0:00

Forget frequently asked questions. Common sense.

0:02

Common knowledge. Or Google. How about

0:04

advice from a real genius? 95 %

0:06

of people in any profession are

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good enough to be qualified and

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licensed. 5 % go above and

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beyond. They become very good at

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what they do. But only 0 .1

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% are real Jesus. Richard Jacobs

0:18

has made it his life's mission

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to find them for you. He

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come the geniuses. This is the

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Finding Genius podcast for the

0:33

Richard Jenkins Hello, this

0:38

is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius

0:40

podcast. I have a returning guest. I

0:43

get his newsletter. His name is John

0:45

C .A. Manly. He's the author of

0:47

a newsletter called Blazing Pinecone. I get

0:49

his emails pretty much every day. They range

0:51

on a whole bunch of topics. John's

0:54

a pretty thoughtful guy and has commented

0:56

a lot on the pandemic. He's

0:58

commented on what he sees happening in

1:00

society and many other factors. A

1:02

recent post he had made that talks

1:04

about the power of daily email

1:06

and a few other issues caught my attention. So I

1:08

reached out to John and asked him to come back.

1:10

So welcome back, John. Thanks for coming. Thank

1:13

you, Rich. Glad to be back. Yeah. I

1:15

just see a little context. John has

1:17

written a book called Much Ado About Corona,

1:19

a dystopian love story. There's a forthcoming

1:21

book called All the Humans Are Sleeping, and

1:23

he does other spectacular fiction. So we're

1:25

going to talk possibly about that, and just

1:27

about his journey over the past few

1:29

years, and his email list and everything. So

1:32

again, welcome, John. Thank you. Yeah, last time

1:34

I was on the show, I was still working on

1:36

Much Ado About Corona. That took me two

1:38

years to write. I thought it would take me

1:40

one year to write, and that took two years.

1:42

I think we talked when I was about one

1:44

year into it, and I thought I'm almost done.

1:46

And it took 15 drafts and 1 ,000 hours.

1:48

But it was kind of... I ended up kind

1:50

of writing... I started kind of writing what ended

1:52

up being the sequel first, and then I did

1:54

so many flashbacks that I realized. the

1:56

flashbacks had become their own novels. So

1:58

in some ways, even though it took me

2:00

two years, I kind of got most of

2:03

the sequel done in the process. Yeah. What

2:05

did you get out of spending all that

2:07

time writing? What now that you look back,

2:09

what did it do for you besides, you

2:11

know, pushing the book out and getting the

2:13

word out and everything? Like personally, what had

2:15

it effect you? Well, I never stopped. writing

2:17

that much since then, but it was different

2:19

because I was working just on one book

2:21

that was, you know, it ended up being

2:23

500 pages. And it makes you realize that

2:25

if you just keep doing something every day,

2:27

eventually it would be done. And that was

2:29

the first thing because it was going so

2:31

slow, like you come in and work for

2:33

an hour or two hours. And

2:36

all I did was rewrote a chapter several

2:38

times and had to do some research on

2:40

it and come back. And it felt like,

2:42

you know, you're just chipping away at something.

2:44

so slow that you feel like it's not

2:46

going to take form, but I just told

2:48

myself every day I was going to do

2:50

two hours on it, you know, and if

2:52

I got behind then I'd do three hours,

2:54

but I'd try to keep ahead. The other

2:56

thing that surprised me was the more I

2:58

worked on it, how like it surpassed my

3:00

expectations about what I thought I could produce.

3:03

That was, I think that was the biggest

3:05

thing for me, that if I just came

3:07

in every day and hacked away at it,

3:09

kind of like a blacksmith just banging at

3:11

it, you know, that it was going to

3:13

get better and better and You know, I

3:15

got to this 10th draft and I was

3:17

like, I don't want to stop. I still

3:19

got ideas. I know how to, I know

3:21

if I, I found, this is what I

3:23

found. It's like, I'd go and rewrite the

3:25

whole thing, edit the whole, it was like

3:27

150 ,000 words go from beginning to end

3:30

and it got a lot better. So I

3:32

go, I'm going to go do this again.

3:34

And then it gets a lot better. I

3:36

only stopped when it stopped getting a lot

3:38

better. It was just like, I was just

3:40

fixing little things. Yeah. And what kind of

3:42

feedback have you gotten on the book that

3:44

you know, that maybe hit home or influenced

3:46

you or made you feel like you did

3:48

a, you know, a worthwhile thing. I've been

3:50

actually surprised there's a lack of negative feedback

3:52

considering how controversial it was, which I think

3:54

is a good sign because I think the

3:56

people who are opposed to it are just

3:59

ignoring it because they know they can't wrestle

4:01

with it. But otherwise, I was, you know,

4:03

the feedback's been very flattering. Like, I knew

4:05

I liked it a lot. It was that

4:07

was the thing I wrote something I really

4:09

liked. And it got to the place where

4:11

I was happy with it, but I didn't

4:13

know if anyone else was going to. But

4:15

I mean, one example would be like Patrick

4:17

Corbett. Sorry. Yeah, Patrick Corbett. Not to be

4:19

confused with James Corbett. He's a former director

4:21

for W5 Date Line. He was a Hollywood

4:23

producer, director, beach comers. And I mean, he

4:26

was just thrilled with the book. I mean,

4:28

I got a quote here where he says

4:30

he thought it was a ripping story of

4:32

courage, awakening, and love with some good laughs

4:34

thrown in all in the time of COVID.

4:36

He said he had trouble putting the book

4:38

down. And this is a guy who's like,

4:40

his career was basically carrying apart scripts and

4:42

being hypercritical about it. So that type of

4:44

feedbacks come through. I've also been very happy

4:46

to hear a lot of people were resistant

4:48

to read it because they didn't want to

4:50

go back to that horrible time with the

4:53

lockdowns and the nightmare that we saw coming

4:55

never got as bad as we feared. But

4:57

thanks to the resistance, but people go, they

4:59

didn't want to read the book. But once

5:01

they start, they found it actually therapeutic. I

5:03

did a good job. I feel that

5:05

not making it all. grim and dark

5:07

there's a lot of humor put in

5:09

it's not it's what it's and i

5:12

wrote it in a way that it

5:14

is exposing the covid hoax but it's

5:16

doing if it didn't cover the covid

5:18

stuff at all it would still be

5:20

such a an enjoyable story that you'd

5:22

want to read it just the plot

5:24

and the characters so it's um it's

5:26

not one of those thinly veiled novels

5:28

that's just really trying to be didactic

5:30

and teach something. Right. And I wanted

5:33

to be more about the people resisting

5:35

than about exposing the hoax, like showing

5:37

that people didn't have to go along

5:39

with this and that people didn't and

5:41

trying to make non -compliance a little

5:43

more contagious than the so -called virus. So

5:46

what does it tell you that you

5:48

got very little negative feedback? Is it

5:50

that the media just portrayed just all

5:52

lies? It'd make me look like everyone

5:54

was on the same page and the

5:56

feedback you got doesn't seem to support

5:58

that? What are your thoughts on this?

6:00

Yeah, I'm surprised. I get

6:02

emails back from nurses that were

6:04

in nursing homes and saying that this

6:06

book described exactly what they were

6:08

seeing when they were in the nursing

6:10

home and they felt like a

6:12

part of their brain was split because

6:14

the authorities were telling them everything

6:16

they were doing was right and what

6:19

they saw happening looked wrong. And

6:21

then this story depicted quite clearly what

6:23

was happening was wrong and that I think

6:25

they found a bit liberating. because you

6:27

know how it feels if you're it's it's

6:29

a horrible I think that's what caused

6:32

more people's stress was the fact not that

6:34

the government was lying to them but

6:36

the fact that so many people were going

6:38

along with it and they were having

6:40

they in themselves knew it was wrong but

6:42

they just felt they couldn't be the

6:44

only person who was thinking this way like

6:46

you know what I'm saying it's yeah

6:49

I think it created cognitive dissonance and also

6:51

it I think what it did is

6:53

it did what called morally injuring people So

6:55

let's say you were a prostitute for

6:57

10 years. How could you ever have normal

6:59

relationship with somebody? Because of

7:01

what you've been through, or a stripper, or

7:03

a police officer, or you were in war,

7:05

or whatever. I interviewed a lady that talked

7:08

about the concept of moral injury, being forced

7:10

to do things, or being put under duress

7:12

to do things that you believe are wrong. But

7:15

the act of you doing them screws

7:17

you up and injures you morally. So

7:19

I think that's what happened to people.

7:21

Maybe that's why so many of them

7:23

were willing to go along in the

7:25

end with getting that injection that they

7:27

were very doubtful was safe because they

7:29

almost felt like they maybe deserved punishment.

7:31

It could be, yeah. So, um, are

7:33

you taking the material that you wrote

7:35

and is the sequel almost ready? Like,

7:38

where are you at with it? The

7:40

sequel is probably about 50 % done.

7:42

I think it's gonna be a trilogy,

7:44

so that's probably the part of the

7:46

problem. I start working on the sequel

7:48

and it gets to all, um... expanded

7:51

an epic that it looks like there's

7:53

going to be three books. So that

7:55

slowed it down a bit. And then

7:57

I took a little break, because as

7:59

you know, my wife passed away when

8:01

I was working on the sequel. And

8:03

it was a little hard, too, because

8:06

the two characters in the first book,

8:08

they get married in the second book.

8:10

And that was just because, you know,

8:12

kind of emotionally, it was a bit

8:14

difficult to deal with. So I had

8:16

another novella I'd been working on for

8:18

20 years called All the Humans Are

8:21

Sleeping, which is more of a near

8:23

future science fiction that deals with freedom,

8:25

consent, AI, robotics, the metaverse, takes place

8:27

after World War 3 where like seven -eighths

8:29

of the planet is wiped out and

8:31

the humans that are remaining are driven

8:33

underground and offered this kind of utopian

8:36

metaverse alternative. And the robots, unlike

8:38

in The Matrix, for example, where they're all

8:40

evil, are actually good and kind of become the

8:42

human's ICU nurses until one kind of goes

8:44

rogue and starts taking the humans out. So it's

8:46

not so much about being in the metaverse,

8:48

it's about coming out of it. So anyway, yeah,

8:50

I decided I'd just work on that. I

8:52

thought it was almost done, you know, been working

8:54

on it for 20 years, which ended up

8:56

being like, I doubled the page count on it

8:58

and it ended up becoming quite a big

9:01

project, but it's, it should be as soon as

9:03

with my editor at the moment. Okay. And

9:05

then the other part of this that we're going

9:07

to talk to you is about, again, the

9:09

blazing pine cone and you have emails, like what,

9:11

what are you trying to accomplish with your

9:13

emails and your newsletter and everything? What are some

9:15

of the goals you have? Yeah, I mean,

9:17

yeah, so, well, it comes down

9:19

to, it's actually pretty interesting. I

9:21

found this quote from Adolf Hitler

9:24

of all people, which was very

9:26

interesting. This was written, this by,

9:28

I'm not sure how to pronounce

9:30

this as German, the fellow's name

9:32

was Ernst Henfestangle. He

9:34

wrote a memoir about, he was a

9:36

Nazi who had turned against the Fuhrer.

9:38

But he said in particular that, and

9:40

I'm not promoting Nazism by the means

9:42

here, but you gotta wonder how did

9:45

Germany go from being the country it

9:47

was to ideologically changing to the point

9:49

that, you know, they brought in this

9:51

fascist regime, a regime assuming all the

9:53

history is correct. In any ways, Adolf

9:55

Hitler had actually said, but how can

9:57

I hammer my ideas into the German

10:00

people without a press? The newspapers ignore

10:02

me utterly. How can I follow up

10:04

my successes as a speaker with our

10:06

miserable four -page German periodical, I guess,

10:08

eatic? I'm not even gonna try to

10:10

pronounce that. That was just published once

10:12

a week, I guess it was like

10:15

the Nazi Party newsletter. And then he

10:17

went on to say, we'll get nowhere

10:19

until it appears daily. And he

10:21

had actually pushed to the point

10:23

where he was daily putting out information.

10:25

And again, I also, a blog

10:27

post I had put up, which if

10:29

anyone wants to read it, I'll...

10:31

put a redirect link. It's at blazingpinecoin

10:33

.com slash dailypost. And that was from

10:35

Steven Pressfield, who's a historical fiction

10:37

writer. He wrote a book called Man

10:39

at Arms about the Roman Empire.

10:41

And he believed, and he depicts

10:44

in the story that what led

10:46

to the fall of the Roman Empire

10:48

was the fact that they had

10:50

dailypost. And then that, he said, allowed,

10:52

how did he put it? It

10:54

allowed for the... Before we continue. I've

10:56

been personally funding the Finding Genius

10:58

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11:00

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11:40

back to the show. The widespread

11:42

transmission of new and seditious ideas. So

11:44

the very thing that gave the

11:46

Roman Empire so much power being able

11:48

to, you know, literally deliver mail

11:50

every day across multiple countries, which was

11:53

unheard of at the time, which

11:55

was largely a result of the highway

11:57

system, was the exact same thing

11:59

that allowed people to uprise against the

12:01

Romans. And then also the theme

12:03

of this particular novel was to spread

12:06

the teachings of Christianity. So

12:08

I think that what we have today,

12:10

and I think it's being underutilized as email

12:12

is probably one of the, I mean,

12:14

compared to the Roman Empire, where you had

12:16

to build highways and it would take

12:18

probably days to get a letter from one

12:20

place. to another if not weeks email

12:23

is almost free and technologically amazing so I

12:25

think it's being underused and I think

12:27

a lot of people are resistant to mailing

12:29

their subscribers every day so I have

12:31

been doing that now for when the lockdown

12:33

started I started mailing people every day

12:35

because I saw immediately that the lockdowns were

12:37

a hoax and very evil in their

12:40

self and it was evident. So I thought

12:42

if I just mail people every day

12:44

and just give them a little bit of

12:46

information every day demonstrating why this is

12:48

wrong, that it would have a big influence.

12:50

I mean, I was surprised how fast

12:52

that list grew because I wasn't really promoting

12:55

it and every day I was getting

12:57

like 20 new subscribers and I don't know

12:59

how much influence I had on the

13:01

entire movement. Obviously, I was one of the

13:03

first people speaking out but when it

13:05

started to catch fire it caught fire. But

13:07

I can tell you I had people

13:09

emailing me saying that I kept them sane

13:12

for those first few months of the

13:14

lockdowns because everyone else was, yeah, I mean,

13:16

I had people saying they were on

13:18

the verge of suicide and my email coming

13:20

in every day saying, only you're not

13:22

crazy. At the end of

13:24

every email, I would always write, stay

13:26

sane because everyone was saying, stay

13:28

safe. I would always end with stay

13:30

sane. So, and I mean, I

13:33

got people now, I've been doing this

13:35

for three years, I guess. People

13:37

have been on my email list for

13:39

three years now and they feel like I

13:41

get people telling me, you know, if

13:43

you're ever in this state or this country,

13:45

you know, their city, you know, just

13:47

knock on what you can stay at our

13:49

place and trying to invite me. You

13:51

know, it's like they feel like I'm part

13:53

of their family almost at times. So

13:55

that's been very touching. So anyways, that's on

13:57

that side of it. That's what I'm

13:59

doing. And I've helped a lot of other

14:01

businesses, both in the freedom movement and

14:03

then private entrepreneurs with this also. I think

14:05

it's a good method even like if

14:07

someone has like a long form production like

14:09

yourself with the podcast, you know, someone

14:12

has even a once a week podcast, which

14:14

is like one hour that they could

14:16

still do daily emails where every day they

14:18

just quote a little bit from that

14:20

one hour long podcast and send that out

14:22

to their list. And when they get

14:24

feedback about the podcast, share that via email

14:26

and just keep, you know, every day

14:28

encouraging people to go listen to the full

14:30

podcast. And if they don't, they still

14:32

got the little tidbits from it. So, yeah,

14:34

I think a lot of people are

14:36

afraid of bothering people, you know, where they

14:38

get like one complaints and they freak

14:40

out like, don't ever email me or tell

14:42

me, you know, you're, you're in violation

14:44

of whatever and you ruin my life. And,

14:46

you know, I've seen that a lot

14:48

in marketing and that people go, oh, see,

14:50

I'm bothering people that they don't, they

14:52

don't correspond with anybody that you had to

14:54

deal with. Yeah, that's always a fun

14:56

stuff. I like quoting them sometimes. I'm happy

14:58

when they do. I'm happy to feed

15:00

those people off the list because, you know,

15:02

as you know, if you're paying for

15:05

an email marketing service, you're paying based on

15:07

the size of the list and how

15:09

much emails you send out. So anyone who

15:11

has that kind of attitude, I'm quite

15:13

happy to see them go as quick as

15:15

possible. On the whole, though, I tend

15:17

to find, you know, I've

15:19

experimented back and forth once a

15:21

week before. got into this particular my

15:23

publishing business with clients, you know,

15:25

we've done three times a week once

15:27

a week every day and far

15:29

less spam complaints doing every day. And

15:31

I think it's because if you

15:33

do once a week, someone signs up

15:35

and one week later email them,

15:38

they already forgot they signed up. So

15:40

bang, this guy's spamming me. But

15:42

if you know, you're you starting that

15:44

thing of daily contact right away,

15:46

they'll either unsubscribe and without complaint or

15:48

they because they actually remembered they

15:50

signed up so and it's very hard to build

15:52

a relationship with people on a once a

15:54

week basis and you know of course you know

15:56

send them like a 2 ,000 word email every

15:58

day that's yeah they're extreme yeah I do

16:00

marketing for attorneys and we have a list of

16:02

like 35 ,000 we email it you know five

16:04

days a week for years and years and

16:06

years and years we get a lot of positive

16:08

comments and people come out of the woodwork

16:10

sometimes hey I've been on your list for two

16:12

years and you know this came up and

16:14

now I want your help etc so it does

16:16

work people do you know a lot of

16:18

people may not respond but they're reading they're getting

16:20

good stuff out of it is what I've

16:22

seen yeah I was surprised like I've had people

16:24

on my list for two years never bought

16:26

my book and they finally just bought and this

16:28

I can't believe I took this long to

16:30

buy it and and then they really liked it

16:32

which surprised them too for some reason but

16:34

you know I just took that and you know

16:36

the thing is a lot of us you

16:38

know I see for myself is I got like

16:40

a pile of books you know that I

16:43

if I didn't buy a book for another two

16:45

years I'd you know be fine because I

16:47

got so many I you know need to get

16:49

through anyway so someone signs up on my

16:51

list it's like I don't naturally feel that you

16:53

know they're gonna just drop every book they

16:55

already paid for to go read mine yeah I'm

16:57

happy if they do but you know it

16:59

might take a year or two or in my

17:01

case was the um much to do about

17:03

corona. So many people are so traumatized by the

17:05

whole thing. They don't want to read about

17:07

the COVID stuff. It's kind of strange. This year,

17:09

the sales have been really good. I don't

17:11

know if it's something I've done or it's just

17:13

the world's changed. But people are

17:15

willing to go back there and just

17:17

kind of sort out, I think, how

17:19

they felt about the whole thing. But

17:21

no, you're absolutely right. I don't think it

17:23

makes sense. Oh, well, I guess what

17:25

I was going to say too was

17:27

If you've got people on your list who

17:30

are actually interested in what you offer,

17:32

whether you're selling something or sharing information,

17:34

and why would they not want to

17:36

get something every day? And then the people

17:38

who aren't interested, well, that's fine. They

17:40

just unsubscribe. I'd rather have

17:42

a list that's half the size of

17:44

people who are eager to read what

17:46

I have to say than a list

17:48

that's twice as big and maybe just

17:50

scan the email once a week. Yeah,

17:52

one thing we did on holidays, like

17:54

for Thanksgiving, you wrote up a whole

17:56

story of how, you know, about the

17:58

Nina, the Pinto, the Sancta Maria. And

18:00

we send that out to my wrist.

18:02

And he really liked that. We're not

18:04

selling anything. You're providing a story. And

18:07

then for Christmas, he could, uh, there's

18:09

trees on Ebenezer, Scrooge, Esquire, you know,

18:11

the lawyer, you know, let's take on

18:13

scale. And then we get a lot

18:15

of good responses from that because we're

18:17

not just selling stuff. We're providing valuable

18:19

content. And again, during the holidays, we

18:21

just provide cool, heartwarming stories. So the.

18:23

that list doesn't have to just be

18:25

sell, sell, sell. It could be all

18:27

kinds of things. You communicate with your

18:29

people. Yeah. Especially if you have a

18:31

philosophy behind what you're doing, whether it's

18:33

a business or an organization or a

18:35

media source, if you have a philosophy,

18:37

then you kind of want to try

18:39

and share your personal philosophy with your

18:41

audience. And it's hard to do that

18:43

in one go. It's much easier just

18:45

to drip it over weeks and months.

18:48

And I say, Kev, would you agree, like,

18:50

by writing frequently, especially every day, it actually

18:52

makes you more clear in what you're about,

18:54

what you believe, and what you're trying to

18:56

do? Yeah, as I go around from town,

18:58

something happens, and I'm like, oh, I'm going

19:00

to write about, or someone will piss you

19:03

off, or you have some experience, like, all

19:05

right, I'll write about it. So everything becomes

19:07

fodder for your email list, within reason. Yeah,

19:09

it's an old saying, you know, nothing

19:11

bad ever happens to a writer, because it's

19:13

just fodder for his next book, or,

19:15

you know, in this case, an email. And

19:18

I've known people who have actually, you

19:20

know, done nonfiction books where it was,

19:22

they were just writing emails. Well, a

19:24

good example would be, I'm

19:26

going to forget his name, but he wrote

19:28

the book, Atomic Habits, which is a Nash,

19:31

you know, James Clear. Yeah. Yeah. And that's

19:33

been probably one of the best selling books

19:35

on productivity. I was on that. I don't,

19:37

probably still on the Amazon top 100, but

19:39

it was number, you know, top 10 forever,

19:41

it seemed. And I think that book seemed

19:43

largely, by his own admission, was just, I

19:45

think he called them blogs, but they went

19:47

out by emails and he had just worked

19:49

on those for years and then he just

19:51

put them together as a book and he

19:53

did a good job at weaving them together.

19:56

It wasn't just like a election of blog

19:58

posts, but, you know, certainly the most of

20:00

the work was done, I think, by the

20:02

time he decided to turn it into a

20:04

book. Yeah, interesting. So what I know you're

20:06

communicating with your audience, but like what are

20:08

your goals for your newsletter? Is it to

20:10

get as much attention on the books as

20:12

possible? Was it just to be like a

20:14

personal outlet for yourself and people enjoy hearing

20:16

from you? So you want to talk to

20:18

them like to satisfy your your desire as

20:20

a writer? Like what what is the reason

20:23

you do it? Number one reason is to

20:25

sell my books. I mean, my goal is

20:27

if I had to chew, you know, my

20:29

preference would be just to be writing my

20:31

novels all the time, but I have to

20:33

sell them. So Yeah, the number one goal

20:35

is to sell my novels and I don't

20:37

know if that sounds good or bad. You

20:39

know, people was like selling stuff as a

20:41

bad thing or something like that. But I

20:43

do it in a way I feel that,

20:45

you know, people aren't complaining. They find them

20:48

and, you know, I try to make sure

20:50

that the emails themselves are preferably all three

20:52

things, entertaining, informative, and useful. You

20:54

know, and sometimes maybe one will be more

20:57

just fun. Some will be a little more

20:59

on the useful or the information side, but

21:01

So I'm trying to make sure that I

21:03

realize they're giving me their time, so I'm

21:05

going to give them something valuable. And I

21:07

feel on that way, I'm kind of showing

21:09

them that if they invest the time in

21:11

reading my novel, they're going to get something

21:13

even more valuable. Because I don't think the

21:15

biggest obstacle to selling a novel is the

21:17

price. I think it's the time it takes

21:20

to read it. You know, my novel is...

21:22

150 ,000 words, 500 pages. So if you

21:24

read at a fair pace, you're going to

21:26

be reading that in 15 to 20 hours,

21:28

you know, and that's a big chunk of

21:30

someone's life. And that's great if you're finding

21:32

an entertaining and you're really enjoying it, you

21:34

know, why wouldn't you want to do it?

21:36

But so I'm hoping, you know, via my

21:38

emails that I'm able to demonstrate that that's

21:40

what they're going to get if they read

21:42

the novels. And it's not also, well, I

21:45

guess my other goal is, like I said,

21:47

sell novels directly to them, but also for

21:49

them to buy copies and give it to

21:51

their friends and family and then to also

21:53

spread the word. And then anything else I

21:55

promote on there is usually just to subsidize

21:57

my novel writing until I'm not JK Rowling

21:59

yet. So it's, you know, there's other offers

22:01

that I think my audience would be interested

22:03

in. I do promote those on occasion. Do

22:06

you have any books so they're going

22:08

to be turned also into audiobooks or

22:10

maybe like a podcast series, you

22:12

know, that goes through each chapter where

22:14

let's say you read it. But are anyways,

22:16

you can repurpose the books into more

22:18

media formats, a movie, whatever it may be,

22:20

or a video so that it increases

22:23

consumption in different ways for people to consume

22:25

it. Oh, now I'm definitely working on

22:27

the audiobook version of Much Ado About Corona.

22:29

Unfortunately, it's kind of funny

22:31

with that. For people who have read

22:33

the book, they'll realize it's a very

22:36

multicultural book, you know, partly because it's

22:38

set in Canada and we're a very

22:40

multicultural country, but the main character himself

22:42

is part of one quarter of a

22:44

Ojibwe native Canadian, so I had to

22:46

include some Ojibwe language, which is actually

22:48

the easiest thing because Ojibwe, the way

22:50

it's written is phonetically very easy to

22:52

read. It's easier to read actually than

22:54

English, so that wasn't too hard. because

22:57

they didn't have a Britain language so

22:59

when it was the words were adopted

23:01

into English letters it was just done

23:03

phonetically. But the other character in the

23:05

story is German -Canadian and I have

23:07

quite a bit of a Schubert song

23:09

in there and then it's also set

23:11

in Northern Ontario where there's quite a

23:13

number of French -Canadian so there's a lot

23:15

of French in the book too and

23:18

I am not fluent in either French

23:20

or German and or Ojibwe. So that

23:22

has slowed me down considerably. I've been

23:24

taking lessons for quite some time in

23:26

both French and German to get my

23:28

pronunciation well enough that I can narrate

23:30

the book well. I also have to

23:32

sing some German in the book too.

23:34

And that's been fun. I thought that

23:36

that's another example of I just came

23:38

in every day. God, like... lines, I

23:41

gotta sing in German. It's not German

23:43

opera, it's German lead, Schubert's song, because

23:45

the character sings it in the novel,

23:47

so I gotta sing it on the

23:49

audiobook. And I got from, you know,

23:51

where it's like, there's sounds in German

23:53

that don't exist in English. That, oh,

23:55

with the two dots on top is

23:57

a nightmare for me. Yeah, it's hard

23:59

to it well. So

24:04

I went from where I was just making

24:06

my German friends laugh to where they say

24:08

I can actually sing those four lines and

24:10

I sound perfectly German and I sound pretty

24:12

darn good at it and that's all I

24:14

can sing in German and I got weird

24:16

things I could only say in French like

24:19

I can say in French. I was once

24:21

in prison. I was once in prison and

24:23

you came to visit me and you know,

24:25

it's not something I ever will say if

24:27

I'm like going to France and going through

24:29

customs. But so that slowed down the audio

24:31

book production. Also, I've kind of learned I

24:34

was doing everything with the studio,

24:36

local audiobook studio. We actually have

24:38

my remote city of Stryford, Ontario,

24:40

one of the studios that's used

24:42

for Penguin books and a lot

24:44

of these other ones. That's been

24:46

rather expensive. I was having

24:48

him do both the recording and the editing. I've

24:51

since then figured out I can handle the

24:53

editing of it, which is, you know, it's a

24:55

fair bit of work getting this an audiobook

24:57

done. like for every hour of

24:59

recorded audio they say on average you're looking

25:01

at like four to five hours of

25:04

work so with retakes and editing so anyways

25:06

with all the humans are sleeping i

25:08

made a point of not making it so

25:10

bilingual so i maybe uh the first

25:12

audiobook i put out may be my uh

25:14

forthcoming novel all the humans are sleeping

25:16

which i'm also looking at when i get

25:18

to the final proof of it just

25:20

going through and doing the whole audiobook because

25:22

we find when i'm reading the audiobook

25:25

Even though we've had like eight proofreaders look

25:27

at it, there's still like this one

25:29

little typo that still exists. And by doing

25:31

the audiobook, I pick it up anyways.

25:33

So that that's the plan there. You're your

25:35

comment about putting it out in like

25:37

a multi part series is interesting. Yeah, like

25:39

what if it's just, you know, what,

25:41

like, so I don't, when I read, I

25:44

think I have narcolepsy, I fall asleep. I

25:46

don't know why. So I to it. But

25:48

I think I sleep enough. Again,

25:51

I fall asleep. So I listen to

25:53

everything very auditory. That's probably why the podcast

25:55

suits me. And I've seen through making

25:57

my own books that, you know, Audible or

25:59

the audio version usually sells just as

26:01

much as the physical version. Like what I

26:03

see is physical books and audio are

26:05

top two and the Kindle is way second

26:07

below that, but that's just for my

26:09

stuff. But again, like if there's a book

26:11

that's not on audio, I'm much less

26:13

likely to read it because my reading is

26:15

just a problem, you know? I need

26:17

like bifolk now and all this stuff. So

26:19

I just tend not to read it if

26:21

it's not in that format. So the more

26:23

formats a book is in, the more ways

26:25

I can experience it, the more likely I

26:27

am to consume it. Like, some people like

26:30

to watch videos. Some people like to listen.

26:32

Some people like to read. So, you know,

26:34

it's just an encouragement for anyone listening. And

26:36

for you, the more formats you put it

26:38

in, the easier it is for people to

26:40

consume it. You know, some people want bite

26:42

-sized things. So if you break it into

26:44

chapters... You could send out one chapter to

26:46

somebody as, like, a way to get them

26:48

on the list. You could talk about particular

26:50

lessons that occurred in a given chapter. You

26:52

could serialize it. You could add commentary that

26:54

may not be in the book. You know,

26:56

someone can interview you on the chapter, so

26:58

it's just another way to dimensionalize it and

27:00

squeeze more juice out of the same effort.

27:02

Yeah, it's not a big leap. It's something

27:04

I had to learn in French and German

27:06

and Ojibwe. That's what's cool about it. You

27:08

know what did that, too, was Rob Inglis.

27:10

He did the audio version for The Hobbit

27:12

and The Lord of the Rings. and man

27:14

this guy you know the Lord of the

27:16

Rings but how he sounded like different languages

27:18

he spoke to languages I mean he's like

27:20

a voice he wasn't just an audio book

27:22

guy he's a voice actor and this guy

27:24

put in so much work but it's like

27:26

a masterpiece you know and it's amazing that

27:28

all the works I really appreciate that you

27:30

learned these different languages business you're singing and

27:32

you're doing what he did and that's a

27:34

tall order and then the accents too yeah

27:36

I mean I've done I got a funny

27:38

video online about uh showing me learning how

27:40

to do an Irish accent for one of

27:42

the characters, and I got there's an

27:44

Indian character in this, so I said, they

27:46

learn how to speak in an Indian accent,

27:48

which I, yeah, rather good at, but, you

27:50

know, no, I enjoy it. Like, I actually

27:52

have a theatre background, so I was, um...

27:54

not adverse to it at all. And I

27:57

was kind of funny because when I went

27:59

to the Penguin Book thing, they were used

28:01

to working with authors who are working, you

28:03

know, they get sent from big publishers and

28:05

the author just shows up and the publisher

28:07

is paying a for I was just an

28:09

indie author. So he was a little reluctant

28:11

and he got me in the booths and

28:13

we did the first chapter and he says,

28:15

I was afraid you he says most people

28:17

can't read their own books are horrible at

28:19

it and you're really good. So I was

28:21

like, he's because he's heard people just kill

28:24

their own books trying to read them. So

28:26

I was Yeah, I'm somewhat relieved about that.

28:28

But I'm like, what you're saying there is

28:30

like, for me, it's become like a whole

28:32

I, I have to do it where it

28:34

becomes like a masterpiece. Like I've worked so

28:36

hard on the novel that I'm putting that

28:38

same kind of effort into the book, the

28:40

audio book version. I actually did audition because

28:42

you can go on audibles and have people

28:44

audition for the book. And I went through

28:46

I think about 15 -20 people auditioned and

28:48

I just couldn't bear the thought of any

28:51

of them reading it because I didn't like

28:53

their auditions. And some of them are very

28:55

professional authors and I'm not professional narrators. But

28:57

I think part of the problem was I

28:59

know the story so well. You know, I've

29:01

rewrote it 15 times and spent 1 ,000 hours

29:03

on it and I know the characters. An

29:05

audio, it'd be like handing a script to

29:07

somebody and telling them that's never like, let's

29:09

say, I don't know, they're gonna do King

29:11

Lear and they've never read King Lear before

29:13

and just handing them the script, go on

29:16

stage and perform it. They're not gonna do

29:18

a great job. I don't care if they're,

29:20

you know, kind of brana or whoever, it's

29:22

just not gonna... What if you did a

29:24

dramatized version where you're one of the characters

29:26

and maybe you have other people do the

29:28

other characters? That might be really cool. Oh,

29:30

I'd love that. I'd love that. It would

29:32

cost a fortune to put together, so I'm

29:34

gonna have to wait till I sell more

29:36

books. If you have friends

29:38

that are willing to do some of

29:40

the other parts, they could do that. Maybe

29:43

they would do it for you for free for the fun

29:45

of it. Yeah. Like I

29:48

said, I'm in trouble with the

29:50

professional. The professional narrators weren't up

29:52

to my level, so I would

29:54

need people or professional actors. I'd

29:56

have pretty high standards. I

29:58

like your other suggestion about, you know, seeing it

30:00

as a... I've had so many people tell

30:02

me they want to see this as a movie

30:04

or a TV series, and that they think

30:06

it would translate very well into that, and I

30:08

agree. I mean, it would be wonderful to

30:10

see it as in a screenplay format, but I

30:12

don't think I could just turn over it

30:14

as an option. Like, I would have to... be

30:16

in charge of the script. I wouldn't even

30:18

mind if someone wanted to adapt the script, but

30:20

I would have to okay it. And Ray

30:22

Bradbury was the same. That's why there's hardly any

30:24

movies done of Ray Bradbury's books, because every

30:26

time he gives them the option and they write

30:28

a script and he'd read it and I

30:30

don't like it and then he'd send it back.

30:32

So that's why you don't see many, you

30:34

know, Fahrenheit 451 was never turned into a movie.

30:36

I just wonder if there's a trade -off though,

30:38

you know, like you want it to be,

30:40

you know, to your standard, but If it means

30:42

getting it out to a lot more people

30:44

and it's not quite what you want, is that

30:47

acceptable? I guess every author

30:49

has to wrestle with that and you know,

30:51

like, decide where they want to set

30:53

the limit. Yeah, and I'd be flexible enough.

30:55

Like, I wouldn't even mind if they

30:57

wanted to try a different interpretation of it

30:59

as long as, you know, it doesn't

31:01

lose the essence of it. So, it would

31:03

be a hard decision for me. I'd

31:05

have to... I'd prefer probably just to write

31:07

the script myself. So, you know, that'd

31:09

be a... be quite fun. I would actually

31:11

ask you too, someone has suggested turning

31:13

it into a more of an animated production,

31:15

which I kind of like this one

31:17

with that also. Yeah, that'd be really cool,

31:19

right? All the humans are sleeping, I

31:21

think, would do really well as an animated

31:23

production just because of the sci -fi feel.

31:25

I mean, how the story is set

31:27

both in Manitoba... in Northern Canada, on Bath

31:29

and Islands, and then the second act

31:31

of the story is all set in Northern

31:33

Norway after World War 3. So, on -site

31:35

locations, it would be an expensive movie

31:37

to put together, but I'd be okay with

31:39

either, but I could just see it

31:41

being done so well as one of those

31:43

Japanese -style animations, where it just has that

31:45

kind of surreal feel to it. Well,

31:47

I have a compulsive advice -giving disease, so

31:49

that's why I gave you those suggestions. I

31:51

try hard to control it, but it

31:53

doesn't work all the time. Well, hey,

31:55

I like I said, you know, I agree with

31:57

you about what you're saying is like, if you can

32:00

get it on something like this onto the screen,

32:02

you're going to reach a lot more people. And

32:04

then that one turned sell more books

32:06

anyways, because good chunk of people like

32:08

when Lord of the Rings hit the

32:10

movie theaters, it opened the actual books

32:12

up to a whole new audience. I

32:15

think people who would never have read

32:17

the book ended up reading the book

32:19

after seeing the films. Yeah. Well, very

32:21

good. So for listeners that want to

32:23

join your list, I recommend that I

32:25

love all the things that you write

32:27

about, very diverse, very varied and interesting.

32:29

Where can they go to sign up

32:31

for your email list? Yeah, and as

32:33

they do, they actually get... chapters from

32:35

Much Ado About Corona, which actually includes

32:38

the audiobook version too, so they can

32:40

actually hear the prologue and chapter one

32:42

being read. Plus, I've created a few

32:44

audio video trailers that have illustrations that

32:46

aren't even in the novel itself yet.

32:48

So I mean, they can get all

32:50

that as they go to blazingpinecone .com

32:52

slash subscribe. Or if you just go

32:54

to the homepage, you'll click on the

32:56

subscribe button or add at the bottom

32:58

for it and enter your email address

33:00

and You'll immediately get the two trailers

33:03

plus in chapter one. Just sit

33:05

back and listen. And then you'll get

33:07

an email from me every day, whether you like

33:09

it or not. Hopefully you like it. And if you

33:11

don't, you just unsubscribe. You can send

33:13

me a... And if you want, you

33:15

can send me a nasty email too, but

33:17

then I'll probably publish it the next

33:19

day. Hey, that's funny. Yeah, well, that's a

33:21

bunch. I mean, some of the crazy

33:23

things I'll get from people, it's quite entertaining.

33:25

So I can't take it personally. If

33:28

people want to buy the much -to -do -about -ferona book,

33:30

you know, to support you and just to have the

33:32

physical book too, where can they go to

33:34

do that? So on Amazon and everywhere? No,

33:37

Amazon never blocked me. I was actually,

33:39

for a while there on Amazon Canada,

33:41

was in the top 10 best -selling

33:43

dystopian novels for... little while there. It

33:45

was right between 1984 and Brave New

33:47

Normal or something. But yeah, Amethyst won't

33:49

let me advertise on them. They said

33:51

my book had something in it they

33:53

didn't think was sensitive enough because of

33:55

the Ukraine war, which I didn't understand

33:57

the connection at all to the Ukraine

33:59

war, but They won't let me advertise

34:01

the book, but it's definitely they let

34:03

me sell it. So yeah, it's available

34:05

through any Amazon. If you go to

34:07

my website and click on the book

34:09

and then the order page, I have

34:11

links to everywhere it's available online, no

34:13

matter including Mexico and different countries. It's

34:15

available in ebook format, paperback and hardcover.

34:17

And I also include a link there.

34:20

If you want to just get it

34:22

from your local bookstore, you can also

34:24

do that. You just, it'll show you

34:26

the information you have to give the

34:28

bookstore. And it's also people are getting

34:30

it in the public libraries, which has

34:32

been really nice to see both in

34:34

America and Canada. I'm not aware of

34:36

it anywhere else, but I got instructions

34:38

there if you do want to have

34:40

it comes through your public library. Yeah,

34:42

that's great. Excellent. Okay. Well, John, thank

34:44

you so much for coming back on

34:46

the podcast and you're getting to keep

34:48

on writing. So I'd like to have

34:50

you back when you have some, you

34:52

know, an additional work that you want

34:54

to highlight, but thanks for what you

34:56

do. of your emails and for your

34:58

books. And you have contributed to society.

35:00

You've helped, you know that directly. And

35:02

I just want to thank you as

35:04

well. So thank you for coming. Thank

35:06

you very much, Richard. I appreciate that.

35:08

If you like this podcast, please click

35:10

the link in the description to subscribe

35:12

and review us on iTunes. You've

35:18

been listening to the Finding Genius

35:20

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