it's great to diversify in reading. Someone gifted me a copy of Water for Elephants. I would never have read that by choice, but I'm glad I did. Our next comment is from Jeff, who says: Tom Swift books and Hound of the Baskervilles. Tom Swift was even science fiction-ish with their far-out inventions. Our next comment is from Jonathan (not me), who says: the Hardy Boys Hunting for Hidden Gold. The reprinted Flashlight edition was my first mystery read for me by my mom when I was about 8. This would have also been my first mystery that I read independently. When I was 10 through 11, I read the original Hardy Boys While the Clock Ticked. I was too young to know about the different editions of novels until much later, but I was always dissatisfied with the Flashlight version because it lacked the ending that I remembered. It was years later that I discovered the history of the series, which led to me finding and purchasing all or most of the original novels. Our next comment is from Becca, who says: Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys in early grade school. No idea which one, but I had quite a few of them. First adult mystery series was probably middle school and was The Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton and the Joe Grey series by Murphy. My mom really encouraged me to read pretty much anything and everything. Wish you would write more mystery books. They're so great. Thanks, Becca. I am glad you liked the mystery books, so I don't think too many other people did, which is why I have not written more of them. Our next comment is from Justin who says: first mystery novel was The Hardy Boys in grade school. Michael says: not my first, but I really like the Pendergast series by Lincoln and Child. Worth the read if folks haven't tried. John says: The Three Investigators series by Alfred Hitchcock. I don't know where I got the first one. My mom probably got it at a yard sale or something, but I was hooked. Was able to check out the others in the series for my school's library. I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. Juana says: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Our next comment is from Ann-Marie, who says: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and The Boxcar Children. Jeremiah says: Sherlock Holmes. Andrew says: As a young'un in grade school, I read The Mystery of the Green Ghost. It has stuck with me all these years. As a little more mature reader, I got a hold of The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Quite entertaining indeed. My own answer to this was I think it was Tell No One by Harlan Coben. This was way back in 2001 and I had a long car ride coming up. At the time I didn't read anything except fantasy and science fiction, but I got Tell No One as a present and I didn't have anything else to read while in the car. So I started reading Tell No One during the ride. The book is about an ER physician whose wife was murdered eight years ago. Then one day out of the blue, the physician gets a message that could only have come from her. Suddenly people show up to kill the physician and he finds himself on the run from the agents of a sinister billionaire. I was definitely hooked, and I've read mysteries and thrillers on and off since. I think this was good for me long term since I ended up a writer and it's good for writers to read widely in different genres. You always tell what a science fiction novel, for example, was written by someone who has never heard anything but science fiction. Additionally, when I wrote out the Question of the Week, I did not have Hardy Boys in mind because I was thinking of them as you know, books for children and I was thinking about adult books, but I did indeed read a bunch of The Hardy Boys books when I was a kid, but it was that was long enough going out that I can't clearly recall the plots of any of them, I'm afraid. 00:06:04 Main Topic: Silent Order Question and Answer Time (Note: Some Spoilers for the series in this section) Now on to our main topic of the week, Silent Order question and answer time. Why talk about this now, about a year after I finished the Silent Order science fiction series? Well, the reason for that is Silent Order Omnibus One had a very successful Bookbub feature deal at the end of May. Silent Order Omnibus One was briefly the number 2 free ebook on Amazon US and the number 1 free ebook on Amazon UK. So thanks for that, everyone. As you can imagine, this resulted in a lot of new eyes on the series, which inspired many reader questions, which is funny because I've been getting most of the same questions about the series and its particular idiosyncrasies for about seven years now. So let's have some answers below. First, some basic facts about the series. I published the first five books in September and October of 2017. It ended up at about 14 books, and I published the 14th and final book in September of 2023. All books are available on all ebook platforms. I've dabbled with Kindle Unlimited for it in the past, but not anymore. It's available wide and will remain so. There are also six tie-in short stories to the series that I've given away for free to my newsletter subscribers at various times. Now, with the basic facts out of the way, let's proceed to the most common questions from the last seven years of Silent Order. Question #1: Why do the characters still use kinetic, chemically propelled firearms 100,000 years in the future? By this question, people are usually wondering why at times the characters in the Silent Order are using, you know, traditional guns that fire metal bullets as opposed to like blasters or lasers or plasma cannons or whatever. And the answer is, not to be flippant, but why wouldn't they? People forget that firearms technology has been used for military applications, at least in the West, for at least nearly 700 years. Cannons were used in the 100 Years War and the 100 Years War started in 1337. Firearms technology has been refined and improved considerably since then, and no doubt it will continue to receive refinements and improvements in the future. Additionally, chemically propelled firearms offer many advantages over more advanced weaponry like lasers, rail guns, blasters, or particle weapons, especially for handheld levels of weaponry. A chemically propelled firearm doesn't require electricity or a power source and can't be disabled by an EMP. It's also more durable and rugged than a more advanced weapon, which would almost certainly require delicate electronic components. In fact, some models of firearm can famously be exposed to harsh conditions and continue to function. There's just no way you could do the same thing with a laser. Some devices, some machines are just the apex of their technological niche. Despite all the advanced weaponry available in the 21st century, soldiers still carry combat knives because in a situation where you need a knife, it is the best tool for the job. I suspect chemically propelled firearms dominate their niche in the same way. Question #2: Why isn't the technology in Silent Order as advanced as I think it should be? Well, they do have faster than light travel, artificial gravity, inertial absorption, anti-gravity lifts, shields, plasma weaponry, and ion thrusters. You can't exactly order any of that stuff off Amazon today. Medical technology is rather more advanced as well. The average human lifespan in Calaskar and other “developed” worlds at this time period is about 160 years due to advances in genetic engineering and better understanding of mitochondrial DNA. Cloned replacement limbs and organs are common medical procedures. When a replacement limb can't be cloned, installing a cybernetic one is typically a one day medical procedure. In the back story of the series, there are five very large Terran empires that rose and collapsed before the start of the series, which is about, as I've said, 100,000 years into the future. Those Terran empires each tended to have more advanced technology in certain areas than is common at the start of the series. One was a lot better at genetic engineering, another built super advanced sentient AI (more on that later) and so forth. When the particular empire fell or disintegrated into smaller successor states, there was some technological backsliding, and some of the more super advanced technology was lost. Question #3: The protagonist Jack March has the same initials as the author, Jonathan Moeller. Was that deliberate? Oh no, it wasn't. One of the original inspirations for the series were the James Bond books, so I chose a name that was the opposite of James Bond. After all, March is kind of the opposite of Bond in the sense of movement versus stasis and stagnation. In the original books, James Bond was always a sort of self-destructive alcoholic who gets somewhat worse as the series goes along and he doesn't have much in the way of character development. By contrast, I wanted March to have much more character change and growth. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that gave Jack March the same initials as me until three or four years into writing the series. The obvious is only obvious in hindsight, alas. Occasionally people say March is an authorial self-insert, but I guarantee you that he is not. If he were, he'd be a cranky middle aged former IT worker who doesn't like to go out very much. Question #4: Why doesn't March sleep with any of the beautiful women he meets in the first four books? Because he didn't want to. Like I said, he's sort of the opposite of James Bond and doesn't like unprofessionalism like that on the job. Also, by the time the series starts, he's old enough that casual flings no longer interest him and ultimately, he would really rather be on his own. It isn't until he meets a woman who truly understands him that this starts to change and the woman understands him because she hates the Final Consciousness just as much as he does. Question #5: Why do the characters still use phones? Well, they're not “cellular telephones” in the way that we think of them. They're more like personal handheld telecommunication and computing devices that are significantly more powerful than anything available today. That said, words sometimes long outlast the original purpose. The word mile originally came from the Latin language and described the distance a Roman soldier could cover with 1,000 steps. There is no longer a Roman Empire or Roman legionaries, but the term remains in use. There's a good chance that the word phone will outlast our current civilization and continue to refer to a telecommunications device just as miles still refers to a unit of distance, even though it doesn't have anything to do with marching soldiers or the Roman Empire. Additionally, phone was the simplest word available and using a sci-fi ish term like a mobile data pad or personal communicator or handheld computer just seemed a bit try hard. I used the metric system for distance in the series because the majority of Earth's population uses it today, so I assume it will eventually win out over time by pure weight of numbers. Question #6: Why does March work for repressive government like Calaskar? Whether or not Caesar is repressive depends on one's perspective. I expect someone from the 1850s or even the 1950s United States would find the Calaskaran government rather liberal and shockingly egalitarian. But many people from 2024 America would probably find it repressive. That said, I think Calaskar is better described as conformist. If you don't criticize the king or the official doctrines of the Royal Calaskaran church, you can say pretty much anything you want, and Calaskar doesn't have anything like the social problems of the 21st century United States, though that is partly because dissidents are eventually encouraged to leave and seek their fortunes elsewhere. Some of Calaskar's neighbors like Rustaril and the Falcon Republic were originally Calaskaran worlds that split off due to ideological differences. Rustaril opted for a form of socialism that led to its stagnation and ongoing decline, while the Falcon Republic is more hyper-capitalistic and libertarian and therefore very unstable, albeit with a cloned army that steps in and takes over when things get out of hand. Calaskar claims that its government combines the best aspects of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, though opinions differ among the characters in the books whether or not this is actually true. However, the series is mostly written from the perspective of Jack March, and he doesn't much care about everything we just discussed in the previous paragraph. He primarily works for the Silent Order, which is a Calaskaran intelligence agency that answers only to its own leaders and the King. The ultimate mission of the Silent Order is to monitor the elite and upper classes of Calaskaran society, whether political, business, or entertainment elites. If they start acting in a destructive way that will harm Calaskar and civilization, the Silent Order either discredits them, sabotages their careers, or arranges an accident (depending on how severe the particular elite's brand of corruption is). Obviously, many people would have severe moral qualms about arranging the fatal extrajudicial accident of a corrupt government or judicial official. Since March's own home world of Calixtus was betrayed to the Final Consciousness by its elite classes, he has no problem doing this kind of work. For March's perspective, Calaskar opposes the Final Consciousness and has been the primary rival to the Final Consciousness for some time, which is good enough for him. The fact that life on Calaskar is vastly better than anywhere ruled by the Final Consciousness just reinforces his decision. Question #7: Was this series inspired by the computer game Starfield? I have to admit I LOLed at this question. I started writing Silent Order on New Year's Eve in 2016 and the final book in the series came out in early September 2023. In fact, if I remember it, Starfield came out like two or three days after I published the final Silent Order book. So I can confidently say that the series wasn't inspired by Starfield in any way. That said, I would say that the video games which did help shape my thinking about the books were Wing Commander: Privateer, TIE Fighter, and Master of Orion 1 and 2. All those games were from the 1990s, of course, so I suppose I'm dating myself. Question #8: What actually did inspire the Silent Order series? The video games I mentioned above, for one. Also, the original James Bond books. When I started thinking about writing a science fiction series, I decided that I wanted to do a spy thriller, but in space. The Final Consciousness was sort of the idea of cybernetic space totalitarians. James Bond originally went up against SMERSH and then SPECTRE in the books, but March would go up against the covert agents of the sinister cybernetic Final Consciousness. There are also Lovecraftian themes in the books, as is gradually revealed throughout the series, that the Final Consciousness is in fact controlled by cosmic horrors from another universe. Believe it or not, the various malfunctions of ChatGPT also helped inspire some of the later books. I had established way back in Silent Order: Iron Hand that a true AI always goes homicidally insane. So when I actually did have to run an AI supercomputer character from one of the later books, I based its behavior on some ChatGPT and Bing Chat's more hilarious public meltdowns, though if I had waited a little longer and based it on Google's AI, the AI supercomputer character could have suggested that the protagonist add glue to their pizza cheese or perhaps eats are real small rocks a day for minerals. The day I wrote this paragraph (which was June 10th, 2024), Apple announced they're adding a bunch of AI stuff to both the iPad and iPhone, and no doubt more AI will soon reach meme status on the Internet. Needless to say, my opinion of generative AI in general is quite low. Question #9: Have the covers for the series changed? They look different on Goodreads. Not only have the covers changed over the last seven years, they have changed a lot. The covers went through five different iterations. At first I did them myself in GIMP and then I tried a couple different variations. During COVID I took a Photoshop class which I admit leveled up my cover design skills significantly, so I tried some character-based covers but they never had the results I was hoping to see in terms of sales. Then in 2022, I saw a Penny Arcade comic that made a joke about how science fiction readers want to see book covers that show spaceships and planets in close proximity. And while this was a joke, I realized it was nonetheless true, so I redid the covers to the current look that features spaceships in close proximity to planets, and the series has sold the best overall with the new set of covers. Science fiction writers take heed: the readers want to see planets and spaceships in close proximity on their covers. Question #10: Why aren't there audiobooks for the series? In all honesty, it would just be too expensive. At a rough back of the envelope calculation, I think it would take about $30,000 U.S. dollars to bring the entire series into audio, and it would take years to see that money back. Plus, I think the series would end up at about 85 hours long, give or take, and that's like 2 full work weeks just to listen to the audiobook for proofing. So to sum up, it would cost too much and I don't want to take on another project of that magnitude at this time. Question #11: What is your favorite book in the series? Silent Order: Eclipse Hand, for reasons unrelated to the plot. I read an article in 2017 saying that the iPad was a better productivity computer than a Linux desktop, and I thought that was just nonsense for a variety of reasons. So I wrote, edited, and did the entire cover on a Ubuntu Linux desktop for Silent Order: Eclipse Hand just to prove a point. I work less with Linux now than I did back in 2017, though given how bad Windows 11 has gotten with all the AI integration, I might go back to writing on a Linux desktop at some point. Even though it's my favorite book for reasons other than plot, I do quite like the plot of Eclipse Hand as well. The basic idea was something that's been knocking around inside my head for a while, so I was glad I was finally able to get to write it down. And now our 12th and final question: Weren't they originally only supposed to be nine books in the series? Why are there fourteen? Yes, I had planned to stop at nine because the Silent Order books never sold quite as well as I had hoped. However, there were enough dangling plot threads, specifically the mystery around the Pulse weapon of the Final Consciousness, that I was persuaded to continue and bring the series to a more epic ending than it had in book nine. I started working on book 10 in late 2019, but then COVID happened and derailed things for a while. At the end of 2021, I was able to pick it up again and in 2023 I decided would be my “summer of finishing things” and I pushed on to the final book in the Silent Order series. Hopefully it was a suitably epic ending. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who read through to the end of the series, encouraging me to continue with it. The years 2020 through 2023 were frustrating ones for a variety of reasons (and I'm sure everyone listened to this had their own frustrations in those years as well) and one of the ways I tried to reduce those frustrations was to put Silent Order on the side for a while, but I'm glad I persevered and continued on with the series, even if it took me a while. Now that it is finished, I can look back on it with a sense of pride for all the hard work that went into it. But mostly what I feel when I look back at it is gratitude for all the readers who read the books and enjoyed them. So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A remind you that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts (note: transcripts are for Episodes 140 to the present episode). 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.

In this week's episode, we take a look at seven bad ways to open your novel and how to avoid their pitfalls. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 203 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 31st, 2024 and today we are looking at seven bad ways to start your novel. Usually here we have Coupon of the Week. Unfortunately my Internet is currently down as I'm recording this, which means I can't get to my Payhip store and I can't create a Coupon of the Week. So we will resume with Coupon of the Week in June when I start recording new episodes. So now let's move directly to my current writing progress on my current writing projects. I am 38,000 words into Shield of Darkness, which currently puts the Chapter 7 of 24. I have 24 chapters in the rough draft outline, but that will probably increase because I'll have to split a few of the longer ones in editing. I had hoped to have that out in June. That doesn't look like it's going to happen because I have a lot of home repair to do in June and a couple of multi-day commitments where I won't be able to do any writing. So I think we are looking more likely for some time after the 4th of July in mid-July is when that book will come out. I am also 20,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, which will come out after Shield of Darkness comes out. I am also 6,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, which will come out sometime this fall, if all goes well. In audiobook news, we are done recording Tales of the Shield Knight, which will excellently be excellently narrated by Brian Wills and that will be a collection of the various short stories I wrote to accompany the Sevenfold Sword and Dragontiarna series. That is all done and should hopefully start appearing on various audiobook platforms before the end of June. 00:01:44 Question of the Week Now before we get into our main topic, let's go to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics, and this week's question: what was the first smartphone you ever used, and what was the first time you decided a smartphone was useful and not a waste of money? And we had one response for this one. Our first response is from Justin, who says: my work issued me a BlackBerry in 2004. Some folks considered them a first smartphone. I considered it a pain. They figured with that they owed me 24/7 and demanded an answer within 5 minutes to any email. I stopped that by asking how much they were paying me to reply outside of work hours. Then I was brought in for a work reprimand for not replying to an urgent e-mail sent during the day. My defense was that I was driving back from a remote site. When asked if I should be using the device while driving (already a no-no back then) or should I pull over and check every time I got a message, my boss decided that just maybe I wouldn't get in trouble that time, anyway. So far, I was not a fan. In 2011, we switched from Blackberries to Samsung with the first Galaxy S. I was unsure about the change, but the increased battery life and ability to put the phone in my shirt pocket won me over. What made it a true useful tool was when I installed the flashlight app on it. Working in a prison made it a pain to bring in a flashlight. You had to have paperwork and disassembled at every checkpoint to show that there's no contraband being smuggled in. The phone got a sticker and was blessed to pass security scrutiny thereafter. The flashlight was so handy. Now it's part of the OS, but then it needed a separate program to run. Yeah, smartphones have definitely contributed to the erosion of work/life balance, in my opinion. I used to do a lot of support for BlackBerry devices and they were a huge pain. I wasn't terribly upset to see the iPhone and Android displace BlackBerry and you know, sort of push it out of business because those phones, from a support perspective, let me tell you, were a big pain. For myself, it was in 2013 when I got my first smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. I hadn't wanted to get a smartphone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find non-smartphones. So I finally bit the bullet and moved into the new technology. At the time, I usually resented it since I just wanted another flip phone. When did I find it useful for the first time? I remember that incident distinctly. I was working in IT support at the time, and the next day I had to go activate some network ports in another building. The building in question had been built in the ‘90s before Wi-Fi, and so every room had something like a billion Ethernet ports in it. But network switches are expensive, and even though the building has a little like 500 Ethernet ports, only 48 of them could be active at any one time, since that was how many ports the network switch had. So when anyone moved offices, an IT support minion (i.e. me) had to go over there and move the active network ports in the network closet. I used to take a notebook with me on those kinds of calls so I could write down the port numbers and then match them up to the appropriate ports in the switch closet. But as I was doing this, it occurred to me that I didn't have to write down the port numbers. I could just take a picture of them and then look at the picture on my phone. This was much more efficient than writing down a bunch of port numbers and that was the first time I saw a smartphone as a useful tool instead of just an expensive toy. The inspiration for this week's question was a recent email I got from a reader complaining how the characters in the Silent Order science fiction series still use phones even though it's far in the future. 00:05:03 Main Topic: 7 Potentially Bad Openings for Your Novel Now let's move on to our main topic this week, seven potentially bad beginnings or openings for your novel. It is important to try and have the opening of your novel be as interesting as possible, and sometimes writers overdo it a bit when they'll start the novel with a sentence like, “today, I will tell you about the time I died for the fifth time” or something like that where you can be try and be so interesting that it becomes overwrought and actually kind of annoying to read. The flip side of this is you definitely don't want your opening to be boring or do anything that would turn off the reader, because while the ending of your book is important, the opening is also important because that will be what draws the reader in and hopefully compels them to read more and then go on and purchase any sequels. So with that in mind, let's go through seven of the potentially worst openings for your novel. Number one: being vague or mysterious to the point of being confusing. Confusion is bad. It's easy to confuse or baffle readers if you are not careful. The setting, characters, and what's happening all can't be a mystery at the beginning or the reader will have nothing to orient them in terms of what's happening in them in the book, or even what genre it is. It would be best to establish a very strong setting and character first and then have them learn what's happening and feel disoriented alongside the reader, which can work for a vague or mysterious beginning, especially if it's part of some action. You don't want your reader to be confused, but it is sometimes a good idea to have your protagonist be confused, since that will hook the reader and pull them in. For example, let's say we have a convenience store clerk who's coming to work, and as she does, she sees her boss turn into a bat and fly away. This has never happened to her before, and she's immediately baffled and wondering whether she's has a brain tumor or she just saw something supernatural or science fictional happen, and that can and that kind of set out can be a good way to hook the reader and draw them further into the story. The second bad way to start your novel is with nothing. In other words, nothing is happening or things are happening too slowly. Philosophical musings and/or emotional reflections are not a good way to start a book because they're not connected to the plot or character yet and on their own in fiction, they don't mean anything. Your reader has picked up the book to read a fictional story, not your opinions on various philosophies or political platforms or whatever. They don't have any emotional significance or connect to the plot until they're connected to a character in some way, and so you need to establish your characters in your settings and something of the plot before you can have a more philosophical considerations showing up. Something needs to be happening in the beginning to draw in reader interest, like for example with the convenience store. This could also be a way to show, not tell about the characters and setting. With our convenience store clerk, we could have her wake up, look at her credit card bills trying to figure out ways to make more money. That lets us know that she might be in debt and might be having financial troubles and she could be worried about paying to fix her car or finding a better apartment. And so then she's worried about these things when out of the blue, her boss at the convenience store turns into a giant bat and flies away. That helps us establish proper context and character and then since she'll feel realistic and grounded after all that , it may be all the more shocking when she sees something outside of her everyday life. The third bad way to start a novel is what's called an info dump. That is, when in a fantasy or science fiction setting, the writer dumps all of his or her world building onto you right away or if you are writing like a thriller or a historical novel, the writer dumps all of his or her research on you right away. You don't need to give readers all your world building, historical research, or other such research before moving ahead with the plot. Parcel out your world building slowly throughout the book. This can be done in a way to build tension or mystery to keep interest. Remember, the reader generally doesn't need to know more than is necessary to move the plot forward. No matter how much research you do, no matter how much information you require or world building you do, only put enough into the book to move the plot forward. Anything else will just it bog down. The fourth bad way to start your novel is with a cliche, and by cliche we mean starting the novel with “it was a dark and stormy night.” I also strongly recommend not to start your novel with the description of the weather, since that's often lazy writing and sort of a crutch to, you know, sort of for the writer to warm himself up. Don't start with an intro that turns out to be just a dream or a prophecy or something that will be retconned later. Don't start with the character waking up and getting ready in the morning unless you make it interesting. This can work if you do it right, but sometimes it can be clumsy to sort of start where it's like a TV show where there's a record scratch, the screen pauses, and the character says “you might be wondering how I got here” and that can work. However, it's best to only do that if you can do it well and you can do it in a way that's interesting. The fifth bad way to start your book is with a line of dialogue. While this can be done well, it can be a hook to draw on readers, but it's hard to do and it's very easy to annoy or confuse the reader. It can be good for an in media res situation where the character is an intense situation, but you should only do it if it's very clear who is speaking and what is going on. The sixth bad way to start your book is in a way that is stylistically not representative of the rest of the book, such as starting with an omniscient narrator and then switching over to first person for the rest of the book or a book starts with an action scene and the book that is otherwise not very action oriented or starts with a long historical tangent in a book that is very action oriented. And finally, the seventh way to start your book in a bad way is the prologue. Or more to the point, an ineffective prologue. I used to write prologues from time to time, but I personally don't care for them and really have come to consider them extraneous. The kind of information that is included in prologue can usually be better parceled out throughout the book in a way that pulls in the reader and draws your interest. Prologues that don't match the first chapter or immediately tie into the first chapter's action can annoy and lose the reader. A prologue needs stakes to be interesting, and prologues need to be short and ideally some kind of cliffhanger that gives weight or tension to what you're about to introduce. The absolute worst kind of prologues (in my opinion) are those that introduce a character who disappears and does not reappear for like 200 or 300 pages into the book, by which time the reader has likely forgotten all about that character. So those are several ways to open your book that are less than effective and hopefully that will help you with your own writing to write introductions and openings to your book that are interesting and hold the reader's attention. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.

In this week's episode, I look back at the movies I saw in Spring 2024 and rate them from least to most favorite. To celebrate the arrival of CLOAK OF TITANS, this coupon code will get you 25% off any of the CLOAK MAGE ebooks at my Payhip store: MAYTITANS The code is valid through June 3rd, 2024. So if you're looking for a new book to start the summer, we've got you covered! PODCAST 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 201 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 17th, 2024, and today we are looking at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Spring 2024. Before we get to anything else, let's do Coupon of the Week. To celebrate the arrival of Cloak of Titans, naturally, this coupon code will give you 25% off any of the Cloak Mage ebooks at my Payhip store. That coupon code is MAYTITANS spelled MAYTITANS and of course, as always, the coupon code will be in the show notes for this episode. This code is valid through June 3rd, 2024, so if you're looking for a new book to start the summer, we've got you covered. Now for an update on current writing and publishing projects. I am pleased to report that Cloak of Titans is done and it is now out. It should at all the ebook stores and get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. It looks like it's off to a good start, so thank you everyone for that. In audio news, Ghost in the Veils is out, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. As of right now, it should be available at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and my Payhip store. It should be showing up on Google Play, Spotify, and Chirp shortly. Now that Cloak of Titans is done, my next big main project will be Shield of Darkness, the second book in the Shield War series, picking up from Shields of Storms earlier in the year. I spent the last couple days writing the outline for that, and if all goes well, I should start on it on Monday the 20th or Tuesday the 21st. It depends on what the weather is, since there are some things I'd like to do outside if the weather is good, but anyway, that will be my new main project. Hopefully that will be out before the end of June. My secondary project right now is Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I am currently about 14,000 words into that. That should come out fairly quickly after Shield of Darkness is done, so probably mid to late July for that book. 00:02:10 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question is inspired by the various comments whenever I post the picture related to grilling: specifically, what is your favorite thing to grill? And we had a variety of responses this week. Our first response is from Justin, who says: my favorite thing to grill is a well marinated sirloin. Garlic, pineapple juice, soy sauce, and herbs in a Ziploc bag for two to four hours, then on a hot grill for a couple minutes per side. Yum! Alas, nowadays it's mostly chicken legs and pork loin sliced up for chops. Even the cheapest hamburger meat is getting to be too expensive to buy on a regular basis. Sadly, this is definitely true, and I've seen that myself. Our next response is from ABM, who says: is it even camping in the Midwest if you're not grilling a pudgie pie over a fire? For those unfamiliar with this regional delicacy, either sandwich or pie fillings are put between bread in the special sandwich shaped iron before it goes over the fire. It really puts the grilled in grilled cheese sandwich. Jenny says: steak, but only because I have a charcoal grill now. I used to use gas. I think it is better because I find it to be slower and tastier. Bonnie says brats and burgers were my favorite when Hubby was around to grill. Gary says: a pork loin is one of my favorite things to grill. I prefer smoking stuff over grilling. Grilling and barbecue are definitely two different things. There is nothing better than a dry rub pork shoulder smoked for about 10 hours and then shredded. Mark says: we love good old-fashioned burgers and lately have been adding teriyaki grilled chicken thighs to the cooking plan. John says: Chinese style plum sauce ribs. Family recipe. Country style ribs, which is just pork butt cut onto thick strips, marinated 3 days. Catriona says: Lamb chops and sausages. A different Mark says: ribs are my favorite, followed by barbecued chicken. Jesse says: spicy Italian sausages for the most part. Michael says: I find the grilling post interesting because over here in the UK, we tend to call it barbecuing and the term itself is a barbecue. Grilling is what you do under grill in your oven indoors. But regardless, I would say hamburgers! Joseph says: Porterhouse and lobster tails on charcoal grill. Second would be shrimp, scallops, and fish fillets of any kind on charcoal. Breakfast on the griddle, pork and chicken on the smoker all year round. Jonathan says: steak and nothing but steak. A third Mark says: prisoners. I hope he meant that tongue in cheek. For myself, I think it's a good old-fashioned burger. I find half the battle in terms of flavor is to spend ninety seconds melting cheese onto the burger in the final phase of grilling. Toasting the bun separately also helps a great deal. It is remarkable how proper cooking can improve the flavor of many foods. Like, I had eggs for lunch. Eggs by themselves are kind of bland, but if you add some ham and cheese and some pepper to the eggs, it really tastes quite a bit better. I suppose the realization that food tastes better when you prepare it properly is the foundation of five and a half thousand years of cooking and civilization. 00:05:15 Main Topic: Spring Movie Roundup And it's now titled for my Spring Movie Roundup for 2024, our main topic of the week. As usual, everything is sorted from least liked to most liked, and just a reminder that my opinions are in no objective or qualified and are based solely on my own taste and whether or not I like something. The least favorite thing I saw this spring would be Hot Tub Time Machine, which came out in 2010. This is one of the very rare movies I didn't finish. It was just too stupid. Like sometimes if I don't like movie, I'll start playing Starfield or Skyrim or something with the movie still playing in the background, but Hot Tub Time Machine was too stupid even to merit that treatment. I don't object to crude humor on its face. Indeed, much of the absurdity of the human condition comes from the various indignities to which human bodies are inherently subjected. There is something both hilarious and egalitarian in the fact that an emperor and a peasant have to relieve themselves in the same way, and many jokes have made use of that truth. You can get away with a lot of crudity if you're actually funny. But the Hot Tub Time Machine movie, just threw crudeness on the screen in lieu of attempting actual humor. Besides, crude humor ultimately is to storytelling as garlic salt is to cooking: best used sparingly. Anyway, the protagonists were all unlikable. I simply got annoyed enough with movie that I gave up around 40 or 50 minutes into it. Overall grade: F Next up is Wish, which came out in 2023. I did not see that in the theater. I saw it when I turned up on Disney Plus a few months ago. I liked the animation and the voice acting was good, but the movie just did not make a lot of sense. Like there's this wizard-king and people give him their wishes, but then they forget what they wish for, and he does this to prevent civil unrest, or so he says. The protagonist gets mad that the wizard-king isn't handing out free stuff in the way that she likes, so she wishes really hard and then a magic star falls from the sky to help her. This upsets the wizard king, so he switches from using good magic, which is apparently blue and sparkly to evil magic, which is green and sparkly. I guess that that color makes all the difference. Then everyone in the Kingdom sings at the wizard-king until he turns into a mirror. I have to admit that made even less sense as I spoke it aloud. There are movies that don't make a lot of sense but work because it's like a dream or a magic trick since the movie suspends the viewer's disbelief during the tale, and it's only afterward that you realize it didn't make much sense, but that by then it doesn't matter because you're entertained. Unfortunately, Wish doesn't even make sense while you're watching it, and a benevolent wizard king who hoards wishes sounds a lot like the Disney Corporation. It would be hilarious if Disney made Wish as a parody of themselves, but I think their interpretation happened by accident. Overall grade: C-, maybe D+ if I'm in a really bad mood. Next up is Green Lantern, which came out in 2011. This turned up free on Tubi, so I gave it a watch. It was interesting because all the pieces were there to make it a great movie, strong cast with good performances, reasonable CG computer graphics for 2011, and a potentially compelling plot. However, it didn't really gel. I suspect Ryan Reynolds works better as a comic actor than a dramatic one. Additionally, the movie relied way too heavily on a lot of ponderous infodumping to explain the elaborate mythology of the Green Lantern Corps. The classic axiom of fiction writing is to show don't tell, and since movies are a visual medium, it's especially true in movies. The problem was that Green Lantern spent a lot of its runtime telling instead of showing, but I suspect the studio didn't want to take a lot of risks with a movie that cost $200 million to make in 2011 money (before a lot of inflation). Additionally, the movie leaned a little too heavily into its CG. So overall, I would give it a grade of C-. Next up is Avatar: The way of Water, which came out in 2022. The Avatar films are visually beautiful, but they're also profoundly misanthropic, which is sort of a “it would be better if humans were all dead” strain of environmentalism running through it. It's also unfortunate how the movies portraying “living in harmony with nature” as morally upright, because in real life, living with nature means dying before the age of 30 of sepsis, dysentery, various contagious diseases, endemic local warfare, and starvation, often all at the same time. Basically, the history of civilization is five and a half thousand years of humanity trying to find ways to get screwed less by nature. Of course, then we're getting into profound philosophical questions. Do you believe that humanity is made in the image of God with a soul, or is humanity particularly simply a particularly clever breed of destructive chimpanzee? Obviously one's worldview will diverge profoundly based on how you answer that question, which, let's be honest, is a rather deep philosophical/religious discussion for a movie about blue space elves made by the director of Terminator. On the other hand, maybe I'm just overthinking it and in the world of Avatar, the Na'vi are blue space elves and the humans are just space orcs. Anyway, incoherent philosophical questions aside, the movie is visually stunning, the apex of computer graphics. It's what you get with a $400 million budget overseen by a perfectionist director who directed three of the four top-grossing movies of all time. The plot is a straight continuation of the previous movie. The humans have returned to reconquer Pandora, including a clone of the charismatic Colonel Quaritch from the first movie. It's up to Jake Sully and his family to unite the squabbling Na'vi forest and water clans to fight off the invaders. Unlike the first movie, Way of Water is not a self-contained story, but helps tee up the third movie, which is definitely happening since this one made like two and half billion dollars. I also admire James Cameron's unswerving devotion to the Papyrus font, even after two Saturday Night Live sketches about it. Overall grade: B Next up is The Cutting Edge, which came out in 1992. I watched this because I was told it is considered a classic in some corners. Since it was also free on Tubi, I decided to give it a watch. It's basically the ideal form of the very popular enemies to lovers romance story trope. Olympic hockey player Doug suffers a head injury that damages his peripheral vision, which means he can't play hockey anymore. Meanwhile, Kate is a spoiled and demanding figure skater who alienates every single potential partner, thereby ruining her chances of winning Olympic gold. Kate's coach Anton seeking out a partner willing to put up with Kate's difficult personality, tracks down the desperate Doug and convinces him to give figure skating a try instead of hockey. As you might expect, sparks and conflicts immediately fly when Doug and Kate meet, and they must learn to overcome their initial mutual dislike (and their obvious mutual attraction) to win the Olympics. Enemies to lovers romance tends to follow a very specific story structure, and this movie nails it perfectly. The actors all did a good job with their parts. Fun fact, Anton was played by Roy Dotrice, who narrated the A Song of Ice and Fire audiobooks. Even more fun fact, the movie was written by Tony Gilroy, who also wrote several of the Jason Bourne movies and created Star Wars: Andor, which are about as totally different from The Cutting Edge as you can get. This man has some range. Overall grade: B. Next up is Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which originally came out in 2021. After the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot didn't work for a variety of reasons, it seemed that Sony they settled on a different tactic, instead decided to continue the original continuity of with the new movies, which in my opinion was a smarter choice. Single mom Callie is having a rough time with her teenage children, Trevor and Phoebe. Callie is out of options when her estranged father dies and leaves her a farm on the outskirts of Summerville, Oklahoma. With no better options at the moment, Callie and the kids pack up and move to Summerville and the bored Trevor and Phoebe began poking into their relics of their grandfather's life. However, it turns out that their grandfather was Egon Spengler, one of the original Ghostbusters, and he had moved to Summerville to keep an eye on a dangerous supernatural threat. With Egon dead, the threat is waking up once more, and it's up to Phoebe and Trevor to finish their grandfather's work and save the world. This was a very well-constructed comedy/horror action thriller. Admittedly, it starts a bit slow in the same style as the original Ghostbusters movie from 1984, but overall, it works. There's a gradual sense that something is increasingly wrong in Summerville. Unlike Green Lantern, this movie doesn't do a lot of infodumping, but instead uses the much better storytelling technique of gradually revealing the worldbuilding as the kids start to investigate the mysteries around their family and their new town. Phoebe and Trevor had the right combination of teenage brattiness and curiosity and Callie was believable as a single mom who had made some questionable life choices and was trying to hang on as best she could. Paul Rudd was also good as an incompetent summer school teacher/seismologist who has nonetheless figured out that something strange is happening in Summerville. The movie leaned a little too hard into to nostalgia, but I liked it. Overall, grade: B+. Next up is The Sign of Four, which came out originally in 1987. I finally had a chance to watch the Jeremy Brett version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Sign of Four. Brett was, in my opinion, the best Sherlock Holmes actor of all the actors who have played versions of the character. Amusingly, I think Mr. Brett would have made a good Grand Admiral Thrawn, which is funny because one of the inspirations for Thrawn was of course, Sherlock Holmes. But unfortunately, Brett died two or three years before Heir to the Empire was even written. Anyway, back to the main point. In The Sign of Four, Miss Mary Morstan calls upon Holmes and Watson asking for Holmes's help in unraveling a strange mystery. Her father disappeared soon after returning to England from India, and once a year since then, she has received an extremely valuable pearl in the mail. Her mysterious benefactor wishes to meet her at last and Morstan wants Holmes' advice as to what she should do. Naturally, there's quite a bit more going on beneath the surface, and Holmes soon finds himself investigating a case involving a pair of eccentric brothers, a one-legged man, a deadly assassin, and treasure that seems cursed to bring misfortune to whoever obtains it. All of the performances were excellent, though given the state of 1980s sound technology, I definitely recommend watching the movie with the captions on. The only thing that I didn't like was that the adaptation removed the fact that Morstan and Watson get engaged at the end but given that the actors wanted to deemphasize Sherlock's cocaine use (the original story has the famous line “for me there still remains the cocaine bottle”), that's probably why it was cut. Overall grade: A-. And now for the favorite things I saw in spring 2023 and for the first time, it came out to a three-way tie. The first of my three favorite things was Fall Guy, which came out this year, in 2024. I didn't intend to go see this initially, but then I saw the hilarious Saturday Night Live opening Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling did about Barbie and Oppenheimer, and I decided to give it a shot. This is a romantic comedy action thriller and it nails all those genres excellently. The protagonist is a highly regarded film stuntman named Colt, in love with an assistant director named Jody, but Colt is seriously injured in an accident. In the aftermath of the accident, Colt abandons his career and breaks up with Jody. Eighteen months later, the producer of a big budget science fiction epic contacts Colt. It turns out that his ex, Jody, is directing the movie and her career is riding on its success. So he goes to do the stunts for the movie to help her out. However, things soon take a turn for the worse when the movie's egotistical lead actor disappears, and if Cole can't find him within 48 hours, the studio will shut down the movie and destroy Jody's career. What follows is a romantic comedy that remains funny and turns into a pretty good thriller movie. The running joke about seeing the unicorn was great and there's a bit with Colt crying in his truck that becomes absolutely hilarious. Definitely recommended. It's really regrettable that this movie apparently didn't do well in theaters, but I predict it will have a long and healthy life on streaming. Overall grade: A. The second of my three favorite things is Clarkson's Farm: Season Three, which also came out in 2024. This show has stumbled into a genius formula: display the extreme difficulties of the modern farmer through the lens of an unsympathetic comedy protagonist in the person of Jeremy Clarkson. Like, Jeremy Clarkson is not a terribly sympathetic figure because he's very rich and unquestionably prone to quarrelling because he got fired from one of his old jobs for punching a dude. But by having him run his own farm and deal with all the many, many headaches and heartaches of farming, he becomes a sympathetic figure because he suffers through the same things as every other farmer: failed crops, bad weather, badger-spread diseases, animals dying, government red tape, and so on. And it also demonstrates how hard farming is. If Clarkson's farm loses a lot of money, it doesn't really matter to him because he can rely on his media career. But that isn't true for most farmers, obviously, and Clarkson himself and the show go out of their way to point out that fact again and again. Anyway, if you're not familiar with the concept of the show, in 2019 Clarkson decided to run his farm himself rather than hiring a professional manager and since he was under contract to produce a show for Amazon, he figured he could make a documentary and get paid for working on his farm. In the first season, Clarkson was shocked when a year's work on his farm brought in a profit of about $150. In the second season, he battled local government to open a restaurant on his farm. In the third season, the team continues. Clarkson attempts to raise pigs and find new ways of making revenue from the farm. The show manages to be both entertaining and educational about the difficulties of farming at the same time. Definitely worth the watch. Overall grade: A. And now for the third of my three favorites: Dune Part 2, which came out in 2024. As a writer of novels, I really, really hate to admit it, but I think Dune Part 2 improved somewhat on the original book. This is rare in film adaptations, but it does happen. Goldfinger the movie is better than Goldfinger the book in my opinion, since Auric Goldfinger's plan makes much more sense in the movie than it does in the book and the movie also has James Bond's climatic showdown with the deadly Oddjob. The Godfather movie is pretty close to the Godfather novel, but it's tighter because it does omit some needless subplots that honestly I thought the author threw into the book to pad out the length. So as a writer, it really does pay me to admit this, but I think some of the changes to Dune Part 2 are an improvement over the book. It's a bit tighter, a little less deus ex machina. The novel Dune, beyond all doubt, is a very weird book. It's also very dense, with multiple interlocking themes. You can honestly say that Dune is about ecology, religion, politics, declining empires, the cyclical nature of history, oil-based politics, social dynamics, and of course, truly enormous quantities of mind altering drugs. Any movie adaptation would probably have to take just one of those themes and lean hard into them since there won't be enough time to address all of them. The director, Denis Villeneuve, chose to go with the mostly political themes. Anyway, I think Dune Parts One and Two combined are probably the best possible adaptation that could be made of the seminal (but still very weird) science fiction book. Various parts from the novel have been omitted, altered, or emphasized, but that's necessary in adaptation. The trick is to do it in a way that preserves the spirit of the original work, and I think Dune Parts One and Two have done it well. Part of the problem with the 1984 version of Dune was that the ending totally subverted the message of the book, which Frank Herbert himself said several times was “beware of charismatic leaders.”  Dune Part 2 most definitely does not subvert the message of the book. Indeed, Paula Atreides's final line in the movie is downright chilling. Part 2 picks up in the second half of the story when Paul joins the Fremen and embarks on his gradual transformation (or perhaps descent) from the son of a destroyed noble house to the blood drenched warrior prophet Muad'Dib. All the performances are good, the effects are excellent, the desert shots are sweeping, and you could tell Hans Zimmer and his team enjoyed cutting loose with the soundtrack. Overall, I think Dune Parts One and Two are probably the best possible adaptation of the Dune book in movie form, which is probably was the other problem with the Dune 1984, since there was just one movie and Dune Parts One and Two required over five hours of very expensive big budget movie to tell even a condensed adaptation of the complicated original book. Overall grade: A. So that's it for this week. On my writing podcasts this week, we talked about grilling and movies, so next week we will try to have a more writing themed topic. 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, often with transcripts. 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.

In this week's episode, we take a look at some ergonomics and health tips for writers and other sedentary workers. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: FURY OF THE BARBARIANS (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SPRINGFURY The coupon code is valid through May 25th, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 199 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May the 3rd 2024 and today we are talking about ergonomics for writers. Before we get to our main topic, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on current writing projects, and then Question of the Week. First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SPRINGFURY. As always, that will be in the show notes with a link to the Payhip store. This coupon code will be valid through May the 25th, 2024, so if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered. Next up, updates on my current writing projects. I am almost done with Cloak of Titans. I'm currently at 98,000 words. I am hoping to wrap it up after I finish recording this episode (either this afternoon or tomorrow), and so we are well on track to having the book out before the end of May, if all goes well. I am also 8,000 words into Half-Orc Paladin, which will be the sequel to Wizard-Thief and Half-Elven Thief, and the third book in the Rivah series. That will probably be out towards the end of July because once Cloak of Titans is done, I want to go full speed ahead on Shield of Darkness (the sequel to Shield of Storms from earlier in the year and the second book in the Shield War series). If all goes well, the next couple of books I publish will be Cloak of Titans, Shield of Darkness, and Half-Orc Paladin. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is recording the anthology of Tales of the Shield Knight for me. We're about 1/3 of the way through it, I think and making good progress. I'm looking forward to sharing that with you all. I just got the notification that the files for the audiobook of Ghost in the Veils (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) were uploaded, so just a little more proofing and then that should hopefully be available to you as well. So lots of good things to look forward to. 00:02:07 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is the board game that you've been playing the longest? Board games have many advantages in the modern age. They don't require electricity, they don't need to be charged, and they also have a pleasingly tactile feel that you just don't get from tapping a screen. Sometimes you learn a game when you're a kid and sticks with you ever since. We have some interesting answers this week. Our first answer is from Jesse, who says: I have to say Labyrinth. Played it as a kid a lot with siblings. A year or two ago, my kids got it randomly from a relative, and now it's back. The real precursor to Mario Kart in terms of learning to hate your friends and discovering life is unfair. For myself, I only started playing Mario Kart with my siblings when I was already well into middle age, so we thankfully avoided squabbling over that. If we had played Mario Kart when we were kids, we definitely would have squabbled. Back to Question of the Week. Michael says: I don't really play them anymore, alas. I played chess in school but only so I didn't have to do physical education class. I used to look at the board and immediately resign and then just sit and read a book instead until the teacher wandered over. It used to annoy my opponents who took the game seriously. So congratulations to Michael for devising a chess stratagem that did, in fact get him what he wanted. MacKenzie says: hands down, chess. I may be awful at it, but it's definitely the record holder. Mark says: checkers, because my mum is good at it. Adelaide says: Scrabble for me. Venus says: backgammon. My mother taught me to play. I don't know how old I was. She never let me win. Every time I beat her it was because I had a better game that day. David says it's probably Shoots and Ladders, followed closely by checkers. Grace says: I no longer play the same board games I did as a kid so the ones that I play now with friends. I've played I think Arkham Horror and Quacks of Quedlinburg the most. Both are fun, though Arkham Horror, we've won all of two times. For myself, I think the board game I've been playing the longest is chess. I first learned to play when I think was I was ten and I've been playing on and off ever since. Amusingly for a post about tactile board games, I recently discovered chess.com and I like its large supply of chess puzzles, which are kind of like bite sized chess when I don't have time to play a full game, which is most of the time. However, last night I did have a bit more time to play and so I was able to play six games against actual human opponents on chess.com in about 40 minutes and I lost six times in a row. So it's a good thing I enjoy the game because there's definitely room for improvement. 00:04:45 Main Topic: Ergonomics for Writers Now on to this week's main topic, ergonomics for writers. And let's start this with a disclaimer. I am not a health professional. I am not a doctor. I'm not a nurse. I'm not an ergonomics specialist. For medical questions, you should seek medical advice and verify anything I say with the opinion of actual medical professionals. When starting a new movement or exercise routine, it's a good idea to start gradually, both for reasons of health and to prevent burnout or getting overwhelmed. So that is your disclaimer. I am not a medical professional. But I don't think you have to be a medical professional to notice that desk jobs have a serious problem, and that includes writing. If you're sitting for a long period of time, that can cause a host of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, potentially diabetes, etc. Sitting for long periods reduces your energy levels and can be detrimental to your mental health. Sitting for long periods in the wrong position can make joint, wrist, and back problems worse and cause pain. As an example, back in the old days when I did IT support, I was talking to a coworker who said that he was having back problems and so I made, you know, sympathetic noises and told him I hope he felt better. Then about an hour later I was walking down the hall and I happened to walk past his desk and I saw that he was using his laptop by sitting at the very edge of his chair, and his back was bent at like 45° angle to type on the keyboard. And I was like dude, this explains your back problems. So thankfully he improved his posture a bit after that. If you do have a job such as being a writer where you are sitting for long periods of time, how can you sit in the most healthy way? Changing how you sit is a relatively quick thing to do that will reap long term rewards in terms of potentially avoiding back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain and so forth. Make sure that your chair and desk are set in the correct positions. There are lot of diagrams available to show you, that demonstrate how to have an ergonomic desk set up. You want your elbows to be at a 90° angle. You want your wrist to be neutral or supported. You don't want them to be bent like T Rex hands. Your back and neck should not be leaning forward. The top of the monitor should be around eye level for neck health and in fact I have my main desktop monitor on this monitor stand I got off Amazon Basics just for the purpose of raising it to proper eye level. You want your knees so your legs are not pulled underneath your chair or resting on your chair casters, since this stresses knee joints. If your legs aren't long enough to go comfortably to a flat position when sitting normally, footrests work well and aren't very expensive or a large book will work, too. For your eye health, you want to look away from your monitor occasionally to reduce eye strain. Another good solution for the health problems that sitting too much causes is moving. You can have walking breaks where you get up and move for at least a minute every hour. This is an excellent time to get some water to drink or to use the bathroom. Fitness and smart watches or a cheap kitchen timer can be used to remind you to get up or stand. It might be a good idea to pace while taking a phone call, since you're going to be on the phone anyway and if it's not a video call, there's no reason not to stand up and walk around a little bit, so long as you're not irritating your officemates. Sometimes it's a good idea to take a brief walk daily. Some people who work from home use a walk around the block at the beginning of the day and the end of the day to mentally transition away from the workday in the absence of a work commute. Some people have the kind of work where they can do it while on a walking pad (like a low power treadmill) and an adjustable standing desk combination. This setup is a bit more expensive and can cost about like $350 USD for a basic setup and just like standing desks, they don't work for everyone. If you already have a treadmill, you can get a desk attachment for it for around sixty U.S. dollars. The transcriptionist of this podcast has used a walking pad/standing desk combination for about six months now and finds that it helps with afternoon energy crashes. She usually uses it for webinars, Zoom meetings where she don't need to be on camera, and tasks that involve more reading than typing, such as research for these podcast episodes. She can type while she walks, so long as she keeps her pace to under about two mph. She says the key is to think of walking as a supplement to working and not expect it to be the same as walking on a treadmill at the gym. For myself, I've mentioned before that pretty frequently that I use the Pomodoro technique while I'm writing where I'll write intensely for 25 minutes and then take a 5 or 10 minute break. That's also an excellent time to stand up and move around or if you're me, drop and do some push-ups to help keep carpal tunnel syndrome at bay. Another potential thing to think about is strength training/mobility. People tend to be scared of strength training because they're afraid of injuring themselves, but they really shouldn't be so long as they, you know, do the forms correctly. Strength training, as the name implies, strengthens muscles that support your joints and becomes even more important as we get older, since the human body tends to lose muscle mass as we get older. As little as two sessions of strength training a week have been shown to lead to fewer injuries and greater longevity. Strength training is important in the sedentary job like writing since we don't have tasks to build muscles already built into the workday. Writing is a lot of things, but it's not particularly great for building physical strength. Having a consistent strength routine also means that your body can instantly adapt to challenges like shoveling heavy snow or helping to carry a person in an emergency or getting the bag into the overhead bin on the plane without having to ask for help. As people get older, that kind of thing gets harder to do otherwise. In the case of shoveling, it can put a lot of strain on your heart, so it's best to prepare for these kind of life challenges with consistent strength training. There's a lot of strength training that doesn't require a lot of money or a gym membership. Body weight and resistance band strength training are beginner friendly and free or inexpensive. And as I mentioned earlier, you can totally do push-ups for free with no equipment. Another potential strength training exercise that may work for you is resistance band training. That's great for those who travel often or live in a very small space, such as a typical modern urban apartment. Latex or cloth bands that provide resistance for body weight movements can be found quite cheaply on most major retailers. Some are in the shape of a loop, while others have attached handles. Resistance band training includes exercises for those who are unable to stand at all or for long periods of time. Another good technique is dumbbell only strength training. Dumbbells can actually be used for lower body exercises like squats as well as well as upper body exercises. They are relatively inexpensive compared to a full barbell or strength machines and they don't take up a lot of space, which again is useful if you're living in a small space or place where space is constrained. Sample routines with video demonstrations abound on YouTube, if you're not sure where to start. Otherwise, you can find online training programs from companies like Street Parking or CrossFit Linchpin for about $20.00 USD per month, and they have structured training routines that have been scaled down to work with just dumbbells. Sitting correctly and moving often sounds like things that shouldn't matter to someone in a job that relies on the mind but physical health and a strong mind are strongly intertwined. People in intellectual jobs, I've noticed, tend to think of themselves as a mind that happens to have a body attached, especially people who are very often heavily into the sciences and engineering. But it's really, I found, the opposite. We are essentially a physical body that happens to have a mind attached to it and the better shape you can get your physical body and physical health into, the clearer your mind will be. I mean, just think about how hard it is to think clearly when you have chronic pain or chronic illness or some kind of medication you have to take to manage those things that interferes with your thinking, gives you cloudy thoughts. Truth is, this has been known for centuries and still confirmed by endless research studies. The Romans had a Latin phrase, “mens sana in corpore sano”:  a healthy mind in a healthy body. That sums up how interconnected the goal of both are. Ideally, when you're a writer, you want to prolong your career and increase your energy levels by spending at least a small time each week moving and strengthening the body. Sitting correctly also goes a long way towards preventing back and joint pain, which can definitely hurt your productivity and cause problems in other areas of your life as well. Finally, the most important thing with any exercise program is consistency is more important than perfection here. Start small and keep going. I've often said in this podcast, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the possible, and this is definitely true with exercise as well as writing. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. Once again, a word of thanks for my transcriptionist for helping me pull together the research for this episode. As you might have guessed, she has a strong interest in physical fitness for people who sit at a desk and work a lot. A reminder you 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.

In this week's episode, we take a look at the pros and cons of some of the most popular writing software, and a share a preview of the new HALF-ELVEN THIEF audiobook narrated by Leanne Woodward. I'm hoping to start on SHIELD OF DARKNESS soon, so let's look back at some of the DRAGONSKULL audiobooks! This coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: SPRINGSQUIRE The coupon code is valid through April 23rd, 2024. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! Transcript   00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 195 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April 5th, 2024 and today we are talking about the pros and cons of different types of writing software. We also have an update on my current writing projects and as usual, Question of the Week. Before we get into that, let's do Coupon of the Week. For this week's coupon, I'm hoping to start on Shield of Darkness soon. So let's look back at some of the Dragonskull audiobooks. The following coupon code will get you 25% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire at my Payhip store and that is SPRINGSQUIRE. Again that is SPRINGSQUIRE and that will be in the show notes. This coupon code will get you 25% off Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire audiobook, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. This coupon code will be valid through April the 23rd, 2024. If you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing projects. The rough draft of Wizard Thief is done. It came to about 74,000 words, which means it is about 15,000 words longer than the first book. I suspect no one will complain. I am now writing Thief's Favor, an ebook short story set in the world of Wizard-Thief. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Thief's Favor when Wizard-Thief comes out, hopefully before April is over. I am also 19,000 words into Cloak of Titans and after Wizard-Thief is published that will be my main project and then once Cloak of Titans is done, it'll be back to Ridmark and Andomhaim with Shield of Darkness. In audiobook news, the audiobook of Half-Elven Thief is done, as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. You can get it at all the usual audio bookstores, Audible, and all the others except for Google Play. For some reason, they seem to be having slow uptake on audiobooks for the last couple of weeks, and hopefully that should be cleared up soon. Otherwise, you can get Half-Elven Thief, as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward at all the usual audiobook stores, and we will include a sample of the audiobook at the end of this podcast episode. So hang around for that. 00:02:13 Question of the Week Now, for this week's question of the week, which we do have interesting discussions on my blog and Facebook page. This week's question of the week was: what was the first musical album you ever purchased with your own money? No wrong answers, obviously. The idea for this week's question arrived because over Easter weekend I helped someone set up a device for ripping LP records to MP3. This was an interesting experience because it was in fact the first time I had ever attempted to use an LP record in any form, since by the time I became interested in purchasing music (more on that at the end of the segment), the LP era was well and truly over. Or was it? I thought it was amusing that vinyl outsold CDs in 2023 because as I learned firsthand, when I was setting up this LP ripper, vinyl is so much more cumbersome and fragile than either CD or streaming. Anyway, we asked people what their first album they purchased with their own money was and here are some of the answers. Malcolm says War of the Worlds LP vinyl. Justin says Rush, A Farewell to Kings on cassette tape. In the mid ‘90s, my daughters found my box of cassettes, a legacy of my military days, and it immediately became theirs. ABM says my first album (well in this case, CD) was Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt. Chris says Grand Funk Railroad, Survival. I'm that old, lol. Bonnie says Chicago Transit Authority and K-TEL Hits of the Month. Had “Cover of The Rolling Stone” on it. Brad says Jaws 1975 and that set me on the path of being a lifelong fan and rabid collector of film music. Venus says: my last day of 8th grade, I bought Annihilator-Alice in Hell and Metal Church-Blessing in Disguise. Same day, same store, same transaction. Cheryl says my very first purchase at the age of 14 back in the ‘60s was an album by the Walker Brothers from a secondhand shop. The first new album was Sticky Fingers, Rolling Stones, 1971. Tom says the Trainspotting soundtrack. Pamela says the Letterman 1968 Going Out of my Head. Michael says the soundtrack for Mad Max-Beyond Thunderdome, a musical feast of Jean Michel Jarre crossed with Tina Turner. On cassette tape, naturally. Scott says Guns and Roses, Appetite for Destruction. Brandy says Sisters of Mercy, Vision Thing. Rhion says I grew up in a college town and by age 4 I had a full, green milk of LPs from the discount bin. By five, I had four. I had my own personal collection and my own stereo because my uncle would go to dorm dumpsters at the end of the semester to grab stereos, et cetera, to refurbish. My first purchase was Oingo Boingo's Only a Lad and my second was Men at Work. They were $0.75 each. I remember because it was $0.25 over my budget. I had to ask for a quarter from my uncle. And finally, John says Leonard Nimoy Sings at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. It had The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins on it. Oh dear. If you have never seen The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, which is a song about Bilbo Baggins sung by Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame, once you've finished listening to this podcast episode, go to YouTube, search for The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins and watch the music video of Leonard Nimoy singing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. It is hilarious. Thanks to everyone for their comments for Question of the Week. For myself, my answer for what the first musical album I ever purchased was a bit odd because it was, I suspect it was later than most of the people who mentioned this and the reason for that is I have a very odd relationship with popular music because for some reason I almost always have a hard time understanding song lyrics. Song lyrics usually sound like either monotonous droning or warbling to my ear. I don't know why. My brain just works that way. One of the few exceptions is Johnny Cash, who I can usually understand on the first try without any difficulty. Because of that, I've never really connected with most popular music, whether way back when I was a teenager or in the modern age. To this day, I still gravitate towards the soundtracks of computer games and movies that I like. So the first soundtrack I deliberately purchased with my own money was part of a computer game collection, specifically, the Quest for Glory collection, which came out in 1997 and that came with a CD of Quest for the Glory 5: Dragon Fire soundtrack, which I wanted. I already had all the Quest for Glory games on CD or in some cases floppy disk, but I bought that collection just so I could have the soundtrack CD. 27 years later, I still have it and I listened to that soundtrack while working on the final scenes of Wizard-Thief. 00:07:12 Main Topic: Pros and Cons of Writing Software Now let's venture into our main topic of the week, the pros and cons of the best writing software. I got thinking about this because a few years ago I was at the gym. Usually when I'm at the gym, I go on the treadmill and I bring a tablet with me with an ebook and whether I'm running or walking or whatever, I will read on the treadmill. While I was doing this, an elderly gentleman came up next to me on the next treadmill and asked if I knew of any word processing programs that would work on an Android tablet. Boy, did I have answers for him. I started to describe the various pros and cons of different writing software, and he very quickly got bored, made a polite excuse, and wandered away. However, this is a writing podcast with people who are interested in the business of writing, and so I thought it would be a good topic for this week's show because if you ever want your book to be read by other people, if you're not just, you know, handwriting it in a journal for your own emotional satisfaction, then at some point you will probably have to convert your book to a digital file and you will need a software program to do that, and if you're really serious about writing, you will probably need a word processor of some kind or a similar program. So the first one we're going to look at is one that many indie and traditional writers swear by. It's called Scrivener, and it is a program specifically designed for writing books or novels. The pros: it is designed specifically for writing. It has features for outlining, breaking documents into chapters, and tracking writing goals, etc. It has a one-time cost of $60.00 US instead of a subscription, which is increasingly rare nowadays since everything seems to require a subscription instead of a one-time price. And as an added bonus, they offer a free trial so you can try it out and see if it is to your liking. They offer a student discount, where if you buy it with a valid.edu address, you should be able to get a discount. So now here are the cons. The learning curve on Scrivener is pretty high. For basic writing, for something like Microsoft Word, you just open up Word to a blank document, start typing, and if you just want to do that, then the program will definitely meet your need. Scrivener is a bit harder to learn and you would probably benefit from watching a few tutorial videos on how to use it beforehand. I personally do not use Scrivener, though I don't object to it obviously because I know many indies and tradpub writers who know what they're doing swear by it, but for me it is kind of overkill and I don't use it. If you are thinking about Scrivener, it's probably good to ask yourself, will you actually use the extra features? Because my own writing process is pretty simple. I just type out an outline in one Word document, and then I type out the rough draft in a different Word document, and I don't need fancy outlining software or something like that for my process. That's not to say you can't use fancy outlining software, or that the software isn't good. You might remember last year on podcast I had an interview with Troy Lambert of Plottr, which is a very excellent program designed to help you outline your novel but if that's not something you're interested in doing, then Scrivener will probably be overkill for you. Scribner is probably best for people who take extensive notes on their work, especially if they're trying to organize research based on the chapters where it's needed. It may be best for the kind of people who enjoy curating Notion and Trello accounts and they're able to think about their book in a visual way. It is also good for people who extensively revise blocks of text within a chapter or move chapters around a lot. If that sounds like your writing process, and it sounds like something would be good for you, then it is definitely worth giving the free trial of Scrivener a try. Now let's move on to a more general word processing program and one that probably many people out there are familiar with: Google Docs. That is part of the Google suite of office software. You can do PowerPoint-esque presentations, spreadsheets, and documents in Google Docs. The biggest pro of Google Docs is that it's free. All you need to do is sign up for a free Google account and then you have free access to Google Docs and can start typing. It is very easy to use between multiple devices since it runs primarily in a web browser. If you are using one computer, you can close out and open a web browser on a different computer and use it that way. There are dedicated apps for both Android and iOS devices. It's very easy to share between multiple people and accounts and collaborate in real time, and this is honestly its biggest advantage over Microsoft Office besides the cost. Autosave also works extremely well. However, like everything else in life, there are cons. One of the cons of Google Docs is that it gets really slow with large files. I did try to write a book in Google Docs once and I tried a couple of short stories. The short stories are fine. If you try to write a novel in Google Docs, I found that starts to get really slow after about the 25,000 word mark or so. For obvious reasons, since Google Docs is an online service, it is very hard to use without an Internet connection. Perhaps the most important con of all is to be sure to back up to an additional location. If you lose access to your Google account for whatever reason, that means you lose access to all your files, including the book you were working on in Google Docs. So if you're using Google Docs, it's a good idea, it's in fact an excellent and imperative idea, to download your document every so often and save it in another location. Now let's move on to probably the most common word processing software on the planet as of this recording, Microsoft Word. Full disclosure, that is what I use most of the time. In fact, my podcast notes are in a Microsoft Word document. The pros are that you've probably already heard of it and many people are familiar with this product through work or school. If you've had an office job, you've probably used Microsoft Word at some point. And if you have gone through the modern educational system, there's a very good chance that you used Microsoft Word or Google Docs in school. Another advantage is that it's very easy to find online tutorials from Microsoft Office products. Another advantage is that Word is essentially the industry standard for publishing, which makes it a lot easier to share with the editors, translators, beta readers, etcetera. There are a couple of cons, though. Microsoft, like many other software companies, has been switching heavily to the subscription model, so I believe they still sell individual licenses for Office where it's a one-time fee, but then it's tied to a specific computer forever. If you want to really use Office, you have to get a Microsoft 365 subscription, which is often kind of a bummer if you are on a limited budget, which is why it's good there are free options like Google Docs available. Another con of Microsoft Word is that the program is, at this point, 41 years old. The first version of Word was released in 1983. Obviously, it has changed a great deal since then but feature after feature has been built up and piled onto Word to the point where in all honesty (this is as someone who uses Microsoft Word pretty much every single day for the last 15 years), it has a monstrous maze of overlapping and interlocking features. There's a common meme about how if you try to move a bullet point half an inch in Word, you'll start hearing sirens and explosions outside and your entire document will be messed up. This is not far from the truth. For just straight typing, Word is fine, but for more elaborate stuff it quickly becomes a big headache. Another con is that the real time collaboration features like Google Docs has are definitely lacking, and you really can't do that well with Word. If that's not something you do, it's not something you need to worry about but if you do a lot of collaboration, that is something to keep in mind. Again, in full disclosure, I could sit here for the next two hours and talk about the various bad experiences I've had with Microsoft Word, but the fact of the matter is, I've written 150 novels and I've written most of them in Microsoft Word. So it is right now the program I use to write. So on to the next writing suite of software. I wrote most of my books in Microsoft Word, but the ones I haven't written in Word I've written in LibreOffice, which is a free office suite that you can download for free. It doesn't require an Internet connection once it's downloaded. So let's go to the pros. It's free and open source. The interface kind of sort of looks like Microsoft Word, so if you are familiar with Word, the learning curve is not terribly steep. Some think that LibreOffice is faster than Word. Depending on how your system is configured, LibreOffice can be quite a bit faster than Word, having used both. LibreOffice is probably the best for privacy advocates, especially for those who are concerned about Microsoft and Google storing their work in their cloud services and possibly training various AIs on it. For myself, that's not something I worry about a great deal, because all my stuff has been pirated extensively for years, and as we all know, most of the big AIs out now were trained on pirated data, which they're getting sued about now. From my point of view, the horse is already out in the out of the barn for this, so there's no point in worrying about it. LibreOffice also has the advantage of being interoperable with most file formats. By default, it saves in what's called the open document format, but it is mostly cross compatible with the Microsoft Office formats. The cons aren't quite as many as Google Drive in my opinion, because it doesn't have to be online. Even though the user interface is very similar to Word, it's not identical and some people don't care for it. LibreOffice also has no built-in cloud storage functionality like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, so if you need to store your documents in the cloud somewhere for backup, you have to piece it together with another storage option. Though this is the other side of one of the pros, because LibreOffice does not require an Internet connection in order to work once you have it downloaded. So those are the pros and cons of some different writing software. Which one you pick is up to you and your particular writing needs. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A quick word of thanks to my transcriptionist for helping me pull together the research for this episode. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on the official website at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week. And now let's close out this week's episode with a preview of Half-Elven Thief, as narrated by Leanne Woodward.

The right music can make an already memorable moment unforgettable, and this week Tony Wilson of Framework joins us for a look at five games that expertly surprised us with unexpected musical moments, elevating their stories in the process. Then we'll get into Rise of the Ronin, Alone in the Dark, the newly greenlit Sims movie, State of Unreal 2024 news, and the franchises you'd like to see WayForward reinvent next. Question of the Week: Now that we have Dragon's Dogma 2, what criminally overlooked/cult hit game needs a sequel glow-up? Break song is Unshaken by D'Angelo. Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.  

In this week's episode, I rate the movies and TV shows I shaw in Winter 2024. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE PACT as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE PACT for 50% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: MARCHEXILE The coupon code is valid through April 5th, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to leap into spring, we've got one ready for you! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 192 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 15th, 2024, The Ides of March, which we're traditionally told to beware, and today we are looking at my Movie and TV Review Roundup for Winter 2024. Before we do that, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing projects, and our Question of the Week. So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Pact, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook for Ghost in the Pact for 50% off at my Payhip store with this coupon: MARCHEXILE and that is spelled MARCHEXILE. As always, the coupon code will be in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through April the 5th 2024. So if you find yourself needing an audiobook on this Ides of March, we've got one ready for you. So an update on my current writing projects. I am about 56% of the way through the first edit of Ghost in the Veils. That means the book should be on track to come out before Easter (which is at the end of March this year), if all goes well. I'm also 40,000 words into Wizard Thief, so hopefully that will come out before too much longer after Ghost in the Veils. I'm 11,000 words into Cloak of Titans. So that is where we're at with my current writing projects. 00:01:19 Question of the Week Now on to our new feature: Question of the Week. This week's question is inspired by the fact that I've spent a lot of the last few weeks setting up my new computer and getting it configured properly. So the question is: what is the first computer you ever used? No wrong answers, obviously. Joachim says his first personal computer was an Atari 1040 ST with 1 MB of RAM. I participated in the “religious war” with the Amiga 500 users, which was better and looked down at the MS-DOS PCs, which only has 640 kilobytes of RAM. Justin says: my first computer was a Timex Sinclair. It had two kilobytes of RAM and I forked out $50 for the 16 KB RAM extender module. The manual that comes with it says you will never need this much memory. I use a cassette tape recorder/player to record more programs and it ran a 300 baud. Todd says his first computer was in 1994. I purchased a 486 DX 2 8 megabytes of RAM for use in school. I believe the hard drive was about 250 MB. The monitor weighed a ton. I wrote a bunch of machine code and played Wolfenstein 3D like crazy. Tarun says in 1993 it was a 386 with four megawatts of RAM with Windows 3.1. I played a lot of Prince of Persia and got bad grades in school. Then the computer was locked up. In my educational defense, I did do some Pascal programming. AM says: my first computer was an Apple IIe at school. Getting to play Number Munchers or Oregon Trail on it was some kind of behavioral reward (and a very effective one at that). William says his first computer was a Macintosh SE in my parent's home office, though “using” is an overstatement since all I did was play a few simple preinstalled games. I also have fond memories of playing the original King's Quest with said parents and something like a Compaq Portable. Rich says Commodore 64 with cassette drive. Didn't have cassette the first day. Spent the whole day punching in code for a blackjack game. My sister walks into the room to turn the computer off, erasing everything. That is a bummer. Juana says: a Gateway. My whole family came to gawk at it, and me setting it up! It had 120 megabytes of RAM. Twice what was the ones that used in the college computer lab! I thought I was set for life. Venus says Commodore Vic20. We played Radar Rat Race and Mom gave us a stack of computer magazines and tape recorder, so we played every game that was in the magazines at the time after we typed in the programs and saved them to the tapes. You are the first person outside my family that ever heard also had one. More on that later. Cheryl says: we got our first computer in the early ‘90s: an Amstrad with an AWA printer. I was doing courses for work, so I needed something to print the assignments, but we also played games on it: Wolfenstein, Lemmings, and Stock Markets. They're the only ones I can remember. Craig says: Apple IIe. I'm oldish. With dot matrix printer and handheld modem, dial-up Internet access, the one you had the dial phone into the holding cradle after you called it in. Tracy says: at college we used the TRS80s. I think she may win the award for oldest computer mentioned in this topic. And Perry says: IBM PC clone at school, a friend's family had a Commodore 64. Our first family computer was a Commodore 128. For myself, I had the same first computer as Venus earlier in the thread. That would be a Commodore Vic20. It had 20 kilobytes of RAM and the Word file for the rough draft of Ghosts in the Veils, which I'm editing right now, is 355 kilobytes in size. So to load the Microsoft Word document of Ghosts in the Veils in Microsoft Word format, I would need about 18 different Commodore Vic 20 computers. That's like 1 computer per chapter and a half. So it is amusing to see how computer technology has changed quite a bit over time. 00:04:56 Winter 2024 Movie/TV Review Roundup Now to our main topic. We are inching closer to spring, so I think it's time for my Winter 2024 Movie Review Roundup. I got a Paramount Plus subscription to watch the Frasier reboot and since Paramount owns Star Trek and the Frasier reboot was only 10 episodes long, I ended up watching a chunk of modern Star Trek this winter. This was a new-ish experience because the last new Star Trek I watched was Star Trek Beyond way back in 2016. That was only eight years ago, but it's been a very eventful eight years, you know? I did watch a lot of Star Trek back in the 1990s. If you had held a gun to my head and demanded, you know, if I consider myself a Trekkie, I would say no, because I think Gene Roddenberry's socialist/utopian vision for the Federation that he put into Star Trek is fundamentally kind of goofy. The shows and movies were at their best when they stayed away from it or subverted it, like how the Federation can only be a utopia because Starfleet seems to have a Black Ops section that does all the unsanctioned dirty work and regularly runs amuck. Or like how Starfleet seems to have an actual mad science division that cooks up all kinds of nasty stuff. So anyway, these are the movies and shows I watched in Winter 2024, and as always, my ratings are wholly subjective and based on nothing more rigorous than my own opinions. We will go through these in order from least favorite to most favorite. So the first movie I watched was Now You See Me, which came out in 2013. Last year, I compared Adam Sandler's Murder Mystery movie to a C- student, but a fun C- student who everyone likes for his great parties and goes on to have a successful career as a regional sales manager. By contrast, Now You See Me is the sort of moody art student who always wears a black porkpie hat and thinks of himself or herself as deep and complicated, but in fact, they're just confusing. This is an apt comparison for this movie. Anyway, the plot centers around four sketchy magicians who are recruited by a mysterious organization called The Eye to carry out a series of high-profile heists using stage magic. I have to admit, that concept sounds even more ridiculous as I said the previous sentence. Anyway, after the first heist, the magicians become fugitives from the FBI but keep carrying on shows, sometimes staying ahead of law enforcement. The trouble is that nothing they do makes very much sense, and it all falls apart if you think about it for more than two seconds. Additionally, the movie overall feels very choppy since they rushed from scene to scene very quickly. The actors all gave very good performances that were entertaining to watch, but honestly, that was about the only thing the movie had going for it. Overall grade: D- Next up is The Marvels, which came out in 2023. This movie was logically incoherent, but actually rather charming and funny. It kind of reminds me of those ‘70s or ‘80s style science fiction movies that don't make much sense, though The Marvels was much lighter in tone than anything that came out in the science fiction space in the ‘60s or ‘70s. The movie got a bad rap because it didn't make back its budget, and apparently Disney rather shamefully threw the director under the bus. But to be fair, the budget for The Marvels was an enormous $274,000,000. To put this into context, the top three movies of 2023 (Barbie, Super Mario Brothers, and Oppenheimer) combined had a total budget across these three movies of $350 million, and together they grossed something like 15 times more than The Marvels did. Anyway, the plot picks up from the end of Ms. Marvel when Kamala Khan, Captain Marvel, and Monica Rambeau discover that their superpowers have become entangled. This means that if two of them use their powers at the same time, all three of them switch places randomly. This makes for a rather excellent fight scene earlier in the movie when the three characters don't know what's going on and are randomly teleporting between three different battles, much to the frequently amusing confusion of all participants. Once things settle down, Captain Marvel and her new friends realize that an old enemy of Captain Marvel is harvesting resources from worlds she cares about. So it's up to them to save Earth from this old enemy's vengeance. I have to admit, the plot of the movie didn't actually make much sense, but it was overall much funnier than Ant-Man 3 and Secret Invasion. The best thing about the movie was Kamala Khan and her family. Kamala, Monica, and Captain Marvel also had an entertaining dynamic together and the planet of space musicals was also pretty funny. I think the movie's biggest, unconquerable weakness was that it was the 33rd Marvel movie. There are all sorts of theories of why the movie didn't perform at the box office: superhero genre fatigue, everyone knew it would be on Disney Plus eventually, the lasting effects of COVID on movie theaters and the movie business, Disney throwing the director under the bus, Disney inserting itself into the US Cultural Wars, etcetera. All those reasons are subjective and subject to personal interpretation. What I think is objectively quantifiable is that The Marvels is the sequel to a lot of different Marvel stuff: The Avengers movie, Wandavision, Captain Marvel, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Secret Invasion, and Thor: Love and Thunder. That's like 50 to 60 plus hours of stuff to watch to fully understand the emotional significance of all the various characters in The Marvels. 50 to 60 hours of watching sounds like almost an entire entire semester's worth of homework assignments at this point. As someone who has written a lot of long series, I know that you lose some of the audience from book to book. I think that's ultimately why The Marvels didn't make back its budget. The Marvel movies as a series have just gone on too long and are just too interconnected. Ultimately, I am grateful to The Marvels. Realizing and understanding the concept of Marvel Continuity Lockout Syndrome helped me decide to write something new that wasn't a sequel or even connected to anything else I had written, which eventually led to Rivah Half-Elven and Half-Elven Thief. Overall grade: B- Our next movie is My Man Godfrey, which came out all the way back in 1936. This movie is considered the progenitor or one of the progenitors of the screwball comedy genre. A homeless man named Godfrey is living in a trash dump in New York, though despite his circumstances, Godfrey remained sharp and quick on his feet. One night, a wealthy woman named Cornelia approaches him and offers $5 if he'll come with her. Godfrey is naturally suspicious, but Cornelia assures him that she only needs to take him to a hotel to win a scavenger hunt by finding a forgotten man, which was a term President Roosevelt used to describe people who have been ruined by the Great Depression and then forgotten by the government. I have to admit, Cornelia immediately reminded me of the way the more obnoxious YouTubers and TikTokers will sometimes pay homeless people to participate in dance challenges and suchlike. King Solomon was indeed right when he said that there is nothing new under the sun and what has been done before will be done again. Anyway, Godfrey is offended by Cornell's imperious manner but after he sees Cornelia bullying her kindly but none too bright younger sister Irene, Godfrey decides he'll go with Irene so she can win. A grateful Irene offers him a job as the family's butler. At his first day at work, Godfrey very soon realizes the reason the family has gone through so many butlers: they are all certified certifiably and comedically insane. In addition to these other problems, Cornelia is harboring a massive grudge against Godfrey for losing the scavenger hunt and wants payback. Wacky hijinks ensue. Fortunately, Godfrey has some hidden depths that he will need, which include being much smarter than his employers. Admittedly, this is not hard. 1936 was towards the second half of the Great Depression in the United States, so obviously the movie has more than a bit of social commentary. The characters joked that prosperity is just around the corner and wonder where they can find that corner. The rich characters are uniformly portrayed as some combination of frivolous, clueless, or malicious. I think the movie was pretty funny, if sharply so, but the big weakness was that the male and female leads were so clearly unsuited for each other but got together at the end of the movie simply because it was the end of the movie. Still, it was definitely worth watching because you can see how this movie influenced many other movies after it. I definitely recommend watching it with captions if possible, because while human nature has not changed in the last 90 years, sound technology has in fact improved quite a bit. Overall grade: B. Next up is Charade, which came out in 1963. This is a sort of romantic comedy, sort of thriller that has Audrey Hepburn playing Regina, an American living in Paris who is in the process of getting divorced from her husband. When she returns to Paris, she learns that her husband was murdered in her absence and it turns out that he was in possession of $250,000 he stole from the US government during World War II. Regina had no idea about any of this, but the US government thinks that she has the money stashed away somewhere. It turns out that her late husband also betrayed the men he worked with to steal the money and they're convinced that she has the money as well, and they're going to get it from Regina regardless of what they have to do. Regina's only ally in this mess is a mysterious man calling himself Peter Joshua (played by Cary Grant), who may or may not be one of the other thieves operating under an assumed identity. I liked this movie, but I think it had two structural problems. First, Regina wasn't all that bright, though she did get smarter as the movie went on, probably out of sheer necessity. Second, it had some severe mood whiplash. The movie couldn't decide if he was a lighthearted romantic comedy or gritty thriller, though finally snapped into focus as a pretty good thriller in the last third of the movie. Amusing tidbit: Cary Grant only agreed to do the movie if Audrey Hepburn's character would be the one chasing his character in their romance, since he thought their age gap would be inappropriate otherwise, because he was so much older than Hepburn at the time of filming. Overall grade: B+ Next up is the new Frasier series from 2023. I admit I had very, very low expectations for this, but it was considerably better than I thought it would be. My low expectations came partly because the original show was so good. Some seasons were stronger than others, of course, but the show had some absolute masterpieces of sitcom comedy throughout its entire run. Some of this was because I think the 2020s are a much more humorless and dour age than the 1990s, so I had my doubts whether the new show could be funny at all. Fortunately, my doubts were misplaced. The new Frasier is actually pretty good. It's interesting that the show's generational dynamic has been flipped on its head. In the original show, the pretentious Frasier lived with his working-class father. 20 years later, it's now Frasier who lives with his son Freddie, who dropped out of Harvard to become a firefighter and consciously rejected his father's love of intellectualism and cultural elitism. The inversion of the original dynamic works quite well. It has some moments of genuine comedy because, like his father before him, Freddie is more like his father than he realizes. The show also avoided the pitfall of bringing back legacy characters that Disney and Lucasfilm stumbled into with Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Disney brought back legacy characters like Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones but made them into sad, old losers. Frasier, by contrast, while frequently an unsympathetic comedy protagonist who brings his own misfortunes onto his own head, is most definitely not a sad old loser. He's famous, respected, and wealthy enough that he can afford to buy an apartment building in Boston at the drop of a hat. If you know anything about the United States, you know that the East Coast is the most expensive area of the of the country. Despite that, he remains the same well-meaning buffoon that he always was, the sort of man who, as a colleague aptly says, always goes that extra, ill-advised mile. There's a story that when Ricky Gervais was advising the creators of the American version of The Office, one of his chief pieces of advice was that Michael Scott could not be as incompetent as David Brent was in the original UK version of the show. American culture, Mr. Gervais said, was generally much less forgiving of incompetence than British culture. I thought of this as I watched Frasier because all the characters were in fact extremely competent at their jobs. Even Frasier himself, when he finally gets out of his own way, is a very good psychiatrist and teacher. Anyway, the show was funny and I think it deserves a second season. We'll see if that happens or not. Overall grade: A- Next up is Star Trek: Lower Decks Seasons One through Four, which came out from between 2020 and 2023. As I mentioned earlier, I ended up subscribing to Paramount Plus for a month after I watched Frasier, so I decided to watch Star Trek Lower Decks, since I'm forever seeing clips of that show turning up on social media. Lower Decks is a pitch perfect, affectionate parody of Star Trek from the point of view of four relatively hapless ensigns on the Cerritos, one of Starfleet's somewhat less prestigious ships. We have the self-sabotaging rebel Mariner, the insecure and ambitious Boimler, the enthusiastic science girl Tendi, and cheerful engineer Rutherford, who nonetheless has a dark and mysterious past that he can't remember. Season Four also adds T'Lyn, a Vulcan whose mild expressions of carefully measured annoyance make her a dangerous loose cannon by Vulcan standards. The show is hilarious because it makes fun of Star Trek tropes while wholeheartedly embracing them. The ensigns run into a lot of insane computers, random space anomalies, rubber forehead aliens, and other Star Trek tropes, including the grand and venerable Star Trek tradition of the Insane Admiral. Starfleet officers always seem to go off the deep end when they get promoted to Starfleet Command. The senior officers are also varying degrees of insane and drama generators. Starfleet, from the point of view of the Cerritos crew, is a vast bureaucratic organization that veers between ineffective idealism, blatant careerism, and whatever crazy project the Insane Admiral of the Week is pursuing. Yet since American sitcom characters have to be competent (like we just talked about above with Frasier), when the crisis really kicks into high gear, the Cerritos crew can pull itself together and save the galaxy with the best of them. I did like how the show grows from an affectionate parody to its own thing, with all the characters experiencing struggles and personal growth in their arcs. I liked it enough that when the 5th season of Lower Decks comes out, I'll subscribe to another month of Paramount Plus (assuming Paramount Plus still exists and hasn't been brought up by Warner Brothers or Skydance or something). Overall grade: A- Next up is Predator, which came out in 1987. When Carl Weathers died in early February of 2024, I realized I had never actually got around to seeing Predator. So I did and I'm glad that I watched it. Predator was an excellent blending of thriller, science fiction, and horror. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Dutch, who commands a team of operators who do Black Ops work for the CIA. Since it's 1987, the CIA is up to its traditional shenanigans in Central America and Dutch is dispatched to help out his old friend Dillon (played by Carl Weathers), who has been ostensibly assigned to rescue a Pro-American cabinet minister from rebel guerrillas in the jungle. Since this is the CIA, naturally there is more than the mission than is apparent on the surface. However, the mission quickly becomes irrelevant when Dutch and his team realize they are being hunted by an unknown creature with capabilities unlike anything they have ever seen before. It turns out the creature is the Predator, an alien hunter who comes to Earth and takes human skulls as trophies. Soon the movie turns into a death match duel between Dutch and the Predator. The movie did a very good job of showing the Predator's capabilities such as stealth, heat vision, and his shoulder laser without explicitly spelling them out for the audience. It was a very well put together piece of storytelling and it is of course the source of the famous Internet meme of a muscular white arm gripping a muscular black arm and also Schwarzenegger's famous line of “Get to the choppa!” Also to quote a famous Internet meme, if you had a nickel for every future governor of a US state who is in this movie, you would have two nickels, which is not a lot, but even two is pretty weird, right? Overall grade: A. Now for the favorite thing I saw in winter 2024. That honor goes to Star Trek: Picard Season Three, which came out in 2023. Honestly, this was so much better than I thought it was going to be. I thought I would watch one or two episodes and then give up. Instead I watched the whole thing in like two days over the New Year's holiday. I watched the first episode of Picard Season One way back in 2020 was free on YouTube, but I didn't like it enough to subscribe to CBS All Access (or whatever the heck it was back then). The first episode also seemed more ponderous and dour in the sort of 21st century realistic prestige television snooze fest than I really wanted to watch. But Season Three of the show got high reviews from people whose opinions I generally respect when it came out in early 2023. Since I had Paramount Plus for a month because of Frasier, I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did. How to describe the plot? You may remember that back in summer 2023, I watched the Battleship movie. Battleship is objectively a bad movie, but it does have one interesting subplot that would make a good movie all on its own. When space aliens imprison most of the US Navy, a bunch of retired veterans take a decommissioned battleship out to war to save the day. This basically is the plot of Picard Season 3. The plot kicks off when Doctor Crusher contacts Admiral Picard after they have not spoken for twenty years. Apparently, Picard had a son named Jack with Crusher that she never told him about and mysterious assailants are trying to kidnap Jack. On the original show, Picard and Crusher definitely gave off the vibe that they probably got romantic whenever they were alone in the elevator together. The fact that Doctor Crusher got pregnant with Picard's son is not all that surprising. Picard had always been adamant about his desire not to start a family and given that any son of the legendary Captain Picard would be a target for his equally legendary enemies, Crusher decided to keep the boy a secret. Picard, understandably, is shocked by the news, but teams up with his former first officer, Captain Riker, to rescue his son. Jack has an extensive Robin Hood-esque criminal history, so it seems that his misdeeds might have caught up to him. It turns out that deadly weapon is locked in Jack's DNA and the people pursuing him aren't merely criminals but powerful enemies intent on destroying Starfleet and the Federation. Jack Crusher's DNA will give them a weapon to do it, which means it's up to the crew of The Enterprise to save the galaxy one last time. This was ten episodes, but it was very, very tightly plotted, with not many wasted moments. Sometimes you see movies that seem like they should have been streaming shows, and sometimes streaming shows seem like they really should have been cut down to movie length. But Picard's Season Three does a good job of telling a tense story that we've been impossible either in a movie or the old days of network television. The show very quickly plunges into the crisis and keeps moving from new tension to new tension. The gradual reveal where Picard at first feels guilty that he has to ask his friends to help rescue his estranged son and ex-girlfriend like he's living his own personal version of some trashy daytime TV show, only to slowly realize that something much more dangerous and much, much bigger than his personal problems is happening, was put together well. The show was also another good example of how to bring back legacy characters right. All the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation are older and have been knocked around by life or suffered personal tragedies, but none of them are sad old losers like in a Disney or Lucasfilm project. The new and supporting characters were also great. Seven of Nine returns as the first officer to Captain Shaw, a by the book officer who thinks Picard and Riker are dangerous mavericks. He has a point. Shaw turns out to be extremely competent in a crisis. Amanda Plummer was great as Vadic, a scenery chewing villain who has very good reasons to hate Starfleet and the Federation. Vadic's love of spinning directly in her command chair was a great homage to Amanda Plummer's late father, Christopher Plummer, who played a villain with a similar tic way back in Star Trek VI in the ‘90s. It is also great how the show wrapped up some of the dangling plot threads from the ‘90s, like Picard's strained relationship with his former mentee Commander Ro Laren or the brief return of Elizabeth Shelby, Riker's former First Officer. A few people have complained that Worf is now a pacifist, but he's a Klingon pacifist, which basically means he'll attempt negotiation before cutting off your head, but he is still probably going to cut off your head. Less Conan the Barbarian, more serene Warrior Monk. I think Data had an excellent ending to his character arc, which started with his character's very first appearance way back in the ‘80s and Brent Spiner did a good job of portraying Data's fractured personalities and then how they achieved unity. I'd say the weakest point of the show was how consistently dumb Starfleet command is. The plot hinged around Starfleet gathering its entire fleet together for a celebration and then putting all those ships under a remote control system, which seems both exceptionally stupid and very convenient for the bad guys. But to be fair, this is Starfleet, an organization whose high command regularly spits out insane Admirals and also has an unsanctioned Black Ops/Mad Science division that it can't control, so it definitely fits within the overall context of Star Trek. I mean, that's like half the premise of Lower Decks. And if you've ever worked for a large governmental, military, healthcare, or educational institution, you understand. We all know that working in a large institution under leaders who are either insane or dumb isn't exactly an anomaly in the human experience. I mean, the Roman Empire circa 190 A.D. was the most powerful institution on the planet and the Empire's maximum leader liked to spend his time LARPing as a gladiator in the Coliseum. Anyway, the emotional payoff at the end of Picard Season Three was very satisfying, and how the show wrapped up a lot of threads from Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager was pretty great. It's like the people who were in charge of Season Three of Picard watched the Star Wars sequel trilogy and thought, you know, we can do better and then they did. Overall grade: A So those are the movies and TV shows I watched in Winter 2024. If you're looking for something to watch, hopefully one of them sounds like it will catch your interest. 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 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 or choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In this week's episode, we take a look at six of the worst pieces of writing advice on the Internet, and explain why you shouldn't listen to them. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of GHOST IN THE THRONE as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of GHOST IN THE THRONE for 50% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: SPRINGTHRONE The coupon code is valid through March 29th, 2024, so if you find yourself needing an audiobook to leap into spring, we've got one ready for you! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 191 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 8th, 2024, and today we are talking about bad writing advice. In fact, we're talking about the worst writing advice, but more on that later. Before we get to any of our other topics, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Throne, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of Ghost in the Throne for 50% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: SPRINGTHRONE and that's spelled SPRINGTHRONE. Of course the coupon code, as always, will be in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through March 29th, 2024. So if you find yourself needing an audiobook to leap into spring, we've got one ready for you. Before we get to any of other our other topics, let's first have an update on my current writing projects. I am 81,000 words into Ghost in the Veils, which puts me on Chapter 19 of either 21 or 22. I'm not entirely sure because I think I reused some numbers in my outline, which is obviously something we will fix before we get to the final draft. I am hoping to finish things up next week, if all goes well with the rough draft and then we will be on track to hopefully have the book out before Easter. I'm also 37,000 words into Wizard Thief, the second book in my Half-Elven Thief series and if all goes well, that will be out in April. I'm also 9,000 words into Cloak of Titans, and if all goes well, that should be out in May, I believe. And then after I write that, that's when I'll start working on Shield of Darkness, the Second Shield War book. As I mentioned in the previous episode, the audiobook of Shield of Storms is now available. It's definitely available on Audible, Amazon, and Apple. It's on my Payhip store. It's on Kobo. I believe it is on Nook Audio. Processing is going rather slowly for the other stores, which is unfortunate, but since most of these sales will probably come from Audible anyway, it's not that unfortunate, but hopefully it should be available on all the other stores before too much longer. 00:02:16 Question of the Week Now we're going to have a new topic that we're going to do every week as part of the show. It's called Question of the Week. I could hardly claim this is an original idea. I noticed that many blogs and many podcasts do a question of the week feature, but it seems like a good one to add to our show and website here. So this week's Question of the Week (the very first Question of the Week, as a matter of fact): If you listen to audiobooks, what apps do you use? Of course, there are no wrong answers. We had a variety of good answers to this question. Reader JL says: I use Audible. Paid for one year in advance. Use the credits unless the cost of the Audible book is less than the cost of the credit. I've noticed that sometimes this is the case if I bought the book or have it out in KU. That is true. Amazon has this feature called WhisperSync, where if you've bought the ebook you can sometimes get a discount on the audiobook if you buy it directly rather than using an Audible credit. Reader Joachim says: I use Smart Book Player on Android. I only use audiobooks in MP3 format. Reader Adam says: Audible, Graphicaudio.net, direct purchases from authors and/or Kickstarter rewards, Google Play Books, mostly DRM free downloads. Preference is direct from authors or a service which allows downloading titles for archival purposes. I should mention if you buy any of my audiobooks through Payhip, the fulfillment is through Book Funnel, which does allow you to download the MP3s to keep them for archival purposes if you're offline or you don't have access to your phone or computer. Doug says he uses Audible and he just finished Shield of Storms and is now listening to Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation. Tom says he uses the Audible annual 24 credit subscription. That's like 2 credits a month. I realize that's common for people who work in jobs like construction or industrial jobs where they can listen to audiobooks the entire day, and so therefore will go through quite a few of them. Venus says she listens to Libby or Nook, mostly Libby. If your library has access to Libby or a similar listening service, you can get audiobooks that way. And finally, Bonnie says: Truthfully, I've tried Audible, but I am not a fan of listening to books. Would rather do the reading myself. So as you can see, there are a range of options and opinions when it comes to listening to audiobooks. For myself, I use a combination of the monthly credit from Audible and discount audiobooks from the Chirp daily e-mail. If you do listen to a lot of audiobooks, it might be worthwhile to subscribe to Chirp, because then you could get some bargains on audiobooks in genres that may interest you. 00:04:55 Main Topic: The Worst Writing Advice from the Internet Now on to this week's main topic: the worst writing advice you can find on the Internet. The reason I wanted to do this episode was the same reason I started this podcast. I've been a writer for a long time. Ghost in the Veils is going to be my 150th book, and so I've gotten more experience than I'm not going to say everybody, but I do have more experience than many writers. I decided the podcast would be a good way to share some of that experience in a way that isn't pushing it on people or charging for expensive courses or anything like that. The advice is there if you want to listen to it, and if you don't want to listen to it, that's just fine too. However, the flip side of this coin is that there's a lot of really terrible writing advice out there, like just plain bad writing advice that's more destructive than helpful. To cover that, I asked for our transcriptionist to do some research for me and pull together some of the worst writing advice she could find on the Internet and then we would talk about it here. She found six particularly bad pieces of writing advice that we would debunk. The first piece of worst writing advice is that writing talent is innate. If you can't be a success right away, there is no point. This is just plainly false. Almost anyone can improve at any skill, and writing is no different with a sustained commitment over time. It just takes practice. A good way to debunk this is to look at the early works of famous writers like Jane Austen, to show that their writing improved over time. Or if you dig heavily into J.R.R. Tolkien's works, you'll see that the first initial drafts of what would become Lord of the Rings were not super great. By the time The Lord of the Rings actually came out, Tolkien had improved a good deal as a writer. Many authors have a rough first book or even rough first series and then go on to greater success or greater acclaim because they just practice and get better. With practically anything, practice will improve and writing is no different in that regard. After all, if you have a favorite author and you look at his or her first book and then compare it to his or her latest book, odds are you will notice a significant improvement in skill and that will be true for anyone. Number two: you need an MFA (that's a Master of Fine Arts degree) to be good enough to write a book. This is something I could rant about for a significant length of time because I think there are serious criticisms to be made of the way higher education is funded in the United States and serious criticisms to be made of the ways the student loan program works, but that's rather off scope for this podcast, so instead we're going to focus on why you don't need a Master of Fine Arts degree to be a writer. MFA programs tend to lean heavily towards poetry and literary fiction (literary fiction being, you know, fiction that isn't genre fiction, like, you know, mystery, science fiction or fantasy). The stereotype of literary fiction is it tends to be about creative writing professors having affairs with one another and while of course this is a cliche, there is a measure of truth to it. MFA programs tend to be a very homogeneous group of people who value a very specific type of writing/style. Genre fiction is often looked down on and “commercial” is used as an insult by many instructors in MFA programs, which is all well and dandy, but if you're writing literary fiction, commercial fiction has a better chance of being able to pay your taxes and your mortgage. An MFA credential does not guarantee results and employment prospects and is extremely expensive unless you get into a funded program. We mentioned the problem of student debt a little earlier and if you go into a MFA program, you're going to have a lot more student debt. There's also the opportunity cost of spending two years learning to write in an MFA program. Finally, to illustrate the point, think of your top ten favorite writers and look up how many of them have a Master of Fine Arts degree. The percentage will probably be fairly low. So overall, I would not recommend going into an MFA program if you want to be a writer. The third piece of terrible writing advice is to only write when you feel inspired. This is bad because writing if you, even if you enjoy it, is still a form of work, and if you only do work when you feel like doing work, it's never going to get done. It's good to remember that progress is always better than perfection, and this type of thinking feeds into procrastination. Steve Jobs very famously said when he took over Apple again at the start of the 21st century that real artist ship and the correlate to that would be real writers publish. A good example to look at is athletes in various phases of training and competition. They don't train when they feel inspired. They create a plan and stick to it in order to meet their goals. The structure that comes from plans makes it easier to define your goals and track your results, so it's a good idea to try a disciplined approach to writing, I think and try and write as much as you're able, whether it's 500 words a day or 1,000 words a day, rather than waiting for you to just get inspired. This is true for pretty much any field of work and also writing. The fourth piece of bad writing advice is to only write what you know. If this was actually good advice, then all books would be about writers trying to write and maybe household chores and tax preparation. This would be terrible advice for fantasy and science fiction writers, if taken at face value. Writing using your own knowledge and experiences can make your book more engaging, but think of it as a starting point or way to add texture to your story, not a rule. That said, if you want to write about something you don't know about, you don't actually have to become an expert in it. You just have to know enough to fake it. Remember, as we've talked about in a previous episode of the show, your book doesn't have to be realistic. It has to feel realistic. We want not realism, but verisimilitude, where it feels realistic. You can make it feel realistic with a lot less research than you can to become actually an expert in something. Only writing what you know is a very good way to limit your writing and get less writing done than you would otherwise. The fifth piece of bad writing advice we found was to write based on what's trending so the book will basically market itself. This is a bad idea, because by the time you finish and the book is ready to sell, the market may have already grown tired of the trend and moved on to dystopian mermaid stories or something else. Readers also have a sense when a story is rushed or written in a different way. It's much better to write something that you're excited to write. It's also important to realize that not all categories are equally lucrative or easy to market, though. A book on soil testing methodologies is unlikely to make anywhere near as much money as a romance, for example. The sixth and final piece of bad writing advice we're going to talk about this week is that there is no point in writing now that AI is taking over. Go do something else. A good example of why this is bad advice is the game of chess. Recently I got back into playing chess on a regular basis. I've known how to play the game since I was like 10, I think, which is an increasingly long amount of time ago, but I haven't played in a while. I got back into it after a gap of several years and I was baffled and somewhat surprised to see that there's actually like chess influencers now. I mean, everything else has influencers. I mean, they're like, you know, stationery influencers and video game influencers and packing material influencers. I was astonished to see that there are chess influencers and that they are in fact photogenic young people who post Instagram pictures of themselves playing chess. They have live streams of themselves playing chess, and they get into feuds with each other like every other group of influencers on the planet. Where this relates to writing/AI is that for decades now, it's been literally impossible for a human to defeat a properly configured computer at chess. It can't be done. If you have a chess program that's configured to make maximum use of its resources, it will beat even the best human player every single time and the end result of this is no one cares. The chess community continues on having all its influencers, rivals, and feuds and playing the game because as one of the chess influencers himself said, watching a human play a computer at chess is like watching a human try to arm wrestle a hydraulic press. You know who's going to win. It's boring. No one cares. Everyone goes back to the humans playing each other at chess and the chess engines are there for people who want to play, you know, bots on the Internet. And I suspect that is going to be the case with AI writing. You may get to the point where AI is able to spit out a novel, but it will be like a computer playing chess. It's like, yeah, that's nice, but no one actually cares. Even if AI became a major source of fiction, there would still be many readers out there, given the negative anti-AI feelings that are very prevalent on the Internet, who would prefer fiction written by humans as a preference, just like there are viewers who hate special effects heavy movies like Marvel movies and seek out movies using a lot of practical effects or physical stages. The final weakness with this advice that there is no point in writing now that AI taking over is that legislation regarding AI and copyright is still marked with uncertainty. If you can't copyright the product of an AI engine, there's no point in trying to sell it. So for all those reasons, I don't think that AI is an excuse not to write and that it will probably end up like being a chess engine. Any chess computer can defeat a human, but that really doesn't matter very much. So there we are, six pieces of bad writing advice that you can safely ignore. 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 on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts. Speaking of which, a big thank you to my transcriptionist for helping me to research this episode. 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.

Last week I shared what God says faith is.  This week, I'll share what I learned about faith in a current day example – it transformed my life forever. As Christians, we believe in a God whom we have never seen, and as long as our faith fits what we are able to comprehend and see with our eyes, we consider ourselves faith filled. Should faith be so small as to fit in our back pockets, to be pulled out only during crises? Faith must be experienced, and after you do, mere words cannot contain its depth. Faith doesn't mean talking about how good God is when you haven't a care in the world. Faith holds hope for a better tomorrow, no matter what today brings. It opens the heart to loving beyond itself and acknowledges the vastness of a God who created the incredible intricacies of our lives.   WORD of the Week Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 Song of the Week  Help Me God by Kathy Tricolli   Grief 2 Great Day Website - Connect with Me Click Here to take Action Now - “The First Year of Grief. How to Survive with Hope and Heal.”   Join The Grief Group for Christian Women on Facebook Read about Monica's entire Journey, Dying to Be Healed - Book - Grief2GreatDay   Visit my Church –Opendoor Church | Home

For the last four weeks we've talked about faith and feelings.  My assumption has been that we are all on the same page about what faith in God even means and what it looks like in daily life. You have already shown great faith by believing in God. However, in grief that belief can turn to questioning and anger. When I experienced those things, it made me think that I had no faith and that I was doing the opposite of pleasing God and felt great guilt. I don't want you to feel guilt, so today we'll explore what faith in God means as you walk through grief. And I'll spend time in Hebrews 11 where there is great power, hope, confidence for you!   WORD of the Week Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 Song of the Week  That's the Power by Hillsong Worship   Grief 2 Great Day Website - Connect with Me Click Here to take Action Now - “The First Year of Grief. How to Survive with Hope and Heal.”   Join The Grief Group for Christian Women on Facebook Read about Monica's entire Journey, Dying to Be Healed - Book - Grief2GreatDay   Visit my Church –Opendoor Church | Home           

Editorial: Product of the Week Now live for all: Substack Notes Notes questions answered Is Substack Notes a ‘Twitter clone'? We asked CEO Chris Best Essays of the Week ‘We have to move fast': US looks to establish rules for artificial intelligence Prohibition of AI that ‘subverts state power' in China may chill its nascent industry What the End of HBO Max—and the Rise of ‘Max'—Means for Streaming Crypto VC Funding Slows to a Crawl Here Comes the Startup Panic SignalRank Funding Round and the Next Steps AI of the Week Y Combinator's Most Recent Winter 2023 Batch Shows A Shift To AI, DevTools And B2B  A Brief Note To Our Founders Re: Impact Of Artificial Intelligence News Of the Week Garry Tan's First Big Move as Y Combinator CEO Roils Founders As tech slumps, SoftBank sells VC unit to Singapore-based firm led by Masayoshi Son's brother European VC Funding Drops 66% As Seed Takes A Hit, US Investors Pull Back Twitter, Inc. is now X Corp. Twitter partners with eToro to show real-time stock and crypto information Twitter Rolls Out Creator Subscriptions More newsrooms bail on Twitter as Musk meddles with account labels Startup of the Week Betaworks' new ‘camp' aims to fund transformative early-stage AI startups Apple Savings Account Tweet of the Week --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thatwastheweek/message

Happy Family Thanksgiving Indigenous greens beans tomato Day!!! In all seriousness I'm thankful to you, the listeners, my family, and my friends for being so dope! Thank you! On this day of thanksgiving, I'm releasing a prerecorded episode with my cousin Cresha Amous of Illustrious Designs LLC. OKC. Listen in as we discuss the differences between hairstylists and beauticians, high vs low porosity hair (most importantly what that means), taxes, drugs, and so much more! * * * * Wanna Stay Connected... Duh! click here >>>>>>> https://linktr.ee/bodaciousbodiedbrown Follow The Whole 9 Podcast on IG: @The.Whole9Podcast and on Twitter: @Whole9Podcast If you like this show Let me know by leaving a review! and share with your friends! Thank you ;) * * * * * * * Black Business of the Week: Now you know it's gonna be Illustrious Designs LLC. https://www.illustriousdesignsokc.com/ "Healthy Hair Comes First." Also, you can purchase your 100% Raw Indo Bundles from her at the same website, and follow on IG: @TheLusciousExtensions Here are all the links>>>>>> https://linktr.ee/creamous Happy Holidays sending Love to You! #TheWhole9Podcast #TW9P #LoveYouForListening #HolidaySeason --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-whole-9/support

If you look back over your life, are there times that you felt lost or without hope of a better tomorrow?  Are there times when God didn't answer your prayer the way you wanted?    This, on steroids is what grief is.  And, if this is your first major loss, it will take you longer to be able to look back and see that God never left you, that He heard your cries and was still working for your good.    In today's episode, I'll share how God was there during many of the hard moments of my life and how He gave me joy from sorrow and beauty from ashes.  Those were clichés until I lived out those truths and am here to stand with you as you do.     WORD of the Week  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1   Song of the Week Wait on the Lord by James Wilson (feat. Brooke Staten) https://youtu.be/WcnIRfNJ3eE   Connect with Me   Learn More -“What to Do After the Loss of a Loved One” Workshop Schedule Individual Online Grief Coaching Join The Grief Group for Christian Women on Facebook Read about Monica's entire Journey, Dying to Be Healed - Book - Grief2GreatDay   Visit my Church –Opendoor Church | Home GriefShare - Grief Recovery Support Groups - GriefShare

The Question of the Week- Now that Windows 11 is out, should I upgrade? News & Updates- Report that Millennials worry much more about a Facebook breach then if their bank account gets hacked, Ocean SailDrone in a hurricane show awesome video and sending great data, FCC still trying to eliminate Robocalls, Twitch suffered a data breach exposes everything from source code to how much content contributors got paid

Episode: 193 Host: Alpha Mike Intro: Alpha welcomes the Nation to episode #193. How to contact us RaiderCop.Com and RaiderCopNation.com. Don’t forget to contact with us on social media: MEWE, Wimkin, CloutHub, Parler, and for now FaceBook, and the new kid on the block Gab. Raider Cop Nation. Alpha talks about the re-adjustment of the podcast starting in May 2021, from 3 episodes a week to two, launching Sunday nights and Weds. Because of the Nation fans we have tens of thousands of downloads, Thank you. Word of the Week: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. .” 1 John 5:14 Main Topic: Admit Nothing, Deny Everything, & Make Counter Accusations Policing the police Some times good, sometimes bad Regardless of Internal Affairs (IA), it's about the leadership  The hands off list Some Techniques Dirty agency rules What will be the future ? Up Next: The Solomon Report is awesome #194 (Buccaneer Series) Instagram @milo_raider_cop  Co-host of Raider-Cop Tube coming in 2021 Spotify   Stitcher  PodBean Join the Raider-Cop Nation Pistol Pete the Gunsmith Kilo Sierra’s Firearms Training or Investigation: Sepulveda inc MeWe, WimKin, Rumble.ApplePodcast GooglePodcast Pandora  Parler: @RaiderCop  CloutHub: @RaiderCopWimkin: @Martinino and Raider Cop PodcastMeWe: Raider-Cop Podcast & Alpha MikeGab: @RaiderCopPodcast#JailsLASD #CACorrections #MDCR #NYPD #LAPD #LASD #MDPD #MPD #NYSP #NJSP #LVPD #Security #HCSO #PBSO #BSO #OCSO #PCSO #SFPD #DPD #HPD #SAPD #LCSO #FMPD #CCSO #NYC #NYCDOC #NJDOC #PPD #SLPD #CPD #TestEverything @RaiderCopNation #RaiderCopNation #TrainUp #o9TG #WiseGuySeries #TrainUpSeries #RollCallSeries #ThinkOuttaDaBox #SideBarSeries #TheWord #Buccaneer #RaiderCopPodcast #BeLikeJack #Corrections #RaiderCop #EmpanadaLadiesOfGeorgiaYoutube Free Music: Triumph by Yung Logos, Rodeo Show by The Green Orbs, Minor Blues for Booker E’s Jammy Jams, Happy Birthday Mambo, by E’s Jammy James. The Awakening Patrick jazz Space, The Current Blues, Blue Infusion, Front Porch Blues, Crazy Blues, Midnight Special, Super Blues, Bright Eyed Blues, Bleeker Street Blues, Olde Salooner Blues, Miles Beyond, D.J. Freedem, Causmic, Verified Picasso, Coyote Hearing, Diamond Ortiz, Nico Staf Brooklyn & The Bridge,PatrikiosMusic: I'm Back by Eye of the beholder.

The Presence Theme: 0:56 Characteristics of the Presence child 2:16 Emerging signs of the Presence theme 3:14 Action items for parents with a Presence themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child, The Caring Child, The Competing Child, The Confident Child, The Dependable Child, The Discoverer Child, The Future Thinker Child,The Organizer Child If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMbetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Organizer Theme in your child.   The Future Thinker Theme: 1:18 Characteristics of the Organizer child 2:33 Emerging signs of the Organizer theme 4:07 Action items for parents with an Organizer themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Grab a copy of Daniel's book, You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies About Work, Life, and Love Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child, The Caring Child, The Competing Child, The Confident Child, The Dependable Child, The Discoverer Child, The Future Thinker Child If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

Prayer can feel daunting, especially with the busyness of life. Where to begin? What to say? How do you make time to pray when you don't even have time to think? On today's mini episode, Chrystal Evans Hurst takes us on a guided journey to develop a powerful daily prayer life.    Transforming Your Conversation With God: 1:24 What does "pray without ceasing" mean? 1:50 What a day of prayer looks like.  6:50 Prayer as a conversation with God. 7:07 How you can hear from God.  10:00 Time of reflection.  Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: To find out more about Chrystal, check out her website Pick up a copy of Chrystal's newest book: The 28-Day Prayer Journey: A Daily Guide to Conversations with God Anytime is a good time to have a conversation with God. @chrystalhurst Praying without ceasing is an invitation to talk with God. @chrystalhurst If you want to hear from God, you start with His word. And then if you want His word to resound in application in your life, then you have to make time for Him to allow that word to take seed, to sprout out, and then infect and inform the way you think, the way you feel and, in return, what you do. @chrystalhurst Prayer is our conduit into relationship with God. Just like any relationship, our relationship with God requires time, intentionality, and consistent deposits of our hearts while listening to His. @chrystalhurst Don't let distraction or forgetfulness throw you; just pick up where you left off with God. He is ready and willing to listen and wants to talk to you, no matter how long it has been. @chrystalhurst The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow _________________________________________________________________ Meet Chrystal Evans Hurst: Chrystal Evans Hurst is an encourager who teaches people to love God, to love others, and to love themselves. Chrystal is a wife, mother of five and grandmother of two. She is also a speaker and the best-selling author of She’s Still There and Kingdom Woman and the newly released, The 28-Day Prayer Journey.  Chrystal is an energetic, life-loving “girl-next-door” who loves encouraging others to fulfill their potential in Christ. With humor and vulnerability, Chrystal tells it like it is but does so with grace, integrity, and love. You can find Chrystal regularly sharing encouragement via her podcasts and blogs, where she poignantly reflects on faith and speaks with frank honesty about the everyday experiences of women. 

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Future Thinker Theme in your child. The Future Thinker Theme: 2:35 Characteristics of the Future Thinker child 3:22 Emerging signs of the Future Thinker theme 5:24 Action items for parents with a Future Thinker themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Grab a copy of Daniel's book, You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies About Work, Life, and Love Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child, The Caring Child, The Competing Child, The Confident Child, The Dependable Child, The Discoverer Child  If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Discoverer Theme in your child.   The Discoverer Theme: 2:04 Characteristics of the Discoverer child 4:03 Emerging signs of the Discoverer theme 7:05 Action items for parents with a Discoverer-themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child, The Caring Child, The Competing Child, The Confident Child, The Dependable Child  If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Dependability Theme in your child.   The Dependability Theme: 1:36 Characteristics of the Dependable child 2:30 Emerging signs of the Dependability theme 4:43 Action items for parents with a Dependability-themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child, The Caring Child, The Competing Child, The Confident Child If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Confidence Theme in your child. The Confidence Theme: 0:55 Characteristics of the Confident child 1:38 Emerging signs of the Confidence theme 3:37 Action items for parents with a Confidence-themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child, The Caring Child, The Competing Child If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?!Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Competing Theme in your child.   Competing Theme: 1:41 Characteristics of the Competing child 2:43 Emerging signs of the Competing theme 4:05 Action items for parents with a Competing-themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child and The Caring Child If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the Strengths Based Parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. Here is how to spot the Caring Theme in your child. Caring Theme: 0:40 Characteristics of the Caring child 2:20 Emerging signs of the Caring theme 4:45 Action items for parents with a Caring-themed child Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting Listen to our previous mini episode about The Achiever Child  If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?!Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

During the strengths based parenting episode, we mentioned 10 themes that you can start to spot in your child. We didn’t have time to get into detail, so we wanted to deep dive into each theme separately. Here is how to spot the Achiever Theme in your child.   Achiever Theme: 1:44 Characteristics of the Achiever 2:44 Emerging signs of the Achieving theme 5:27 Action items for parents with an Achiever-themed child 6:42 What to do if your child doesn't have the achiever theme Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Listen to our previous episode about Strengths Based Parenting If you don't know your own strengths, read StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Gallup Have a child that is 15 years old and above? Read CliftonStrengths for Students Have a child between 10 to 14? Read StrengthsExplorer for Ages 10 to 14 Strengths Based Parenting: Developing Your Children's Innate Talents  Listen to our episode about a Strengths Based Marriage  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

This pandemic has caused us to pause, to breathe, and to take inventory on what matters and what doesn’t. It is almost like we are able to start our year over again. Like New Year's resolutions help us decide what we want to focus on, this is your opportunity to make your "Pandemic Resolutions". Before everything opens up again, this is the perfect time to ask yourself: What stays and what goes. What Stays and What Goes: 0:40 What was your pre-COVID life like?  1:04 Pandemic resolutions 1:23 What is staying? 2:02 What is going? Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Needing some more tips about making decisions?  5 Keys To Help You Make Decisions  How Our Brains React In Crisis How To Find Your Family's Purpose What To Do When Life Doesn't Go As Planned 5 Tips To Help You Thrive Your Next Transition Why Slowing Down Life Matters The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays! Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

You’ve heard the old saying, “More is caught than taught?” Well, this rings even truer as our children observe who we spend time with, who we shy away from, who we shake hands with, or who pretend we don’t see. If we want our children to learn to love God and love others, we can start by practicing hospitality.   The Gift Of Hospitality: 1:32 What is hospitality?  2:27 The grander purpose of hospitality  2:48 The power of imperfection  Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Talking To Your Kids About Racism and Empathy  In a world that is hurting and longing for hope, we can be the ones that share the good news of the gospel—that they are seen, heard, loved, made in the image of God, and redeemed. We can show them grace. @imbetweenshow How To Raise Kids That Change The World If we really believe in the power of imperfections, that they put people at ease and allow us to truly to connect, then we won’t have to erase all signs of imperfection and real life before we invite people over. We’ll realize that sharing some of our everyday imperfection is an essential part of connection with people. We don’t have to finish every project, redecorate every room, overthink or over spend. People remember being loved, welcomed, invited, and thought of. @thenester The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

There are many times we have found ourselves feeling stressed, unsure, scared, anxious, and completely overwhelmed with the brokenness of our world. That is when we stop, open our Bibles and continue to remind ourselves about the promises of God. The promises written in His word about how He will never leave us or forsake us, promises that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His word is a balm to our hearts, minds, and souls. It is the cure to our overwhelm. On today’s mini episode, we want to read 7 bible passages to you and over you. So, next time you are feeling “all the feels” and you just don’t know what to do, listen to this episode and remind yourselves of the truth that never fades, never changes, and never fails.    The Cure To Your Overwhelm: 0:31 What to do if you are feeling overwhelmed 1:08 The truth that never fades, never changes, and never fails 6:28 The cure for your anxiety Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Psalm 91: The Protection Of The Most High 2 Corinthians 1:3-7: The God of Comfort Romans 8:18-30: From Groans To Glory  Psalm 23: The Good Shepherd Psalm 40:1-5: Thanksgiving and a Cry for Help Matthew 6:25-31: The Cure For Anxiety  Isaiah 40:28-31 God's People Comforted The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?!Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

In a world that tells us we need to do more, be more, and buy more, it is easy to fall into the trap of more. But actually, one of the best ways to change your life is to do nothing. On today's mini episode, Daniel and Christina discuss how more sleep is exactly what you need to change your life.  Change Your Life By Doing Nothing? 0:33 What happens if you don't get enough sleep? 2:02 How sleep can change your life.  2:23 Tips to help you relax and fall asleep.  Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: One of our primary activities in human life is being neglected–sleep! @imbetweenshow God has designed us to spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping. @imbetweenshow God designed us to be stewards of all parts of our lives - physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. @imbetweenshow We need to begin caring for our bodies by not doing more, but by sleeping more. @imbetweenshow Sleep is a perfect example of the combination of discipline and grace. You cannot make yourself sleep. You cannot force your body to sleep. Sleep is an act of surrender. It’s a declaration of trust. It is admitting that we are not God (who never sleeps), and that is good news. We cannot make ourselves sleep, but we can create the conditions necessary for sleep. @jamesbryansmith The Good And Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith Looking for more ways to relax? Listen in here: Palms Down, Palms Up Prayer Centering Prayer The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

With COVID restrictions starting to lift, and the talk about a second pandemic wave possibly coming, you may find yourself feeling more stressed than usual. There are many things you can do to de-stress, but did you know that kissing your spouse is an incredible reliever of stress? On this mini episode, Daniel and Christina share the benefits of passionate kissing. What's In A Kiss? 0:42 What happens when we kiss?  1:05 Feel good chemicals that give you a natural high.  2:04 Kissing versus physical intimacy for relationship happiness.  Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Looking for more ways to de-stress? Listen in here: Palms Down, Palms Up Prayer Centering Prayer A Simple Grounding Exercise To Help With Anxiety  The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow

How many times have you lost your cool since the start of this pandemic? How many times have you yelled at your kids or gave the silent treatment to your spouse? No matter your experience with anger, it’s important to be aware of the anger that we feel. It is our body’s way of signaling something is wrong. On today's mini episode, Daniel and Christina address how anger is a secondary emotion; it's a reaction to another emotion. Your anger is trying to tell you something deeper is going on.    What Is Your Anger Telling To Tell You?  1:15 Anger as a secondary emotion.  1:42 Why we need to pay attention to our primary emotions.  2:58 What your anger is trying to signal to you.  4:42 Use your anger as a yellow flag. 4:52 What to do with your anger.  Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: Hear more about the Palms Down, Palms Up Prayer "What emotion is underneath my anger?" @imbetweenshow "Anger is what we call a secondary emotion. It’s a reaction to another emotion" @imbetweenshow "While anger, frustration, or irritation is what’s showing up on the surface, the emotions are actually much deeper than that.  And knowing those deeper, primary emotions, is important." @imbetweenshow "Our anger is always trying to signal to us something deeper is going on. So when you feel yourself getting angry, when you notice frustration, irritation, and annoyance, stop, take a breath, and notice those feelings." @imbetweenshow The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow YouTube - @imbetweenpodcast

The Importance of Journaling: 2:05 What's the purpose of journaling?  3:24 Learning to value our every day lives.  3:52 Discovering moments of grace.  5:05 Frameworks around the process of journaling.  7:22 The importance of guilt-free journaling.  9:00 Inviting our children into the process of reflection.  Resources And Quotes Mentioned During This Episode: To find out more about Leslie, check out her website Pick up a copy of Leslie's copy of her newest book: Your Story Matters: Finding, Writing, and Living The Truth Of Your Life "Journaling is an important way of processing the events of the day thoughtfully." @lesliefields "I don't think we value the plain, beautiful, everyday moments, and we miss seeing God in those moments." @lesliefields "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." - Frederich Buechner "Journal prompt: How has God shown up today?" @lesliefields The IMbetween Podcast Drops Twice a Week Now?! Got 10 minutes? Tune in every Friday to hear practical ways of how you can continue to build strong, connected, and joy-filled marriages and families. Make sure to subscribe to The IMBetween Podcast, so you don't miss any episodes NOW dropping on Tuesdays and Fridays!   Subscribe and Connect With Us: Apple Podcasts Stitcher Google Play Spotify Instagram - @imbetweenshow Twitter - @imbetweenshow Facebook - @imbetweenshow Pinterest - @imbetweenshow   _________________________________________________________________ Meet Leslie Leyland Fields:Leslie Leyland Fields is an award-winning author of twelve books, an international speaker, a popular radio guest, the founder of the Harvester Island Wilderness Workshop and a commercial fisherwoman for four decades, working with her husband and six children in a salmon-fishing operation on a remote island in Alaska. Her newest book, Your Story Matters: Finding, Writing and Living the Truth of Your Life presents the fruit of her 30+ years of writing, editing and teaching story-making around the world.