This week we rejoice the 250th episode of the Novel Advertising podcast by celebrating our tales.
Usually on Novel Advertising we speak about learn how to construct your platform, promote extra books, and alter the world with writing value speaking about. On the finish of this submit, a couple of podcast listeners share their prime classes realized from the podcast through the years.
For our 250th episode, I’m going to inform my story.
Who’s Thomas Umstattd Jr.? How did he begin podcasting, and the way did this podcast get to 250 episodes?
The College Years
Round 1992, my dad introduced his outdated 8086 inexperienced display laptop house from his workplace.
Even in 1992, this laptop was a dinosaur. The display had two colours: inexperienced and white. You needed to kind instructions to get it to do something. For a seven-year-old who struggled with spelling, this proved to be a problem however a worthy one. If I may determine learn how to get the machine to go, there have been video games to play.
A number of years later, with the assistance of a household pal, I constructed my very own laptop. I watched and paid shut consideration as he confirmed me what he was doing. It was a multimedia PC with audio system and a CD-Rom. For a time, it was the one CD participant we had in the home. If we needed to take heed to a CD, we needed to pay attention by the tiny laptop audio system.
Again then, I used to be a poor reader and a fair worse author. I’m nonetheless a gradual reader, which might be why I like audiobooks a lot. I used to be particularly insecure about my handwriting and spelling, and I coped with these insecurities by doing every part on that laptop.
These have been the times of Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. Utilizing a pc to finish a guide report was not essentially simpler than writing on paper. Once I was 12, I went paperless for nearly all of my faculty work. I solely touched a pencil to do math. I bought away with it as a result of my mother homeschooled us.
Sadly, in these days, computer systems weren’t very dependable. I realized to repair and improve my laptop. For years, it ran with out a case since I fiddled with the innards a lot.
In 1998, at 13 years outdated, I joined a homeschool choir. I used to be almost six toes tall and extremely awkward. The bass part was full of nerds. Or at the very least that’s what we’d have been referred to as if we have been in an actual highschool. However since we have been homeschooled, there have been no cool children to name us nerds. We had no thought we have been nerds.
We began dabbling with constructing net pages, and when the choir director Kathy Hargis heard about it, she created a brand new elected place for the choir referred to as “Choir Webmaster.” Of the nerds, I used to be the one one to run for the brand new place, and I received the election in a landslide.
Our choir director was a savvy operator and knew she was about to attain a free web site. This was an enormous deal again when it price a small fortune to construct an internet site.
She didn’t understand it, however she additionally launched my profession. That choir web site was the primary web site I ever constructed. It was a Microsoft Frontpage monstrosity, but it surely was an actual web site on the web that I had constructed as a 14-year-old.
That authentic web site has been misplaced to time, however this model from 2002 may be discovered on the Manner Again Machine.
A number of years later, I submitted the positioning to the Junior Internet Awards, which offered itself as a contest of net design just like the Academy Awards. I received the “Gold Award,” and my choir director purchased the corresponding trophy to current to me at our massive end-of-the-year live performance.
I later realized that everybody who utilized received the award, and the group existed solely to promote trophies. However none of us knew that on the time.
In 2001, some homeschool mothers in our space needed to experiment with a brand new approach of homeschooling referred to as a co-op. Homeschool dad and mom had been instructing lessons to every others’ children for a very long time, however this co-op was the primary time all these parents-teachers can be assembled in a single place. This lowered the quantity of driving the mothers wanted to do. Courses have been held as soon as every week. Dad and mom paid the academics straight, and the academics then paid a small price to the coop to cowl varied bills.
I heard they have been searching for academics and requested if there have been any expertise lessons. Once I came upon there have been none, I provided to show a category on net design. I used to be an “award profitable webmaster” in spite of everything. I had by no means attended a expertise class in my life, however I had constructed a number of web sites by that point. I had additionally served as an intern legislative aide for a State Consultant.
The homeschool co-op was so determined for academics that first 12 months that they let me train offered I construct a free web site for the group. I realized that adults very keen to commerce affect and duty for a free web site as a result of individuals have been determined for an internet site they may afford. This gave me a number of entry to the room the place it occurred regardless of the actual fact I used to be one-third the age of the opposite academics current.
Within the first semester, we realized HTML, and within the second semester, we realized Dreamweaver. I say “we realized” as a result of I stayed a few chapters forward of the opposite college students as I taught all of them learn how to construct web sites.
I keep in mind we held lessons on Tuesdays as a result of our second or third class of the 12 months was on September 11, 2001. I used to be making an attempt to show a category on HTML when all I actually needed to do was take heed to the radio concerning the assault on our nation.
I taught about half-a-dozen college students in that class, and considered one of them went on to be an engineer at Intel. I’m fairly certain she knew extra about HTML than I did by the tip of the category.
As an alternative of instructing the subsequent 12 months, I took a semester off of faculty to work full time for a congressional candidate who had a particular election on the opposite aspect of the state.
I do know a number of you’re dealing with homeschooling for the primary time due to the pandemic. As a homeschool graduate, I acquired a wonderful training I couldn’t have acquired in a standard faculty. By the point I graduated, I had run my very own instructing enterprise, served as a legislative aide, and labored as a full-time volunteer on-line coordinator for a congressional marketing campaign.
Most significantly, I realized learn how to be taught alone. I may be taught a talent from a guide with out having a instructor spoon-feed me the knowledge. Most homeschoolers develop this talent as a result of their mothers don’t know every part. Studying to be taught by yourself is an important talent you may be taught.
My homeschool training ready me for a job that didn’t even exist on the time. There was no such factor as knowledgeable podcaster again in these days.
Writing My First Guide
Once I went to school, I used to be burnt out on constructing web sites without spending a dime (or little pay). I swore I might keep out of the IT world and turn out to be a businessman. I deliberate to start out a enterprise towards the tip of school or shortly after I graduated.
Whereas in faculty, I felt God name me to put in writing a guide about online game dependancy. So I began going to writers conferences.
At a type of conferences, I ran right into a author who lived in my space. I used to be so excited to fulfill an actual creator that I provided to do one thing for her that I swore I might by no means do once more. I provided to construct her a free web site.
She beloved the web site and began recommending me to all her mates. I began charging for constructing web sites, and immediately I had an internet site enterprise.
Few individuals on the conferences have been enthusiastic about my guide. They have been enthusiastic about getting somebody to construct an internet site. Whole strangers wrote me checks for the brand new web sites I might construct.
Publishers weren’t enthusiastic about my guide thought despite the fact that I already had a podcast concerning the guide’s subject. I used to be approach earlier than my time by way of podcasting. Nobody in Christian publishing knew what a podcast was in 2007.
I’m glad I wrote that guide. However, like most first books, it wasn’t excellent, and I’m glad I didn’t publish it.
I think God’s objective for me in writing that guide was the change he meant to have an effect on inside me, not the change the guide would result in on this planet. Writing the guide led to internet hosting my first podcast and attending my first writers conferences.
I realized that simply since you are referred to as to write a guide doesn’t imply you’re referred to as to publish a guide.
However writing that guide began me on the trail that led me to the place I’m right this moment.
The No-Good-Very-Dangerous Yr
There I used to be with the beginnings of an online design enterprise, however I actually didn’t wish to do net design. I used to be taking an entrepreneurship class on the time, and I fell in love with the marketing strategy we have been required to create as homework. I bought an A on the marketing strategy, so certainly it was prepared for prime time.
I made a decision to start out that enterprise in actual life.
The marketing strategy referred to as for taking public area recordings of public area books, burning them onto CDs, and promoting them to homeschoolers.
I assumed that homeschoolers:
- Drove so much as a result of they lived removed from city facilities. They did.
- Can be excited about unabridged tremendous outdated books. They have been.
- Wished to take heed to them of their vehicles. They did.
- Had been unable to take heed to mp3s of their vehicles. They couldn’t (in 2008).
Our tagline was “flip your automotive right into a classroom,” and it gave the impression to be an ideal match for the homeschool market.
I made one essential mistake.
I assumed that homeschoolers can be keen to pay for these books in CD format. They weren’t.
It seems, CDs are a horrible format for audiobooks. They solely maintain about 80 minutes of audio, which suggests you want over a dozen CDs for an unabridged Victorian novel. CDs don’t retain your playback place like a cassette tape. When you take a CD out of your automotive and put it in your house stereo, it begins over firstly of the CD.
What’s extra, a dozen CDs is pricey. Costly merchandise will not be an excellent match for Homeschoolers since most households dwell on just one revenue.
CDs have been a worse expertise for audiobooks than cassette tapes. This can be a massive motive why audiobooks are rising so shortly now. They’re making up for misplaced time in the course of the heyday of the CD.
In 2008, after I graduated from faculty, that enterprise failed. The financial system was collapsing. My grandfather, the inventor of Captain Crunch, died, and my dad nearly died. I used to be in a courtship with a younger girl that 12 months which failed famously.
It was a no-good-very-bad 12 months for me.
The following 12 months, I had lunch with a serial entrepreneur. I shared with him my frustrations about my failed audiobook enterprise. I confessed that by some means I used to be again within the net design enterprise regardless of my finest efforts to remain out of it. I divulged my latest enterprise thought for beginning a micro information enterprise the place small communities would have their very own WordPress information websites.
He requested, “What’s your unfair benefit with the micro information websites?”
“I can construct the web sites cheaply, however apart from that, I don’t actually have one.” I replied.
“How concerning the creator web site enterprise? Any unfair benefits there?”
“I can train. I’ve already been invited to talk at a number of conferences on creator web sites and social media. Anybody else must pay for a sales space at these conferences. However I get flown in without spending a dime, I receives a commission, and I get to talk from the stage.”
He leaned again and stated, “I believe you’ve gotten your reply.”
The Rise of Creator Media
With that dialog in thoughts, I made a decision to double down on constructing creator web sites. Similar to in highschool, being the tech man gave me a number of entry to influential individuals. Everybody was making an attempt to be an creator, however nearly nobody was making an attempt to be a webmaster for authors.
I launched an internet site referred to as AuthorTechTips.com the place I blogged about advertising and social media. In these days, social media truly helped a couple of authors safe guide contracts! The web site received a number of awards from Author’s Digest as probably the most useful web sites for authors.
A number of years later, I purchased AuthorMedia.com for round $1500, and AuthorTechTips.com grew to become AuthorMedia.com.
I had extra requests for creator web sites than I may deal with on my own, so I began hiring site owners. First one particular person, then one other. Sooner or later in 2012, I got here to work and realized there have been a dozen individuals working in my workplace, crafting WordPress web sites, and serving to authors launch and promote extra books.
One problem we confronted was the time-intensive activity of constructing particular person guide pages for prolific authors. The most effective observe is for every guide to have its personal webpage on an creator’s web site in order that Google is aware of the place to ship people who find themselves looking for that guide. However for an creator with three dozen books, this can be a lot of labor. To unravel our drawback and save ourselves time, we developed a WordPress plugin to make constructing guide pages simpler. For a couple of 12 months, we simply used it ourselves.
About that point, there was an enormous change within the business. The Amazon Kindle 4 got here out, and readers may purchase a brand new Kindle for lower than $100. Immediately, thousands and thousands of individuals have been shopping for Kindles for the primary time. readers needed to fill their Kindles, they usually have been shopping for plenty of cheap indie ebooks.
Conventional publishers bought scared and have become extra conservative with creator advances and fewer adventurous with new authors. Creator Media principally constructed web sites for historically revealed authors who spent their advances on new web sites. When these advances bought smaller, the brand new web site was typically the very first thing an creator would reduce from their finances.
Indie authors didn’t have $10,000 of advance cash to spend on a brand new web site. Since constructing web sites was getting simpler with every new model of WordPress, many indie authors have been constructing their very own web sites.
So, we determined to create a model of our book-page-builder plugin for this new breed of “do-it-yourself” authors. We put MyBookTable on Kickstarter, hoping to lift $2500 to cowl the price of adapting the plugin for public use. Folks bought excited and ended up pledging over $10,000 for the plugin.
This was the start of a significant shift for Creator Media as we began serving indie authors.
Flying too Near the Solar
In 2013, I began the Novel Advertising Podcast with James L Rubart. I began the Bestseller Society, which was an internet coaching group for authors. Along with persevering with to develop MyBookTable, my firm launched a number of different new plugins, MyBookProgress, MySpeakingEvents, and MySpeakingPage.
In 2014, I wrote a weblog submit on my private weblog titled Why Courtship is Basically Flawed, and it went viral, particularly within the homeschool group. It was a submit about my observations of courtship tradition and a proof of why many homeschoolers who needed to get married have been unable to take action.
After it acquired 1 million pageviews, I immediately had a complete group clambering for me to put in writing a guide about courtship, relationship, and relationships. Having labored with authors for thus a few years and having gone by the book-writing course of as soon as earlier than, I knew how a lot work it could take to create this guide.
So, as a approach of calling everybody’s bluff, I put the guide on Kickstarter and requested for $10,000 to cowl the price of modifying, cowl design, typesetting, and a myriad of different bills. This was my approach of investigating whether or not there was actually a requirement for the guide.
To my shock, the readers of my weblog raised over $11,000. So, along with every part else I used to be doing, I began writing a guide.
Now that I used to be not “Mr. Courtship,” I used to be in a position to go on dates for the primary time in my life on the age of 29. Relationship was enjoyable. After a couple of years, I began going regular with the lady who would turn out to be my spouse. Curiously, she was the primary touch upon the courtship weblog submit and my first kiss.
I beloved being married, and shortly we have been anticipating our first baby.
There was just one drawback, and I think you already know what it’s.
I used to be doing an excessive amount of.
Except for the audiobook enterprise (which failed) and the Bestseller Society (which I offered), I used to be nonetheless sustaining and dealing on every part I had began. I counted my areas of duty, and at one level, I had at the very least 18 management roles.
These included:
- working meetup teams
- sitting on the board of administrators for nonprofits
- internet hosting 5 podcasts
- serving as a Fractional Advertising Director for a advertising firm
- touring the world talking
- dabbling in actual property
- working as a literary agent
Even when I had been single, I used to be doing an excessive amount of. Even when we didn’t have a child with one other on the way in which, I used to be doing an excessive amount of. And even worse, since I used to be doing so many issues, none of them have been flourishing. Every part wanted extra consideration than I may give.
I used to be depressing.
Sooner or later in Could of 2019, I used to be so overwhelmed I couldn’t get away from bed. I laid there the entire day, unable to resolve what to work on subsequent and utterly unmotivated. This was the worst breakdown I’d ever had, but it surely wasn’t the primary. My psychological state was getting worse and worse.
One thing needed to change.
Pruning
Whereas I used to be instructing in Switzerland, I got here throughout a 700-year-old tree. It had been pruned right down to its nubs, however after I regarded intently, these nubs have been bursting with life. I noticed I wanted to be pruned. I wanted Aslan to tear away the layers of dragon flesh to search out the human beneath.
In 2019 James Rubart and I did an episode about pruning on Novel Advertising. Jim Rubart was going by the same season of being unfold too skinny. Jim stepped down from internet hosting the podcast, and I set a objective for myself to prune till I used to be down to at least one enterprise card by the point I turned 35.
I ranked all of my actions based mostly on how simple they have been, how a lot cash they made, and the way a lot pleasure every exercise introduced me. I tallied the scores of pleasure, cash, and ease, after which I began reducing the issues that scored poorly. It was simple at first, however the extra issues I reduce, the tougher it grew to become.
I’ve spent the final 12 months or so eliminating issues. I offered the MyBookTable and MyBookProgress plugins to Stormhill Media. This was s a painful course of. Pruning means you’re doing work to make much less cash, particularly within the brief time period.
To this point, I’ve reduce two-thirds of my areas of duty.
Internet hosting this podcast at all times scored excessive on pleasure in my evaluation. The podcast is a number of work, and till lately, it didn’t make a lot cash. Once I say that patrons assist preserve this present on the air, I imply it. If it weren’t for listeners supporting the present financially, the present would have scored decrease on my chart, and I might have been compelled to think about reducing it in my season of pruning.
As an alternative, I’ve pruned different issues. This has allowed me to place extra power into the podcast. Novel Advertising was by no means my number-one challenge till 2020.
In some methods, the podcast is model new. We’ve weblog posts for all new episodes now. I can spend extra time on the episodes, which I imagine has improved the standard (Let me know within the feedback or Fb group in case you agree or not).
General, I nonetheless really feel like I’m recovering from that breakdown. My bodily well being remains to be dangerous, and I don’t really feel as assured as I was. As I inform this story, I nearly don’t acknowledge that 16-year-old who thought he may train a highschool class.
My fellow masterminds in my mastermind group have walked with me by all of this for the final seven years, they usually have been an amazing assist.
Novel Advertising podcast listeners, and particularly these of you who help the podcast financially, have additionally been an enormous supply of help and encouragement. Your patronage made me really feel like I didn’t must do 1,000,000 issues. Since I beloved instructing individuals, perhaps I may give attention to instructing and it could be sufficient.
Whereas I take pleasure in constructing an internet site for somebody, I I get extra pleasure after I see the boldness of an individual who has realized learn how to construct their very own creator web site. Folks really feel empowered and influential. I like giving those who feeling.
I wish to train authors how to fish greater than I wish to promote them fish, despite the fact that there may be much more cash to be made in promoting fish.
Closing Ideas
Once I was rising up, adults advised me I used to be destined for nice issues. They noticed my hustle and anticipated me to run for political workplace or run an enormous firm. I used to need these issues too. I’ve needed to let these desires die. I’ve stepped again from politics, and I not run an enormous firm.
Now, I wish to spend time with my household and get my psychological and bodily well being again. I wish to report podcast episodes and create programs. I need that to be sufficient.
My little ones will solely be little for a short while, and I don’t wish to miss it. I additionally wish to dwell to see them develop up. Whereas the lockdown has been arduous with stir-crazy infants, it has additionally been an opportunity to spend time with my spouse and youngsters.
I’m nonetheless within the technique of getting right down to that one enterprise card, and I flip 35 in November. I’ll let you understand how it goes.
