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Episode 223: 'Why Are You Making it, and Who is it for?' with Kristen Meinzer
128 Plays4 years ago
"I spend a lot of time thinking about promotion," says Kristen Meinzer, author of So You Want to Start a Podcast and How to be Fine, "because this is not Field of Dreams."
Follow Kristen on Twitter @kristenmeinzer and while you're at it, follow the show @CNFPod.
In this episode we talk about the nuts and bolts of why you should make a podcast and who should you make it for, structure, pet peeves, and the rigor of promoting your show.
Stay tuned to the end for my parting shot and Kristen's Bookshelf for the Apocalypse!
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Transcript
Introduction and Promotions
00:00:00
Speaker
ACN efforts this episode is sponsored by this guy that's right a coach gives you tips pointers but more importantly holds you accountable when the work gets hard and believe me it always does
00:00:15
Speaker
Coaching sessions with me include Skype calls, transcripts of those calls to refer to later, detailed critiques for the work, email correspondence, and the knowledge that you know you've got somebody in your corner to see things you can't see. Email me and we'll start a dialogue. If you're ready to level up, I'd be honored to serve you and your work.
00:00:39
Speaker
people are going to learn to put together a piece of IKEA furniture. IKEA, even with those weird little diagrams, at least tells you the steps in order of what you're supposed to do with the weird little screwdriver thing. And with those three nuts and the two bolts, at least they tell you in the right order. And I wanted to at least do that as well.
Meet Kristin Meinzer
00:01:01
Speaker
That's Kristin Meinzer, author of How to be Fine. And so you want to start a podcast.
00:01:07
Speaker
I'm Brendan O'Mara and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast.
00:01:18
Speaker
Oh, that's right. This is the show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to hang out. You can, you can put your feet on the table. Like I'm not, I'm not super picky about that. Go for it. Just take your shoes off. Okay. I'm telling you right now, right now. Yeah. Yeah. You it's fine.
00:01:43
Speaker
I don't think you're rinsing all the soap off those plates. I think I still feel some grease on that fork you just put away. Just something I noticed. Today's guest is the remarkable Kristin Meinzer, author of So You Want to Start a Podcast, and co-author of How to Be Fine with Jelinta Greenberg. Go check out that little ditty in the archives from a couple months ago.
00:02:06
Speaker
Kristen also co-hosts the world famous By the Book podcast with Jolenta. That was the inspiration, of course, for how to be fine. Kristen's fingerprints can be found on these crime scenes. We Love You and So Can You, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Girl Boss Radio, The Sporkful, Movie Therapy, among other things. She's pretty special. And we have a saying on this show that you ought to know by
Interview Overview
00:02:33
Speaker
now. She's wicked smart.
00:02:36
Speaker
We talk about her growing up in Minnesota, getting in a Ryder truck, the head to New York after college, her pet peeves about new podcasters, why you're making the show, who is it for, and how to start and grow a show, pro tip. It's a lot of work and rigor, but you knew that because you can
00:02:58
Speaker
See and maybe even hear the sweat dripping off my brow as I beg you to share this with a friend and to Keep the conversation going of course on social media at CNF pod across the big three
00:03:12
Speaker
You might also want to give the show a nice rating to help more people like you, yeah you, join the party. There's a lot, there's a lot of beer in the fridge and I'd love to share it. You can head over to BrendanOMara.com for show notes and to sign up for the monthly newsletter that goes out on the first of the month. Reading recommendations, book raffles, cool articles, and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. First of the month, no spam, can't beat it.
00:03:43
Speaker
You're gonna want to stay tuned to the end of the show for my parting shot. I mean, come on. It's some deferred gratification, right? Don't you just love hearing me blather on about nonsense? Well, you can. It's just at the end of the show now, where nobody listens to it. Thanks, analytics. Anyway, it's fine. It's all fine. It's very fine. So in the meantime, why not? Why wait? Let's do this. Here's Kristin Meinzer.
00:04:16
Speaker
When I had you and Gilenta on early and I had read How to be Fine, it's one of those things where my wife tends to not trust book recommendations I give her, but I was like, you're going to love this one. And sure enough, she was skeptical because I recommended it. And then she read it and she loved it. And she is such a buy the book super fan now. And I just wanted to be sure I shared that with you.
00:04:41
Speaker
Oh, that makes us so happy. Thank you. And we found that a lot of people who are skeptical about the self-help universe, they may not initially think, oh, this is a book I want to read. And then they do. And they're like, oh, oh, they're not trying to prescribe self-help things to me. They're just talking about their own lives. They're really just essentially their memoirists talking about what they've done during this terrible experimental seven seasons of the show.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, and she sees so much of herself in the two of you. So it's just like, you know, she really feels like, you know, when podcasts are really humming and you really like hit your stride, it truly feels like it's like you, Jelenta, and one listener, and they feel like enveloped by that whole experience. And I swear that's how she feels by it. So that's a testament to what you and your team are doing on that show.
00:05:34
Speaker
Oh, thank you. And it's a testament to your wife, too. We appreciate every single listener and the loyalty they have with us and the relationship they build with us.
Kristin's Upbringing and Personal Journey
00:05:44
Speaker
And it anytime I hear a story like that, it just it makes my heart sing. I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah. And she she wanted me to to also share that she just finds that you in particular, but also Joanna, but she wanted me to bring this up to you that she feels that you're just incredibly brave and compassionate. So I wanted to share that with you, too. Oh, my gosh. What is her name?
00:06:04
Speaker
Melanie. Melanie, thank you so much, Melanie. Melanie, you're beautiful. I, you just made my day. Thank you. And she's an environmental scientist too. So I think I'll resonate with you. Oh my gosh. She's a superhero. Oh my gosh. Real heroes don't wear capes. They're environmental scientists. Oh my God. That's so cool. Oh my God. No offense, Brendan, but man, you got a good one. I don't mean to make it sound like she's out of your league or anything, but holy crow, you're married to an environmental scientist. That's so cool.
00:06:34
Speaker
Exactly. No, you're totally right. She's totally out of my league. Oh my god. That's so cool. That's like definitely one of the coolest jobs on the planet. That's like up there with astronaut to me like, oh my god, you married an astronaut. You married an environmental scientist. Yeah. Exactly. It's just baked into her bones and her DNA. And so she'll go to her grave hopefully a long, long time from now, just always advocating and fighting for it. And whatever capacity she can and whatever job she has, that's her North Star.
00:07:04
Speaker
Oh, I'd love that. Oh, she's so great. She's so great. Well, and speaking of great like Kristin, you like the work that the work that you do and the energy with which you you bring to your work into the community at large is also like just super great and in service of, you know, storytelling and and representation. And as we start to unpack that, I'd love to go back a little bit and get a sense of, you know, the kid you were growing up in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
00:07:36
Speaker
Well, my Nana was kind of my best friend growing up, if that tells you what kind of kid I was. I loved hanging with my Nana, loved watching Little House on the Prairie reruns. I adored reading celebrity gossip, sitting side by side with my Nana. We would read The National Enquirer and Star and things like that and watch the celebrity gossip shows like Entertainment Tonight and so on.
00:08:03
Speaker
I think a lot of my tastes were essentially from the single digits formed to turn me into one of the Golden Girls. And I feel like I've pretty much been one ever since in my own special little way, yes. I used to watch Golden Girls every Friday night with my mom growing up.
00:08:22
Speaker
It's still super funny. I don't know if you've watched it since you were a kid, but I have. I haven't. It's still really, really funny. It's very clever. And in reading, of course, your podcast book, too, you know, I came across this thing, you know, 14 years old and politically active. So where does that come from, to be activated at such a young age?
00:08:44
Speaker
Well, I don't ever think that my mother or my Nana were overt about it, but I can say this. When my mom was a teenager, she snuck out of the house at night to see JFK speak. She was part of the zero population growth movement. She was part of the anti-nuclear proliferation movement.
00:09:05
Speaker
She wasn't out in the streets marching usually, but I had friends who were, so I began doing that. It made my mom really proud. When I was in college, my mom and I did go and see people like Ralph Nader speak and so on.
00:09:22
Speaker
But yeah, I think that it was kind of folded into the ethos of my household, even if, as I said, my mom wasn't necessarily always out there marching, but she had her memberships to different organizations. She had her donations she made. And as a young kid, I just, I don't think I had money to donate to anything, but I had time. So I volunteered a lot and I demonstrated a lot starting when I was about 14.
00:09:49
Speaker
And, you know, I read, too, that your parents split up when you were younger, too. At what age was that? Oh, gosh, I must have been in maybe third grade, I think it was. I'm trying to remember the exact age. I was pretty young. Yeah, I was pretty young. I was 12, not third grade. But yeah, that definitely has its effect. Did that have any sort of negative impact on your upbringing?
00:10:17
Speaker
Well, you know, I think that the more negative impacts were not from the divorce, but from my dad and stepmom who I have not talked to. I think I've talked to them twice since I was 12 years old were
00:10:34
Speaker
an especially bad parenting combo so I would say that my issues were more about them as parental figures and Not with the divorce itself. I don't think divorce is The worst possible outcome in a lot of cases. It's the best possible outcome for kids for parents for everybody involved I know that there's you know
00:10:58
Speaker
a lot of debate about that. There are some people who really believe you stay together for the kids no matter what and I don't believe that's true. I just think sometimes it's best for everybody if this marriage comes to an end and it doesn't mean that anyone's a failure. Some things just have a shelf life and some people can't grow together anymore and that's fine. It's not great but you know it happens and it's fine.
00:11:20
Speaker
Right. Yeah. No, I totally, totally agree. And, and you also have a, have a sister too. So in that, in that, in that divorce, was there any of that, that awful like side picking or did, or were you guys able to... Oh gosh, it was constant. Yeah. There was always picking sides. There was always pitting the children against each other. There were a lot of terrible things that were happening with regard to my father and that particular side of the family and
00:11:47
Speaker
You know, like I said, there's a reason I haven't talked to that side of the family. And I also think that that's okay. I know that not everybody wants to do that, but sometimes we have to cut out people from our lives if they treat us very badly. And I think that's fine. I know not everybody wants to do it, but for me, it was the best choice if someone's going to be abusive and do inhumane things to me.
00:12:11
Speaker
They don't deserve to have me in their life. I am a joy and you are so lucky if I am in your life and you don't deserve to have me if you don't treat me right. That's amazing. A lot of people, I would say, struggle with that kind of confidence and self-assuredness and to feel that way about themselves. How did you cultivate that sense that, yeah, that I am
00:12:35
Speaker
I am that joy to be around and if you're not gonna treat me well, you know what? It's best we go our separate ways and be around people who do appreciate me for who I am. Oh gosh, I think that takes a lifetime. As far as my dad and stepmom go, as far as that side of the family, I wasn't cutting things off because I was so strong and so brave. I'm saying, I'm talking the big game now, but back then it's because I was a child and I was afraid and I was treated very, very badly.
00:13:05
Speaker
Attorneys were involved. The city was involved. There were mental health professionals involved. It was a very, very bad situation where essentially, I'll just put it this way, they were not fit to be raising children. It was very, very bad.
00:13:20
Speaker
So me not seeing them anymore as a young child was mostly out of fear and child endangerment issues. But as an adult, I have had to, you know, sever ties with other people in my life who've treated me very badly. And it's taken me a long time to get to that point. There are definitely people I kept in my life longer than I should have.
00:13:41
Speaker
And I think that that happens to a lot of us. Oh, we have history together. Oh, we've known each other so long. Oh, you know, we we don't always want to end things. We want to keep working at things. And and it hurts to say goodbye to people that we love sometimes. But yeah, there are people I've had to cut out because they've done terrible things like
00:14:02
Speaker
I'll just give a terrible example. Like when I was in college, one of my friends slept with one of my boyfriends. And I kept her around for years after that thinking like, oh, it was his fault, not hers. Oh, we've been friends since we were kids. Oh, she has so many shared memories with me. I don't know if I can even have any memories of my youth without her involved. Oh, she's gotten me through so many tough times. But then as time went on, I just
00:14:25
Speaker
kept seeing more and more behaviors that were undermining me, not to the severity of you're sleeping with my boyfriend. But I thought, eventually, I just can't be around this anymore. And it was terrible to cut off a friend that I had for 20 years, but I had to do it. And it took me a long time to recover from it many years. It was probably the worst breakup I ever had. But now I'm happy I did. My life's great now.
00:14:48
Speaker
Excellent,
Career Path and Insights into Podcasting
00:14:49
Speaker
excellent. And so of course you go to school and you're studying film, among other things. And then there comes a point where after graduating college you pack everything you owned into a rider truck and drove from Minnesota to New York.
00:15:09
Speaker
Let's put you in motion there. What was the headspace there of you getting behind the wheel of that truck and driving east to the big city? Oh my gosh. I didn't even blink. I was like, of course I'll do it. My friend Sarah Hurley, who I met in college and she and I are still wonderfully good friends to this day. We were just texting this morning. I love her to death. She said, let's just go to New York. And she had gone to college for about a year in New York at one point.
00:15:38
Speaker
and she was another Minnesotan and but she just wanted to go to New York after college and I said so do I and so we hopped into a truck and we went and it was a great adventure. She didn't end up staying here. I think she stayed maybe for five years and then she moved back to Minnesota but I've been here ever since and now it's been 20 years.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so where do you get a love for storytelling and then specifically start to sort of weave yourself into audio and radio and that kind of media for storytelling?
00:16:13
Speaker
Wow, I've always been a huge consumer of movies, TV, and books. From a very young age, I was that kid who had the suitcase full of records with those books that they would go beep and then you'd turn the page and the record player would essentially read to you while you read a longness story.
00:16:34
Speaker
So, I would spend hours a day doing that, hours a day watching TV and movies, hours a day, as I said, reading the National Enquirer with my Nana, doing all of the consuming of media and story that I possibly could from a young age. And I just fell in love with being told stories, but I don't think that's unusual. I think most people love that. Put any kid in front of a storybook or in front of a TV and they'll fall in love with it, right?
00:17:01
Speaker
So I loved that. But then the older I got, I really just loved stories also because no matter who I talked to in this world, I came to realize they have something that is unique and that is only theirs. They have their own story in them that nobody else has told before. And so the older I got, the more I thought,
00:17:23
Speaker
I want to help encourage other people to tell their stories too. I don't just want to consume stories, I want to make stories and I want to hear other people's stories along the way. So when I was in college I was an arts and entertainment journalist for a while and one of my favorite things about that job was I got to interview people and hear people's stories and then I got to write out their stories and kind of frame them the way I wanted to that I thought would best serve them and best serve their story and
00:17:51
Speaker
I loved that, and the older I got, the more I thought, oh, how do I turn this into a full-time job? And after college, moving to New York with zero contacts, other than my roommate and friend Sarah, it was hard at first. So for the first few years in New York, I was bouncing around with kind of administrative assistant jobs, and I wasn't really sure how to get my foot into the door into a real storytelling sort of job.
00:18:16
Speaker
Eventually, I did build up enough friends and enough contacts where they would say, oh, I know somebody there. I can probably forward your resume to them or whatnot. And then eventually, I was able to break into TV and then into radio. I worked in public radio for six and a half years. And then the podcasting boom came and a number of companies started headhunting public radio to try and get podcast people like me.
00:18:44
Speaker
I've been doing that ever since just full-time podcasting for I think it's about five years now I've been doing it full-time in public radio. I was podcasting part-time They had me mostly being a producer Also podcasting so and and that wasn't something I planned on by the way I never thought that I would be on a microphone telling my story but early on in public radio had me start doing it and then I started doing it full-time a few years ago and
00:19:12
Speaker
I asked a while ago the great Alexandra De Palma, who's a producer of sorts of several podcasts, including her own, but a lot of others with her podcasting company. And I asked her about the role of a producer and what exactly does a producer do. And I'd extend that to you as someone who's been in this for several years now.
00:19:34
Speaker
because it's kind of a nebulous term, so help shed some light to someone who might not exactly know what a producer does. A producer does everything. A producer is helping to set up your tech. A producer is helping to book your guests. A producer is
00:19:56
Speaker
cutting together the episodes to get rid of all the ums and the uhs and the fumbles and the mouth noises. A producer is mixing in the music, leveling the sound. A producer is promoting your show, pushing it out on social media, setting up promo swaps with other shows. A producer is dealing with all the mail that comes in and with all the listener relations. A producer is doing at least a hundred different things on any given day.
00:20:25
Speaker
Being a producer is really fun. I've done it for years and years and years for my own shows, for other shows, and it is a lot of work and it's often thankless and not every host when they're on mic thanks their producer.
00:20:40
Speaker
I, for years, I worked on shows where I was never thanked, and then finally I worked on a show where at the end they had a closing credit, and they said, oh, and huge thanks to our producer, Kristin Meinzer. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Somebody just recognized me. It was great, but a lot of posts. They see me.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of hosts don't ever thank their producers and I always, always, when I have a producer, thank my producers profusely. I bring them on to the mic. I have special episodes where we talk with each other about their process because producers work so hard and I think that a lot of what they do is completely thankless. So yeah, producers are great. And in my opinion, the best hosts have also been producers at one point or another.
00:21:24
Speaker
I also think some of the best producers I've ever met also host sometimes because they kind of teach you how to do the other. So for example, as a host, I may be blathering on and on and on and um and ah and like and oh gosh what was I saying and oh let me circle back to that prior thing oh but first let me get to this question and
00:21:45
Speaker
As the producer, I am cutting all of that out and I'm realizing as a producer, if I'm both the producer and host, oh boy, that was not my best hosting. I'm just gonna cut this out and cut this out and cut this out. So if you're wearing both hats, it can really teach you to do a better job of the other job. That's what I found. And Brendan, do you also produce your own show or do you have a producer? I do it myself.
00:22:08
Speaker
So you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm sure when you're cutting together a show, you'll hear yourself do certain things and think, I'm not gonna do that next time I'm on the microphone. Exactly, it takes quite a bit of, well, it's just like anything, it takes quite a bit of just repetition of failing forward, if you will, of just learning through the experience of it, of learning how to have mic awareness. Don't get too close, don't be too far away.
00:22:34
Speaker
ensure that you're not smacking your lips, making weird mouth noises, drinking into the microphone, eating near the microphone. It's like so many of these things I hear on other podcasts, even very highly produced polished podcasts with prominent hosts. I'm hearing this stuff. I'm like, are you seriously? I'm just a self-taught audio person and I know that this is bad.
00:22:55
Speaker
So yeah, it's it's one of those deals, but being wearing the producer hat and the host hat. Yes, you hear yourself. You're like, oh, yeah, let's I'm going to edit this out now. But hopefully, over the course of my hosting and my interviewing, I can sort of self edit as I go along.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So I encourage all new podcasters to do everything. Be your producer, be your host, do it all. And later on, maybe you'll be able to hire a producer or maybe later on you'll realize hosting isn't my thing. I'll bring on a host or I'll bring on a co-host. And that's fine. I think it's all a learning exercise and we all get better hopefully over time. The more mistakes we make, the more
00:23:37
Speaker
You know, to this day I've now been podcasting well over a decade and I still make mistakes and every once in a while I catch myself and I fix it. Once in a while I don't catch it and it goes out into the world and I think that's okay. I will do better next time. It's just part of the process.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, so when I speak primarily to writers and stuff who are editors or have like an editor inclination, but they're also trying to compose, and it's like how do you divorce the two? Because if the editor hat is too heavy on the head while you are composing,
00:24:14
Speaker
It can get in the way of the unbridled nature you need just to get some shitty words onto the page. And so there's that whole thing to wrestle with. Do you find that having been a producer that sometimes you need to, I don't know, scale back that a little bit as you're hosting? And then go and post? You can fix things? Or does it really help to have both hats on at the same time?
00:24:39
Speaker
I tend to have both hats on at the same time, but I will say that when I am writing, I was taught something. I got an MFA a few years ago. Oh gosh, more than a few years ago. I have an MFA in fiction writing, and I remember one of my professors said, don't fall into the editing trap.
00:25:01
Speaker
editing rather than writing and just rewriting the same sentence over and over rearranging this paragraph over and over and over again and that producer or that professor was so correct in my case because I would spend so many hours just doing rewrites rather than producing new stories
00:25:21
Speaker
I should have been writing. I should have been getting the stories in my heart out there. I should have been experimenting. I should have been making terrible mistakes with my storytelling or great experiments, whatever you want to call them. And instead I fell into the trap that a lot of people do. I would just edit, edit, edit. So that's something that I've had to work to fight in my writing.
00:25:42
Speaker
And at this point, when it comes to podcasting, I'm kind of okay at mixing the two. I have a system that works for me, but it's still the case, you know, writing books or writing stories that I have to make sure I don't fall too much into that trap of just editing, editing, editing. I have to write. Got to get it out there.
Writing and Structure in Podcasting
00:26:00
Speaker
And given that you're an author who's written two books and you've produced several shows and host several shows, which feels more natural and most comfortable for you, writing or audio?
00:26:16
Speaker
Well, at this point, I would say audio feels more comfortable, but with every audio project I do, I write. I don't know if the listeners know how much writing I do behind the scenes for each episode. So, for example, with Buy the Book, on that show, Jolenta and I live by the rules of a different self-help book in each episode.
00:26:36
Speaker
But before we live by those books, we read the book cover to cover and we essentially write out a book report. This is who the author is. This is the story of the book and the number of bestseller lists it hit, how many copies it sold and so on. These are the rules of the book and distilling the rules of a self-help book down to 10 or fewer steps is a lot harder than you might think because most self-help authors are very bad writers and don't think about basics like structure or story.
00:27:04
Speaker
or breaking things down into bite-sized pieces. So every episode of Buy the Book, before we even start living by the book, we spend at least 20 hours reading and writing. And so a lot of work goes into the writing also. And then other things kind of write themselves. So I have this other show called Movie Therapy with Riefer and Kristin. And on that show, people write to us with their conundrums. Maybe it's, I'm trapped at home with my kids during COVID and I want to run away.
00:27:33
Speaker
or I am thinking of cheating on my husband, tell me what to do, or I hate homeschooling, I cannot stand it, I'm in college, I wanna live free, I can't believe I'm 22 and living in my parents' basement right now. So they'll write to us with letters like these and we will give them some advice and then we will prescribe them a movie or TV show to watch to help them through whatever they're dealing with.
00:27:59
Speaker
And so it's a mixture of kind of a watch list. It's kind of a mixture of an advice show. It's a mixture of a few different things. But that mostly writes itself because the letter writers are providing the content for us. All we really have to do, my co-host, Rafer and I, is offer genuine empathy, which we don't write out our empathy. That empathy just comes from us. So we don't write out a script of what we're going to say in advance to each person.
00:28:23
Speaker
You know, we let them write the content for us and then we come up with a movie prescription or a TV prescription. So every show is different. That show is a lighter lift because I don't have to write a book report every episode. We tape every single week and the prep for that show is less than an hour. And then we just get to taping and
00:28:42
Speaker
So, you know, every show has its own structure. Some of them are going to require a lot of writing. Some of them are not. But I always tell people, regardless of whether or not there is a lot of writing, just make sure you have structure. I already mentioned that a lot of self-help books don't, but they should, and so should podcasts. Podcasts should also have structure.
00:29:03
Speaker
I'm so glad you brought up structure. That's a big thing that I wanted to talk to you about. Let's first talk about with your book at first, and then we can talk into how important it is to have structure in a podcast as well. Because I think there's a misconception that it's great to just have this free-flowing things, but I think it's... But we can dive into that in a moment.
00:29:26
Speaker
But with the book, of course, you broke it down into these big chunks calling it, dream it, write it, host it, cast it, make it, share it, grow it. So how important was having that wireframe baked into So You Want to Start a Podcast?
00:29:41
Speaker
Oh my gosh, it was the first thing I did was start laying out all the steps. And the book actually has, if I remember correctly, 37 distinct steps, and they all fall under seven main headings.
00:29:57
Speaker
And I wanted every single step to be distinct, everything to be clear. I don't want anyone ever to, after they're done reading, think, hold on, what am I supposed to do? What order should I do things in? I don't want anyone to think that after they put the book down. I don't want anyone to just think I'm giving them a book of cheerleading, which the book is also cheerleading. A lot of what I'm doing in the book,
00:30:20
Speaker
trying to reassure people that their story matters that their voice is important that nobody else has your story and that the world is lucky if they get to hear your story and I do try to do that cheerleading and I do try to reveal a lot of the mistakes I've made I've made so many mistakes and I want to put that out there but I also want people to have solid takeaways and each section is so snackable that you know you can feel accomplished when you read the book too so I wanted to set it up that way also so that whoever's reading it
00:30:50
Speaker
Feels joyous when they're reading it they feel oh I just learned something in the section and later on I know the exact order that I can do things in and I just I'd read too many instructional books that hadn't done that I'd read way too many self-help books and business books that hadn't done that it's amazing how many business books don't do that and
00:31:09
Speaker
These are basics if people are going to learn to put together a piece of IKEA furniture IKEA even with those weird little diagrams at least tells you the steps in order of what you're supposed to do with the weird little screwdriver thing and With you know with those three nuts and the two bolts at least they tell you in the right order And I wanted to at least do that as well
00:31:33
Speaker
Was there ever a point, too, that maybe after Grow It, after you've put it out there, that maybe there's this addendum there that might be quit it? Was there a point where you're like, maybe there's a point where this thing, you've done it, but it might not be getting the traction you need, and maybe it's time to quit and move on to something else? Was that ever a temptation?
Commitment and Passion in Podcasting
00:31:58
Speaker
Well, I do fold that into one of the early chapters. I make clear that in order to make a podcast, you have got to have the energy and the love to keep it going because it's way more work than most people think it is. And you need to be either obsessed with your topic or in love with the process, you need to have enough love to give because that's why most podcasts die. Most podcasts, depending on what stats you're looking at, die after six to nine episodes.
00:32:28
Speaker
And some people call that, oh, it's just natural pod fade. And I say, oh, it's a case of there not being enough love to keep it going and not enough awareness about how much work it is. So I just think people need to know that up front. And if they try it and they realize I don't have enough energy for this, I don't have enough love for this.
00:32:48
Speaker
It's okay to call it quits. You don't have to do this if you don't want to. You should only do it if you want to. There are other things you can do instead. You can knit, you can garden, you can join a book club. There are a lot of beautiful ways where you can put your soul and heart and creativity out into the world. It doesn't have to be a podcast.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, I saw on Twitter several weeks ago that someone put out, I was like, ugh, I finally caved in and started a podcast. I was just like, well, you don't know. This isn't mandatory. I know it's kind of in vogue to maybe do this thing if you have some platform that you've got to do this. It's like, no, you don't. I was just so irritated by that. It just boiled my blood. Nobody has to do it. It's kind of like, you know, TikTok.
00:33:35
Speaker
You don't have to TikTok. It's fine to not TikTok. It's OK to not have a YouTube channel. It's OK. Let's do a little flashback to 15 years ago or 20 years ago. You don't have to have a blog. You don't have to do any of these things. It's totally fine. Life will go on 10 million years down the road when the aliens come here and take over the planet. They're not going to care if they find your human blog or podcast or whatnot. It doesn't matter. It's fine if you don't do it. Only do it if you want to.
00:34:05
Speaker
Exactly and so piggybacking off structure we talked about it with respect to to your book which is just got some it's a great way to connect the dots from conception to execution but in terms of within within a podcast even an interview show or you know something with by the book you know how important is it to conceptualize a structure for for something for an audio product like a podcast.
00:34:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh, it's incredibly important. It makes it so much easier to host a show and to produce it, first of all, because what do you want to do? Just sit down at a mic and just freeform Yammer on in a way that listeners don't know why you're talking, who you're talking to, what you're talking about, where you're not introducing yourself, where there's not an open or closed.
00:34:54
Speaker
I think that a lot of people think that that's what a podcast is. It's like, oh, it's just freeform talking. Dave and I are really funny. We're great. We get together every week and we just talk about what's what's gotten us laughing. And, you know, that's not really what is going to connect with listeners. They're probably going to love you. And Dave, if you present yourself to them with a purpose, if you know why you're making the show, if you know who it's for and if you have a structure, nobody wants to walk into a room.
00:35:24
Speaker
Full of people laughing and talking and not engaging with them. I always compare it to a dinner party Let's say I come to a dinner party and a friend of a friend invited me. I don't see my friend in the room No one's acknowledging me. No one's welcoming me. No one's introducing themselves
00:35:40
Speaker
No one's saying, oh, mingle for a bit. Grab a drink over there. We're going to have dinner in 15 minutes. But until then, I want you to meet so and so and so and so. We'll have dinner in 15 minutes. And after dinner, we're all going to go outside and have tea on the lawn. That is a structure right there. That is a structure of an evening. And it makes the guest feel or the listener in the case of a podcast. No.
00:36:03
Speaker
where they are in time, in space, where they're going to, who's hosting them, and how long everything is going to take generally. And I think that with podcasting, we need to treat our listeners at least as well as we treat people who are coming to our house for dinner. We need to treat them like not just anonymous numbers, but like real humans who have chosen to spend their time with you. And if they're choosing to spend their time with me,
00:36:30
Speaker
I'm going to have those basics of structure. I'm going to lay things out from the beginning, introduce myself, thank them for being there. And I think a lot of podcasters don't realize that, but please just think of it as a dinner party. And then as far as the structure of your show, just to go a little deeper into that.
00:36:49
Speaker
I don't think that people realize that the structure is helpful, not restrictive. When I talk to a lot of new podcasters, they're like, oh, I don't want to be chained in to be in this box here and then do this and then do this. And what I always say to them is the structure is actually quite freeing. Once you know that this is the shape of your show,
00:37:10
Speaker
that it has an intro, that it has 12 questions for a guest, that it has a break, that it has two more questions, that it has an outro, whatever, you know, whatever your structure is. Once you know what your structure is, it allows you to be as free as you want to within the space. Kind of like when you're decorating an apartment, some people might say, Oh, I don't want any walls. I just want it to be
00:37:32
Speaker
free form, but it's so much easier to set up your furniture and to use the space if you have at least a couple of walls up. And maybe it's just a wall around this room with a toilet called a bathroom, or maybe it's, um, you know, a half wall over here that is called the kitchen, whatever it is. But having certain walls in your space makes it easier to use the space. And that's true in an apartment and it's true in a podcast.
Common Mistakes and Technical Tips
00:38:03
Speaker
What would you identify as common mistakes beginners make and and also just piggybacking off of that. So it's kind of a two parter. Like do you find people's expectations are a bit skewed when they get into podcasting.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that one of the mistakes, in addition to thinking structure doesn't matter, the lack of structure is something I see so often in shows. I often just see people are not considering the two big questions. Why am I making this and who is it for?
00:38:37
Speaker
And when people know why they're making a show and who it's for, it's easier for them to find those people. It's easier for them to promote the show. It's easier for them to serve their listeners. If they know why they're making it, it will help them to come back week after week and to make the kind of content that serves that big why for them. And so I urge everyone to think about those two questions before they ever look at what brand of microphone am I going to get.
00:39:04
Speaker
Before you think of equipment at all, think about why you're making it and who it's for. Why do you need to tell the story? Why do you need to make the show? Who's going to be listening? How are you going to reach those listeners? And those are just crucial questions before doing anything else.
00:39:21
Speaker
As far as other mistakes go, I think that a lot of people don't realize how important audio quality is. And I'm not saying you have to set up a $10,000 studio in your house, but please just don't record in an echoey space and sit six feet away from your microphone. Make sure that you have the mic in the right position. Make sure that you have some sound absorbing softness around you. A lot of people that I know
00:39:48
Speaker
record their podcasts in a closet. I am recording in a converted closet right now that is covered with spongy wall foam but this is just a closet that I'm in and it sounds way better than being in a more professional looking like open office because there's cushion everywhere. Everything's being absorbed by sound so there's not that tin can echo that a lot of podcasters have.
00:40:12
Speaker
And there are podcast newbies who just constantly try to upgrade their equipment because they think, oh, it just doesn't sound right. And I want to reassure you, it doesn't really have that much to do with your mic. It's usually because you're recording in the wrong space and you're not close enough to your microphone.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, to your point about recording space, in front of me, I have a bunch of foam ahead of me on the ceiling, and I have two stands behind me with a moving blanket clamped to them. Nice. So I create this little cocoon. It might not be a whole lot of things, and it's certainly a pretty cheap audio setup in terms of this, but it's one of those deals where the
00:40:54
Speaker
The less distracting you can be possible, it's just like it further puts the attention on the wonderful insights that the guests are offering.
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah. And there's some things that you just can't work around. Like even though all my windows are closed right now, there is insane construction happening on the street outside my apartment. Now I am hoping that most of it does not come onto this microphone. Maybe a tiny bit of it will, but hopefully not too much because I've set up my space the way I have. But you know, there are some things that are going to be out of our hands. Sometimes you're just going to have a dog that's going to bark.
00:41:27
Speaker
Sometimes you're just going to have certain sounds that you just can't control for. But for the sounds you can control for, it's usually pretty easy, even if it's just taking a whole bunch of pillows from your house and stacking them up all around your desk. Even that helps. And what might you say to podcasters who might have something
Promotion and Audience Engagement
00:41:47
Speaker
They're really good. It's objectively good, but maybe they're just frustrated with a lack of traction. How might you coach them to maybe get that traction that they need to see their show go from 1 to 10 or even 10 to 100?
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I want them to examine that question again. Why are you making it? And who is it for? If you don't know who your show is for, you can't reach out to those people. And so with each of my shows, I try to think about it. So for example, with movie therapy with reefer and Kristen,
00:42:18
Speaker
Rafer and I used to host a show for WNYC together for years and years and years and it was just a new releases film review show essentially like what's in the theaters this Friday let's review them and that show had certain listeners and those listeners during COVID were reaching out to us and asking us to start a new show they said
00:42:41
Speaker
We need to know what to watch. We're crapped in our houses all day. Will you and Rafa get back together again and host another movie podcast and tell us what to watch on Netflix, Hulu, whatnot? So what we realized was, okay, so we have built-in listeners if we start a show. They include our old listeners from WNYC. Who else can our new show have as listeners? So Rafa and I thought about it. We thought, okay, movie fans.
00:43:07
Speaker
Anybody who likes advice shows, anybody who listens to buy the book and is already a fan of Kristen Meinzer, anybody who already reads Rayfer's column in Newsday, because he's the film critic for Newsday, and we just thought of who our audience was. And we thought about ages, we thought about genders, we thought about all sorts of things.
00:43:26
Speaker
And we also thought about our own identities. Rafer is Latino. I'm Asian. And we thought, oh, we can maybe attract a more diverse audience, too. And then after we thought about who our listeners were, we thought about other shows that might have similar listeners. And we started cross-promoting with those shows. So for example,
00:43:46
Speaker
the hosts of Happier in Hollywood, I reached out to them and said, Hey, can we do a promo swap? You talk about entertainment, the life in the entertainment industry behind the scenes, you talk about your own frustrations of, you know, being full time Hollywood writers and also full time moms and
00:44:05
Speaker
would you be interested in shouting out our show and we'll shout out yours because I think we would have a definite crossover audience. So we did it with them and we did it with half a dozen other shows. And then I also started talking about my movie therapy podcast on By the Book and other podcasts that I host up until, oh gosh, I think it was up until last month, I was hosting five shows at once. And now I'm back down to only three shows, which is great.
00:44:33
Speaker
Because hosting five shows is a lot of work. So I would cross promote on the other shows I host. I would cross promote with other podcasters. And then I also started looking at other podcasts and thinking, oh, well, some of the hosts of these other shows can be guests on movie therapy. So we, again, looking at who would have a crossover audience with us, we reached out to Nicole Perkins, who's one of the hosts of Thirstaid Kit and asked her to be a guest.
00:45:00
Speaker
We asked the hosts of Call Your Girlfriend to be on the show. They were on last week's episode. We reached out to Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkfall. I used to be the producer for The Sporkfall and asked if he would be a guest. And every time we have a guest on the show, we promote it on social media and then usually the guests will retweet us and it'll reach their audiences. So that helps too. And then on top of that, I've also pitched myself as a guest to a number of other shows.
00:45:28
Speaker
I'll reach out to other podcasts that I think have a similar audience and I'll be a guest. What you're hopefully hearing is that I spend a lot of time thinking about promotion because this is not field of dreams. It's not like if I build it, they will come. When it comes to podcasting, you got to go out there and you got to get your listeners.
00:45:48
Speaker
My general rule of thumb is for every one hour you spend making your podcast in order to get an audience You should be spending one hour promoting your podcast
00:46:00
Speaker
That's what's great in hearing you talk about that is just the incredible amount of of hustle behind the scenes. It's it's like you know an NFL team getting ready for Sunday. You know you see the three hours on the field but there is 80 hours of prep and practice and study film study.
00:46:19
Speaker
pick whatever your prep is versus the performance. Fact of the matter is, nobody sees the practice, all they see is that end product. All they care about is that end product, but you've got to put in a lot of work and a lot of rigor that no one is going to see or feel except you. That's important. It's great to hear you talk about it because nobody really talks about it.
00:46:42
Speaker
So it's it's like oh so it is it when I'm struggling to get out X amount of tweets or this that the other all this hustle behind the scenes that nobody feels or hears and it feels like you're just shouting into the void it's just great to hear someone like you say like yeah this is this is kind of how this is this is what you do if you want your show to grow if you've got something you want to bring to market this is the kind of thing you need to do.
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there are some people who are lucky enough that if they build it, they will come. So for example, if you are a show that has the power of NPR behind you and you have a certain brand name, yes, people will come to you.
00:47:20
Speaker
But one reason they're coming to you is also because NPR has an enormous marketing team that is promoting your show for you. Even if you're not doing the hustle, their team is doing the hustle. They're cross-promoting your show on all of their other properties. They're doing it online. They're doing it on other podcasts. They're doing it on air and so on. And so, you know, some folks are lucky enough to have that kind of corporate backing to help them promote their shows, but most of us don't. So we got to go out there and do it ourselves. We got to do the hustle.
00:47:50
Speaker
Exactly. When you see those those podcasts that are really popular you know there they tend to be celebrities or maybe it's an author who has like a big audience and then they start this podcast like oh I don't know how this will work but they have millions of readers who just piggyback over to their podcast and their podcast blows up or like you said with NPR there's a big
00:48:11
Speaker
Media company backing them and that gives us false sense that if you know you're this this little you know podcast Producers starting from zero that you know if you're not on that level it can be pretty demoralizing until you realize that the deck is kind of stacked in the favor of certain people versus you know versus you and your little show with your little audience and
00:48:31
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Most of us are just little people trying to make our shows. Most of us, you know, I try to encourage people to think of it this way. Let's say you're really bummed out because you don't have a million downloads on your show. Let's say you've been working on your show for a few months and you still have a thousand downloads on your show.
00:48:52
Speaker
Well, think about how great that is. Are you actually friends with 1,000 people? Do you have 1,000 close friends? Probably not. Most of us don't have 1,000 close friends. Maybe Michelle Obama does because everyone loves Michelle Obama. But the rest of us don't have 1,000 close friends. And so that's still an accomplishment that you have 1,000 listeners, especially considering that there are over 2 million podcasts out there. With over 2 million podcasts, 1,000 people chose to listen to you.
00:49:19
Speaker
That's something to be happy about. Celebrate that. Don't see that as defeat.
00:49:25
Speaker
And a pet peeve I have with shows, even really prominent shows that get millions or hundreds of thousands of downloads, big platform, is usually at the start of the show, there's like this almost five minute prologue of like, thanks for coming on the show. Oh, this is great, I'm so glad we were able to do this. And it goes on like, it goes on like that for like five minutes. It's like, I love that you're chums, I love that you're bros.
00:49:50
Speaker
edit this shit out. We don't need to hear this. Let's just start getting to the meat of it. Not a lot of this. This just like, hey, and they're shaking hands, slapping five. It's just like, okay guys, let's clip this out and move to what people are really here to listen to.
00:50:07
Speaker
Yeah, if you're not telling listeners in the first minute the name of your show and who you are, most listeners will shut it off. Now, there are exceptions to this. There are certain shows that have managed to still build an audience who love that they're in on the joke. They know all the inside jokes. They know all the nicknames. They don't care if you've introduced yourself because they've been listening to your show from the very beginning. But even though those shows may have very large followings,
00:50:35
Speaker
It's hard oftentimes for those shows to get new listeners. The loyal listeners will stick with it because they feel like, oh, they're talking to me. I've been with them for so many years. But again, it's that dinner party scenario. If I'm walking into that dinner party for the first time,
00:50:51
Speaker
And no one's acknowledging me. They're just spending five minutes riffing with each other and ignoring me and not telling me who they are. I'm not going to want to stick around. I'm going to shut off that podcast.
Diversity and Creative Projects
00:51:00
Speaker
So please, in the first minute of your show, do not wait until minute five or minute 10 or God forbid, minute 15. That's happened with some shows I've tried to listen to. Tell me the name of your show and who you are. Please do that in the first minute.
00:51:15
Speaker
So that's a pet peeve we share, also bad audio. Is there anything else that you see as a long time producer that it's one of those things that you can no longer unhear and it drives you nuts? I am going to take it in a completely different direction and say one of my biggest pet peeves are dudes who only interview dudes. They don't realize that they're doing it, but this is a very common problem in podcasts where
00:51:41
Speaker
Men will not realize that everyone they're interviewing is another man. And I've talked with some of the men who do this. I've trained certain people at companies who are in podcasting and I've asked, like, what's going on here? It's like, well, I just wanted the best authority on environmental science. I'm like, you know, there are a lot of women who are authorities on environmental science.
00:52:02
Speaker
Oh, but I wanted an astronaut. That's why I was talking to a man. Well, you know, there are a lot of women who are astronauts. And this seems to happen a lot where it's not just men who are podcast hosts. It's men who are journalists. It's men all in all fields in film and so on that they will just default to a man.
00:52:23
Speaker
And it won't occur to them until you look at their guest list that 9 out of 10 of their guests have been all men. And I see this all the time. This is a constant pet peeve of mine. How often I look at top 100 interview shows on iTunes and then I look at what their guest list is. And somewhere between 70 and 95% of their guests are men.
00:52:45
Speaker
Man, don't do that. You can do better. You can talk to women. You can talk to people who are smart and interesting who just happen to not be men. And all the better, too, if you're a male host and you're interviewing women, you have different sonic notes hitting your ear. You can actually really tell who the guest is. You know, there's these little other nuances that are great to have someone who doesn't quite sound like you also.
00:53:14
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. Sonically, it sounds great. And then also you might be reaching a different audience. The more diverse your guests are, you may be bringing in a more diverse audience with each diverse guest you bring in. And that doesn't just mean gender. It also means race, sexual orientation, national origin, a lot of other things. When we bring on diverse guests, we have the potential to bring on their audience as well.
00:53:39
Speaker
And as we wind down here, Kristin, I know I primed the pump asking you about very influential books for you, which I like to just call the Bookshelf of the Apocalypse. These five things, you've got a knapsack of things. And in that knapsack, there are five books you cannot part with, even though it might be displacing some canned goods that you need to survive out there in the zombie apocalypse. What are some of those books that you just can't live without?
00:54:09
Speaker
Well, I'm totally cheating on this one, Brendan. I'm going to take a photo and send this to you so you can see it. Years ago when I was getting my MFA in fiction writing, one of my professors had us make a physical object that would be telling a story.
00:54:28
Speaker
And some people made toothpick sculptures. Some people took flowers and planted them into little boxes. People did all sorts of different kinds of things that would tell a story in an object. And I decided to make what I called my library for the end of the world. And it's a little wooden crate that is filled with half a dozen books.
00:54:55
Speaker
And each of the books are on the surface, books that you would probably want to have around if the end of the world came. So one book is a book about gardening, for example. Another is about earth sciences. But what happens is when you open up each book, there's a tiny little cutout with a tool inside each book that I considered just as important as the book itself. And so the gardening book has a fork that can be used to
00:55:24
Speaker
shovel with to eat with and so on. The science book has a magnifying glass so that you can look closer at leaves, specimens, bugs, and you can start fires with that magnifying glass. And each book has something like that in it. So it's just a tiny little cutout. As you're paging through the book and learning from it, at some point you'll think, oh, I really wish I had a tool. And the tool for each of the things, for each of the books is right inside of each book.
00:55:52
Speaker
The only book that you open up and that doesn't have a tool inside of it is by Jerry Falwell, I believe and it's the secret to happiness and You open up that book and there's nothing inside because in my opinion there is not one single secret to happiness and It really is the process of living that's more important than the destination of happiness. So you don't need a tool for that You just need to get to living
00:56:22
Speaker
Well, that's incredible. That is it. That is such a cool take on the bookshelf for the apocalypse. I love it, Kristen. Well, thank you. You've been so generous with your time. You're a badass. Your books are amazing. And so you want to start a podcast, how to be fine. All the shows you host by the book with Jelena Greenberg as well. It's it's such a pleasure to speak to you at length. One on one is and where where might people be able to find you online? Get more familiar with your work, Kristen, if they're not already familiar with it.
00:56:51
Speaker
Well, you can go to my website, which is kristinmeinzer.com. You can find me on Twitter, at kristinmeinzer. And I am on Instagram also, at k10meinzer, k10meinzer. And yeah, and check out my podcast, Movie Therapy with Riefer and Kristin, and buy the book. Unbelievable, yeah. Great stuff, Kristin. And thank you so much for carving the time. This was a great honor and a pleasure. So best of luck, and keep up the amazing work. Oh, thanks so much for having me back, Brendan. It's been great.
00:57:26
Speaker
All right. How about that? That was good, clean fun. Wouldn't you say? Thanks so much to Kristen for the time. And did you hear that? Kristen's hosting six more podcasts. Incredible stuff. Who knew? If you want to get into this mess,
00:57:44
Speaker
this thing that we do, pick up her book. I bought the sucker and practically highlighted the entire book, thus defeating the highlight portion on my Kindle, so I might as well just have the entire book in my notes and highlights. The book is that good, and that tactical, and fun to read too, so it's a fun read.
00:58:07
Speaker
You know, I bought that sucker, like I said, and highlighted so much of it, and I've been doing this for a while, and I learned so many things that I hope to apply to get more of UCN efforts in the room, in the room, in this little hang we've got.
00:58:22
Speaker
Yeah, well thank you, friend. I know you've got a lot going on. You've got a whole, you've got that thing over there and then there's this, that other thing you're doing. So the fact that you chose to take a sliver of your valuable time and spend it here means the world. And I don't just say that.
00:58:41
Speaker
Damn it, I hit my table. It's a bush, bush league. That's a bush league move, man. Maybe you heard it. It's bush. It's bush league. The astute listener knows that when I asked Kristen about the frustration of having a good product, but not getting the traction, knows that was a nod to this here enterprise, of course. And she came back with a great answer. Like, why are you making it? And who's it for? So.
00:59:10
Speaker
Why do I make this show? Well, a lot of you might know, but I'll just kind of say, you know, these are conversations I wish people were having with me and nobody was about to knock on my door as a nobody. Nobody's knocking on my door still to this day. So I knock on lots of doors anyway. So I decided to fizzle, fizzle, fizzle, fizzle.
00:59:33
Speaker
No, no, facilitate those conversations and celebrate people's work to get over my resentment and bitterness and jealousy that I felt very strongly back in 2013 when this hot mess started. Helps me and I hope by extension it helps you. And so that means who am I making it for? Well, well, you obviously duh, but who are you?
00:59:59
Speaker
I think you're a writer, or you want to be a writer, and maybe you're a bit scared, or maybe you're blocked, or maybe you're a bit lonely like I was, and let's be frank, am. I make it for people who love telling true stories. I love having narrative journalists on, like where my true taste lies, what I wish I was doing, like the great New Yorker writers that come on the show, like that's my Fenway Park, you know?
01:00:25
Speaker
Memoirs documentary filmmakers rare as they are I love having them on poets producers Because I think no matter the subgenre of creative nonfiction. I think there's insights You can take from all of them I could have novel novelists on the show and sometimes I do if they've done some nonfiction work recently But that wouldn't work right it's for nonfictionists and hey, it's for seeing efforts, baby
01:00:53
Speaker
And what I'm really shitty at is bringing my apples to the market. Like I imagine an orchardist would rather just grow her trees, prune her trees, harvest her fruit, and hope that drivers will come by and buy her apples and subscribe to her apples on the side of the road. She won't be able, she won't be in the apple biz very long, right?
01:01:19
Speaker
She has to load up her apples and take them to the farmer's market once or twice a week and bring her delicious apples to the people and make that connection, right? That's where I'm real bad. I, you know, I don't really take this to the farmer's market to the way I, the way I should and rely perhaps a little too much on your generosity to tell other people to come subscribe to my apples.
01:01:47
Speaker
Is that gross? That's the kind of gross that I didn't even realize what that was suggesting. But okay, whatever. Sure. Okay. Some apples have worms. It's getting grosser. Sorry. I'm real sorry. But most are pretty darn good. Sweet and tart and go really good with peanut butter.
01:02:08
Speaker
I know there are thousands of CNF-ers out there. I just need to bring this and put it in front of them and say, hey, I grew these apples for you. Make a pie. Now that I beat the living shit out of that metaphor, it is my hope that you'll subscribe to this show, tell the others, and maybe head over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for that monthly newsletter. Because if there's anything I've learned, it's that if you can't do interviews, see ya.