If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the rapid changes in the publishing world especially regarding Artificial Intelligence you are not alone. In a recent episode of the Wish I’d Known Then podcast, we talked about everything from the importance of physical health to the specific AI tools that can save you hours of work.

Here is an episode summary generated by Gemini 3 Pro:

The Novel Marketing Conference: A Different Kind of Gathering

Thomas kicked things off by discussing his upcoming Novel Marketing Conference, which stands out in a sea of writer events for one specific reason: no recordings.

Unlike many conferences where sessions are recorded for later viewing, Thomas designed this event to be fully immersive and interactive. He describes it as “almost more of a workshop than a conference,” where attendees work in small “writer’s groups” and leave with a physical, actionable plan for selling more books in the coming year. The goal is to create a space for honest, unrecorded conversation and deep work, rather than just passive listening.

The Foundation of Creativity: Your Health

One of the more surprising but vital topics discussed was the role of physical health in an author’s career. Thomas shared his personal journey of prioritizing health, noting that “your body is the machine that your brain lives in”.

He pointed out that many authors try to optimize their time but neglect their energy levels. You might carve out an hour to write, but if you are exhausted or brain-fogged, that hour won’t be productive. By treating health as a business asset, authors can improve not just their longevity but the quality of their creative output.

Navigating the AI Revolution

The centerpiece of the conversation was AI. Thomas offered a refreshing, balanced perspective that avoids both the “doom and gloom” and the “blind hype” often seen online. He noted that people tend to oscillate between thinking AI is “the end of humanity” or that it “creates nothing but slop”.

His philosophy is simple: Don’t give AI the work you enjoy; give it the drudgery.

A Practical Dictation Workflow

For authors looking to speed up their drafting or note-taking, Thomas shared a specific workflow he uses to capture ideas while on the go:

1. Hardware: He uses AirPods, which isolate his voice from background noise.
2. App: He records using an app called “Just Press Record” on his Apple Watch or phone.
3. Processing: He uses a tool called “Chapterize” to transcribe the audio.
4. AI Cleanup: He then feeds that transcript into an AI tool (like ChatGPT or Claude) with a prompt to clean up the grammar and remove “umms” and “ahhs.”

This stack allows him to dictate high-quality content while walking or driving, turning “dead time” into productive writing time.

The Author Toolbox

Thomas has developed a suite of tools specifically for writers, available at AuthorMedia.com. Some of the standout tools mentioned include:

• Book Cover Analyzer: Helps determine if your cover fits your genre conventions.
• Design Brief Generator: Creates a professional brief to send to cover designers.
• Character Namer: Tools that generate culturally and historically accurate names for characters (e.g., Victorian era names).
• Fact Checkers: Specialized tools for checking historical facts or checking medical facts without getting lost in a Google research rabbit hole.

These tools are designed to work within “guardrails,” using pre-written prompts to ensure the AI gives you exactly what you need without requiring you to become a “prompt engineering” expert.

Optimizing for the Future of Search

A crucial insight Thomas shared is the shift from optimizing for search engines (SEO) to optimizing for AI.

In the past, authors focused on getting their websites to rank on Google. Today, readers are increasingly asking tools like ChatGPT for book recommendations. Thomas explained that these AI models “read” the internet, including sites like Goodreads and Amazon. To ensure your book is recommended, you need to provide content that helps the AI understand who your book is for.

He suggested adding “Director’s Commentary” or “Behind the Scenes” content to your book pages on your own website. This unique content differentiates your site from Amazon and gives the AI more context to recommend your book to the right readers.

The Art of Pruning: Easiness, Joy, and Revenue

Finally, the group discussed the challenge of having too much to do. Thomas introduced a framework he used in a mastermind group to decide what tasks to cut. He lists all his activities in a spreadsheet with three columns:

1. Easiness: How easy is this task to do?
2. Joy: How much joy does it bring me?
3. Revenue: How much money does it make?

By scoring activities on these metrics, it becomes clear which ones should be “sunsetted” or pruned. Just as the Texas legislature creates agencies with an expiration date (“sunsetting”), authors should regularly review their commitments and kill off the ones that are difficult, joyless, and unprofitable.

Conclusion

This episode was a reminder that while technology changes, the core needs of an author—health, focus, and connection with readers—remain the same. Whether you are using AI to write blurbs or auditing your schedule to find more joy, the goal is to build a sustainable and fulfilling writing career.

For more from Thomas, you can check out the Novel Marketing Podcast or visit AuthorMedia.com to access the tools mentioned in this post.

Here is an AI summary:

In the rapidly evolving landscape of book marketing, authors have long been told to master Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But as we move deeper into the age of artificial intelligence, a new, perhaps more critical, strategy has emerged: AI Optimization (AIO), sometimes called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

In a recent episode of Before the Bestseller, host Alex Strathdee sat down with the legendary Thomas Umstattd Jr.—host of the Novel Marketing Podcast and a self-described “book marketing hero”—to uncover the strategies, struggles, and secrets behind getting AI to recommend your book over the competition.

This isn’t just about keywords anymore; it’s about training the digital brain of the internet to recognize your authority. Here is a deep dive into the insights Thomas shared on how authors can navigate this new frontier.

The Rainforest Cafe Lesson: Why AI Recommendations Matter

To understand the power—and the quirks—of AI optimization, Thomas shared a telling anecdote from a recent family trip to San Antonio, Texas. When planning the trip, he didn’t turn to Google or Yelp; he asked an AI to build an itinerary for his family, specifically requesting fun activities for children.

The AI recommended the Rainforest Cafe on the famous Riverwalk. While the Riverwalk is known for authentic Tex-Mex, the AI prioritized the Rainforest Cafe because it offered “animatronic animals,” fitting the specific prompt for “fun activities for kids”.

When Thomas arrived, there was a 40-minute wait, while better, more authentic restaurants nearby were actively soliciting customers. The food at the Rainforest Cafe was, in Thomas’s words, “awful,” but the establishment was thriving because it was the kind of place ChatGPT would recommend.

The lesson for authors is stark but valuable: The goal isn’t to trick AI into selling a bad product, but to realize that AI recommendations can drive massive traffic. If you want your book to be the one readers find when they ask ChatGPT, “What should I read next?”, you need to understand how the AI thinks.

How Does AI Know About Your Book?

If you ask an AI model to recommend a book based on a photo of your bookshelf, it can do so with shocking accuracy because it analyzes the books in its Large Language Model (LLM). But how does your specific book get into that model?

According to Thomas, one major source is piracy. Recent court cases have revealed that AI companies often train their models on massive datasets downloaded from pirate websites. While this sounds alarming, the courts have generally ruled this as “fair use” because the AI’s reading of the text is considered transformative.

Thomas offers a controversial take for nonfiction authors: piracy might actually be beneficial. If pirated copies lead to a million people reading your book and establishing you as a thought leader, you will likely make more money in the long run through speaking engagements and podcast invites than you would have from book sales alone. In the world of nonfiction, the idea itself is often less valuable than the execution and the authority of the author.

However, AI training data usually cuts off at the top 7 million most popular books. If your book is new or hasn’t reached that threshold, the AI might not “know” it exists in its core training data. In these cases, the AI relies on external sources it can read, such as Goodreads.

The Sycophancy Problem

A major pitfall for authors testing their AI visibility is the “sycophancy” of current models. If you ask ChatGPT about your own book, it will often flatter you, telling you exactly what it thinks you want to hear. It might even hallucinate that your book is a bestseller when it isn’t.

To combat this, Thomas developed a suite of “AI Knowledge Checkers” in his Patron Toolbox. These tools are designed to blind the AI from the live web, forcing it to answer only from its internal context window. This reveals whether the AI actually knows who you are or if it’s just quickly Googling you to be polite.

The Foundation of AIO: Your Author Website

If you want to rank in AI recommendations, you must stop relying solely on Amazon or social media. You need a robust author website. Thomas emphasizes that the principles of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AIO are nearly identical. If you have been ignoring your website, you are already behind.

Thomas highlighted three specific areas of your website that need to be optimized:

1. The Homepage Your homepage needs to be technically sound and content-rich. Thomas’s toolbox includes a scanner that acts like a “curmudgeonly webmaster,” giving you a brutally honest score on your homepage’s effectiveness.

2. The Book Page A common mistake authors make is having a single page listing all their books. For AIO, every single book needs its own dedicated, robust page. This page shouldn’t just be a sales link; it should be a service center for the book. It needs to include:

• Discussion guides.
• Sample chapters.
• Links to podcast interviews about the book.
• High-resolution maps (for fantasy authors).
• Editorial reviews.

3. The About Page Most authors write about pages that are too short and written in the first person (e.g., “I started writing when…”). AI struggles to rank the word “I.” Thomas advises rewriting your bio in the third person to create a narrative the AI can easily ingest and cite. A robust About page also protects your reputation, ensuring your website is the primary source of your life story rather than a third-party article.

Off-Page Optimization: Earning the “Vote”

Just like Google uses hyperlinks as “votes” of authority to rank websites, AI models determine what is true and important based on citations and links from reputable sources. This is “Off-Page AIO.”

Podcasts as Backlinks For nonfiction authors, being a guest on podcasts is the most organic way to generate these authority signals. Every time you appear on a show, the show notes link back to your website. These non-reciprocal links are high-value currency for AI algorithms.

Local Media and Journalism Don’t overlook local news. Local TV stations often publish articles without paywalls, making them easy for AI bots to scrape and index. Furthermore, major publications like The Wall Street Journal constitute high-authority sources because they have signed licensing deals with AI companies. Getting mentioned in these “legacy” media outlets tells the AI that you are a figure of importance.

The “Timothy” Principle: Don’t Lose the Human

Amidst all the talk of algorithms, scanners, and bots, Thomas ended the conversation with a vital reminder: AI does not buy books. Humans do.

Thomas advises against creating corporate-style “customer personas.” Instead, he advocates for the “Timothy” strategy—identifying a specific, actual human being who represents your target reader. When you focus on thrilling that one real person, you avoid the trap of writing for a stereotype. You can talk to “Timothy,” ask him for feedback, and ensure your marketing actually resonates.

Ultimately, the best marketing strategy is to love and serve your reader. If you do that, the algorithms—and the sales—will follow.

Next Steps for Authors

To help authors navigate this technical landscape, Thomas has made his suite of tools available at PatronToolbox.com. These include the website scanners, the AI knowledge checkers, and even a “hook identifier” that helps you find news angles for your book PR.

As we look toward 2025, the authors who succeed will be those who balance technical optimization with genuine human connection.

Tune in next week to Before the Bestseller when we are joined by Veronica Yager to discuss what it takes to make a book thrive in the coming year, including high-impact calls to action and the secrets of Kindle Unlimited.

We explored AI tools’ good sides. We covered bad and ugly sides too. I shared how these technologies democratize writing. They are like the typewriter or word processor. They boost productivity.

We discussed Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Scrivener, ChatGPT, and the Patron Toolbox.

Of course, we didn’t shy away from the downsides: the risks of over-reliance on AI for generating entire books, potential ethical issues in authorship.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience being on the show and I came away energized by the discussion on how authors can adapt to this productivity boosting tech without losing their voice. If you’re an author curious about AI, I highly recommend checking out the episode. It’s packed with actionable tips and resources to get you started

• How authors can benefit from AI optimization
• Principles authors need to keep in mind as search is changing
• Different AI models and their capabilities
• Making your author website LLM-friendly
• How to utilize Goodreads to improve your GEO
• The future of AI agents in book buying
• Staying positive and curious in the ever-changing AI landscape

In this episode, we explore:

• The fascinating parallels between Solomon Kane and modern heroic characters
• How biblical archetypes influence fantasy and western storytelling
• The historical foundations of King Arthur legends and their cultural impact
• Strategies for finding your target audience as an author
• The importance of moral clarity in storytelling

Key takeaway: “Having the courage to say ‘I’m not for everyone, but I am for this group of people’ and making something they absolutely love—if you have that creative courage, commercial success is a lot easier to find.”

Whether you’re a writer looking to improve your marketing strategy, a reader interested in literary traditions, or simply love great storytelling, this conversation offers something for everyone!

Follow Ryan Gutierrez here.

YouTube Version

In this episode of The Big Draw, Ryan sits down with Thomas Umstattd Jr. of the Novel Marketing podcast for a sprawling, thoughtful conversation. They move from Robert E. Howard’s pulp heroes to King Arthur, from westerns to dystopias, from bedtime stories to box office strategy, and from Rome’s fall to Washington stepping down from power.

What starts as a chat about Solomon Kane and a new Arthurian comic grows into a wide-ranging exploration of archetypes, morality, and what our heroes say about us.

Key takeaways

• Archetypal characters like Conan, Solomon Kane, Arthur, and King David keep resurfacing because they tap into deep, shared ideas about courage, justice, and power.
• Westerns and dystopias are two ends of a moral spectrum about government: can power serve the good, or is it inherently corrupt?
• Moral clarity in fiction is not childish. It is often more resonant and rewatchable than endlessly “gray” characters and settings.
• The most commercially successful stories are rarely “for everyone.” They are aimed fiercely at a specific audience who then drag everyone else to them.
• King Arthur, Cincinnatus, Caesar, and Washington are not just history and legend. They function as founding myths that shape how whole nations imagine leadership.
• Returning to clear archetypes and old heroic patterns is not regression. It can be the most radical and needed move in a disoriented culture.

The Longest-Running Book Marketer In Podcasting Meets The Big Draw

Ryan:

Everybody, it’s me again. It’s Ryan.

This episode of The Big Draw is a special one for me. I have the wonderful Thomas Umstattd Jr. on the show. I wanted to make sure I said his last name right.

I’m a big fan of this man’s channel. He runs what I believe is the longest-running novel marketing podcast in history, Novel Marketing. I listen to his stuff a lot while I work on my own literary projects, and I think he’s brilliant. He has a great head on his shoulders, and I’m glad to have him on.

How are you doing, Thomas?

Thomas:

I’m doing well. Thank you for having me.

Ryan:

Absolutely. Do you want to address my audience with anything in particular? Maybe tell them more about yourself before we get into Solomon Kane, which I cannot wait to talk about?

Thomas:

Sure.

I host three podcasts:

• Novel Marketing, which you mentioned. That one is about getting more readers for your book.
• The Christian Publishing Show, which is focused on craft and the publishing process.
• And a brand new YouTube show that is currently on the Novel Marketing YouTube channel called Author Update, which focuses on publishing news, marketing news, and also general news and how it applies to authors.

Ryan:

It’s excellent. It’s wonderful.

We actually started getting into this topic before we hit record, and I stopped us because I wanted to save it for the show. You were talking about Solomon Kane, and I would love to know what your thoughts are about that, because you had kindly compared some of the work I do to Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane stories.

Conan, Solomon Kane, And The Archetype Of The Hammer Of God

Thomas:

Yeah. So Conan is of course the more famous of the Robert E. Howard stories.

Conan is a figure who stands against civilization. In a typical Conan story, civilization is evil and corrupt. The kings are corrupt. The wizards are corrupt.

Conan is not a good man in a moral sense. But he has a code of honor. It’s his code of honor that insulates him from the corruption of the society around him while he is smashing bad guys and killing demons and saving damsels.

When Robert E. Howard stopped writing Conan, he shifted mostly to this other character, Solomon Kane. Those stories take place, I think, in the 1600s. Kane is a Puritan. A warrior Puritan.

Imagine a violent Presbyterian with a big black Puritan hat who goes around fighting zombies and killing evil. He is a very righteous man.

One of the interesting things about the stories is that there is a lot of deus ex machina. He is not very pious in the conventional sense. You do not see him praying a lot. But you see him being seemingly very lucky.

As you read, you realize, “Oh, wait. God is looking after him as he fights these monsters.”

And Black Marrow, your character, seems very similar. He is fighting evil. He is rough around the edges. He is not advancing good so much as he is destroying evil, which is really fun for a protagonist.

Ryan:

I love that comparison.

You asked if I had known about Solomon Kane. I feel like I bring him up once a month on my YouTube channel. I am like a grandpa who starts sundowning. I talk about Solomon Kane. I talk about my time as a boxing coach. I talk about five or six key things on a loop.

Something that might shock you: anyone reading Black Marrow would think, “This guy clearly loves Robert E. Howard.” But I actually did not start reading Howard until about a year ago. Then I got really into it.

I had written Black Marrow book one before I knew much about Solomon Kane, which is really funny. When I finally read the Kane stories I was like, “Wow. This is so my taste.”

One point of confusion for me was the order of Howard’s characters. I had thought that Solomon Kane came first and Conan came after.

Thomas:

I could be wrong, but I believe Solomon Kane came second because he is not coming out of copyright anytime soon. Conan is.

The first Conan stories will be exiting copyright in just a few years. That means anyone can write a Conan story. By the time a writer finishes a new Conan novel, some of those early stories will actually be in the public domain.

Whereas I think Solomon Kane will take longer.

Ryan:

If I had to pick which of those two characters I would want to work on, it would be Solomon Kane without question. I think he is a far more interesting character personally.

Thomas:

Yeah. And he is an archetype.

The fact that you found your way to this kind of character on your own before discovering him is very archetypal. These patterns show up independently in different minds. That is part of what archetypes do.

Conan is also very much an archetype. And Arthur is an archetype.

I have some thoughts on Arthur and your King Arthur book, if you want to talk about that. We can keep going on Kane too, but I have a lot of Arthur thoughts.

Ryan:

Anything you want to talk about. I keep the format of the show pretty loose. You guide the conversation. I am here to enjoy your company.

King Arthur, King David, And The Westernization Of The Old Testament

Thomas:

The Arthur stories are very archetypal and they are very much inspired by the biblical story of King David and his mighty men.

You have:

• Samuel, the wizard with the staff and robe, doing what we would call “magic,” giving counsel to the king.
• King David fighting giants.
• Arthur fighting giants.
• David coming from humble backgrounds. Arthur coming from humble backgrounds.
• David’s mighty men doing great feats of strength and valor.
• David being betrayed. Arthur being betrayed.

The stories rhyme.

And if you look at the story of David and where it fits in the Old Testament, you see something else fascinating.

The Old Testament follows a single people group through basically every epoch of civilization:

• You start with a man who has a kid.
• Then a family.
• Then they grow into a tribe.
• That tribe goes through an awkward adolescence.
• It becomes a kingdom.
• Then a great kingdom.
• Then the great kingdom corrupts and declines.
• Then it collapses.
• Then the people are reborn with something new.

To tell that whole story, you need about 1500 years. You see all these different “ages” in the life of one people.

There are seasons where the story feels very much like a western. David is very much a sheriff in the Wild West, trying to bring civilization, fighting off the Philistines.

That is very much like Arthur fighting the Saxons. He is trying to establish a government and use government as a force for good. All you really need is a tumbleweed blowing between David and Goliath. It is the same kind of showdown.

Then there are other seasons that feel like dystopian stories, where the government itself is evil and corrupt, and the protagonist is a seemingly powerless outsider who has to stand up against it.

You see that with Elijah facing King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.

I feel like you can place most stories on this continuum:

• On one end, a pure western: the sheriff uses law and force to build civilization.
• On the other, a pure dystopia: the government is irredeemable and the hero must resist it.

The big question along that spectrum is:

Is the government good and can its power be used for good,
or is government power being used to do evil?

Arthur is interesting because he is not just a warrior. He is a king.

Arthur stories read almost like political thrillers. He is trying to create a government that can survive in a world of giants, wizards, invading tribes from the north, and everything else.

Ryan:

That is an angle I am really interested in.

The conflict between what makes a great leader and what makes a hero. Those do not always align.

Especially with the ideals of a medieval king:

• A great ruler puts his people first.
• A hero, in a more timeless sense, puts obedience to God’s higher moral law first.

Those can collide. Sometimes what a king must do to preserve his kingdom is in tension with what a saint would do to preserve his soul.

That conflict inside a character fascinates me.

And I love something else you did: you just made a connection I often think about. The way you tied the American western to European fantasy.

I have often called the western a kind of distant cousin or grandchild of European fantasy. They tap into similar things.

Part of it is this:

• The morality of anarchy vs order.
• The fantasy of going backward in time to get a sense of freedom you do not feel in your own era.

Thomas:

I think it is helpful to clarify what we mean by “western,” because there are two kinds.

There is:

1. The aesthetic western
   Cowboy hats, boots, pistols, dusty towns.
   You can slap that aesthetic onto the opposite kind of story.

• Cowboy Bebop
• Firefly

Firefly looks like a western. But it is actually very dystopian. They are not creating civilization. They are just trying to survive in a corrupt empire while wearing big hats.

2. The narrative western
   That is what we have been talking about.
   The sheriff trying to bring law and order to a lawless world.
   Because the world is so lawless, he must also be a warrior. He cannot just be a politician. He has to be willing to pull out his six-shooter and shoot the bad guy.

I just watched Tombstone this week with some friends, and there is a great line where one of the Cowboys defects from the outlaw gang. He says, “There has to be some law.”

That line is the core of the narrative western:

Are we going to be men of laws,
or are we going to live in a world where the strong do what they will
and the weak suffer what they must?

Ryan:

And the character who says that in Tombstone is interesting. He is not even a core member of the gang. He is more of a hanger-on. A sycophant who idolized them. You watch him realize, “I have been worshiping the wrong people.”

That turn in his character is powerful.

Tombstone is one of the best movies ever made. You can find almost anything you want in it:

• Heroism
• Tragedy
• Friendship
• Justice

Thomas:

I feel bad it took me this long to watch it. It was my first time. And I realized, “Wow. Westerns can be good.”

Ryan:

I am guessing you were not really a western guy most of your life.

Thomas:

I had not watched many. I grew up with The Alamo with John Wayne. But that is more of a historical military film that wears western clothes.

It is western in its aesthetic. In a sense, it is also western in that it is about building a civilization. But that story is very much a conversation about civilization and government.

The Mexican troops in that film are shown to be very honorable. They follow just war norms. They show mercy to women. They respect flags of truce. They negotiate.

It is less a clash of civilizations and more a clash of governments. Two kinds of republics in tension inside the same civilization.

Ryan:

I remember that movie, and I remember thinking at the time that, if not for the government conflict, these two groups of men would probably be friends.

Thomas:

Yeah. Historically, that is true to some degree.

Stephen F. Austin, in the real story, was actually in Mexico negotiating for Texas to become a state of Mexico.

At that time, Texas was a Mexican territory. The Texans wanted full statehood with all the rights and responsibilities that came with that.

Then the Mexican government came for their guns. And the Texans said, “This is a deal breaker.”

Ryan:

Yeah. That is one of those points of contention that goes beyond what people outside Texas often expect.

Lonesome Dove, Tombstone, And The Elemental Western

Ryan:

People in the chat are suggesting westerns you should watch. Gigi just asked if you have seen Lonesome Dove. She and I are good friends and we have never discussed it, which is funny because it might be my favorite movie of all time.

Technically it is a miniseries. And look at this cast:

• Robert Duvall
• Tommy Lee Jones
• A young Diane Lane
• Danny Glover

It is incredible.

It is an ensemble cast in a six-hour miniseries, and it feels like an epic tome. Not just vignettes, but a sweeping story about different people’s lives in the West.

The novel is one of my favorite books ever, but the series is also a masterpiece.

Robert Duvall has said that the character he plays there is still his favorite role of his whole career.

The premise: two former Texas Rangers want to start a cattle ranch in Montana. They are all the way down at the border with Mexico. They have to take several hundred head of cattle across the entire country.

There is danger, romance, heartbreak.

It is just incredible. I watch it every year.

My only hesitation in recommending it to you is this: after you watch it, other westerns will feel flat. It is like starting anime with a masterpiece. Everything else struggles in comparison.

But Lonesome Dove is free on YouTube as a full miniseries. I think it is in the public domain or close.

Thomas:

I have it on my list now.

Ryan:

So I want to go back to what you said about King Arthur and King David, because that really grabbed me.

How familiar are you with the pre‑Christian Arthur, the Arthur that existed in Welsh and Celtic tales before Britain became fully Christian?

Pre‑Christian Arthur, Blood-Drenched Kings, And Conan’s Freedom Fantasy

Thomas:

I am not that familiar with him, no.

There is some debate about how long Britain has been Christian. There is a school of thought that says Britain was Christianized before all the apostles had even died.

Later, in the 450s, the pope sent a delegation to Christianize the island. When that delegation arrived, they found Christians already there. They had been Christians for a long time. They had monasteries.

They did not have Bibles. They had belief in Christ and they would tell the gospel story with colored beads on bracelets.

If you ever did Vacation Bible School and made those little bracelets where each color represents part of the gospel, that practice is actually ancient. It goes back to what one writer called “the misty dawn of the British Isles.”

We do not have good written records because the Saxons burnt so many of them. So some of it is tradition and speculation.

There is a tradition that Pontius Pilate ended up serving as a governor in Britain and brought the gospel, converting and bringing the Grail.

That is one reason the Grail stories are connected to Britain. In that tradition, Christians brought the Grail to Britain right away.

Ryan:

So the idea is that the Grail was smuggled out of Rome to Britain. That is fascinating.

It makes sense that Britain might have been Christian that early, especially if it was an outpost of Roman administration.

What I had picked up from scholars talking about the pre‑Christian Arthur was that the early stories were Welsh. And the morality of Arthur in those tales is totally different.

You described Arthur as hero and king, and that is right for the later stories. But the pre‑Christian oral stories portray him more as a conqueror.

He is closer to Conan the Barbarian. Not a good man going out to do the right thing, but a blood-drenched conqueror you admire for his strength.

Thomas:

That is very much a Conan character. Conan becomes king in the stories. He loses his kingdom and has to get it back.

It is a very David-like shape, but extremely violent. And David himself was blood-drenched. That is why God did not allow him to build the temple.

David paid a bride price of 200 Philistine foreskins. That is not exactly the biography of a man of peace.

Ryan:

And Conan, to me, is built around something different than moral heroism.

The core fantasy of Conan is untethered freedom.

• He sleeps with whoever he wants.
• He kills who he wants.
• He takes any treasure that catches his eye.

The fact that he often opposes truly wicked men is almost incidental. That is part of what happens when you are an adventurer. But he is not out to destroy evil or create a just world.

That makes him fun to read in some ways. He is a kind of chaotic force. I would probably place him as chaotic neutral rather than chaotic good.

Thomas:

I agree.

One of the frustrating things about Conan entering the public domain is Christians saying, “We should make a Christian Conan.”

But Christianity is a religion of building. It is about a kingdom with a king. It is a religion of order.

Conan, at his core, is a non‑Christian archetype, like pre‑Christian Arthur. He is not building. He is destroying or taking.

A lot of the Conan stories are not about rescuing a princess. They are about him robbing a palace.

He is not there to kill evil. He is there to rob the place. It just so happens the palace is evil. He kills bad men along the way, but he leaves at the end with treasure.

Ryan:

I just finished one of the stories where Conan raids the ruins of a lost civilization. The people there are trying to sacrifice a woman to a giant snake. Conan rescues her, but the whole time he is thinking about how beautiful she is.

That is his motivation. Not “No one should be devoured by a giant snake,” but “Maybe if I rescue her she will sleep with me.”

There is a blunt joy to that instinct‑driven character.

Then you read Solomon Kane and it feels like Robert E. Howard is arguing with himself about what he wants in a hero.

Kane’s moral certitude is my favorite device in those stories. It makes him:

• Totally incorruptible regarding earthly reward.
• Interesting because his absolutism has to be challenged and refined.

He sees himself as the hammer of God made flesh. But he also has to wrestle with things like Nolonga, the African witch doctor who becomes his friend.

Kane has to confront his prejudices. He has to reconcile his Puritan faith with magic staffs and witch‑doctor lore that seem to work.

So you see this tension between:

• His rigid religious worldview
• And the dark mythologies he cannot deny when he sees them

I love that.

Thomas:

I have to admit, I have not read all the Solomon Kane stories yet, so I am not fully up on the ethos.

But characters like him are interesting because in some ways they function as the angel of death from the Exodus story.

A lot of people grow up with a VeggieTales picture of God from children’s Sunday school. Be nice. Do not hurt feelings.

That is not the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible sends an angel of death to massacre the firstborn of Egypt. He sends fire from heaven. People are swallowed by the earth or devoured by worms. Evil is sometimes destroyed violently.

Those bits are often edited out of children’s versions of the stories. They do not make VeggieTales episodes about that.

We rarely see the angel of death archetype in modern fiction:

“I have been sent by God to destroy evil.”

There is so much to explore there.

Solomon Kane is not quite that. If anything, I think your character Black Marrow is closer.

Black Marrow is like the hammer of God. There is no negotiation. No mercy.

The time for pleading has passed. Judgment has come.

That is a terrifying character, even when you are on the right side of the story.

Ryan:

Anyone with that personality is intimidating, even to allies. That is why I wanted Black Marrow to look somewhat monstrous.

I see two main superhero archetypes, and they are defined really well by Superman and Batman:

• One type believes the best way to improve the world is to lead by example.
• The other believes the best way to improve the world is to embody consequences.

One inspires by virtue. The other terrifies by representing what happens when you stray.

Both can be effective. One is aspirational. The other is punitive.

Thomas:

That pattern is very old.

In Exodus, Israel is taken to two mountains. One is the mountain of blessings. The other is the mountain of curses.

On one mountain, they hear all the blessings for obeying God. On the other, they hear the curses for disobedience.

Those are your two heroes: Superman and Batman. The angel of blessing and the angel of death.

There is a season for each.

Ryan:

I love that.

Elemental Westerns, Moral Clarity, And The Fatigue Of Endless Gray

Ryan:

Black Marrow, for me, does not just represent that Batman‑type hero. He represents an entire genre of western.

I think of two broad kinds of westerns:

1. Modern/postmodern western

• Built around realism.
• Often about moral ambiguity.
• Shows like Deadwood that try to give you a historically grounded taste of how hard life really was.

2. Elemental western

• Uses the western template as mythology.
• Characters are more like personified forces.
• The moral lines are drawn clearly.

Black Marrow fits into that second category.

You see that kind of thing in Pale Rider. A ghostly gunslinger arrives in a corrupt town, calling himself a preacher, and just takes apart the system. He kills his way through local officials who genuinely deserve it.

For some reason, in the last few decades, we stopped making elemental westerns. We kept making the modern, morally gray kind.

I think the decline of the western is less about the setting and more about the audience getting tired of:

“Everybody is a dirtbag. There are no real heroes. There is no one to root for.”

Thomas:

The early westerns had very overt moral clarity.

The good guys wore white hats. The bad guys wore black hats.

Now:

• Everyone is evil.
• Some are marginally less evil than others.

Which is exhausting.

It was exciting at first. “Wow, it is so realistic and gritty.” But it lacks:

• Nuance
• Archetypal contrast

In visual art, a drawing like the ones you do, a lot of the meaning comes from contrast:

• Contrasting colors
• Contrasting values
• Contrasting silhouettes

You could do that in black and white, but you cannot do it if everything is gray.

When every character is morally gray, there is no interesting contrast. It is all camouflage.

You need a clearly good character if only to make the evil characters look more evil. You need the evil character to make the good character look good.

But for that to work, the writer needs to believe that good and evil exist.

If the writer has bought into a worldview where everything reduces to power and there is no real right and wrong, just oppressors and oppressed, then:

• Archetypal heroes do not make sense.
• Archetypal villains do not make sense.

Part of what makes Black Marrow interesting is his morality. Part of what makes Solomon Kane interesting is his morality.

Once you have a morality, you can wrestle with two great questions:

1. Am I going to do the right thing?
2. What is the right thing to do?

If you deny that morality exists, those questions stop being useful. And the answers stop being interesting.

Ryan:

I run into this all the time. Writers say they want to avoid cliché by making everything morally gray.

At this point, moral grayness is the cliché.

Do you think the main function of traditional stories has been to carry moral context across generations?

Bedtime Stories, Sir George, And How Parents Smuggle Wisdom Into Fiction

Thomas:

That is a good question.

There are different kinds of stories. But I think the most fundamental is the bedtime story a parent makes up for a child.

Now that I am a dad, I tell my kids bedtime stories. I have two little “universes” I draw from:

• Dennis the Dog and Katie the Kitty Cat

• Modern‑day dog and cat.
• They go on adventures in a present‑day neighborhood.
• Geared toward my younger children.

• Sir George

• Based loosely off St. George, the dragon slayer.
• A knight in a light fantasy world.
• He has battled dragons.
• He has dwarf friends.
• He is romantically interested in Princess Luna.

I use those two streams for two slightly different purposes.

Right now:

• Sir George is out fighting dragons and going on adventures.
• Princess Luna is at home learning how the kingdom works.

Her father, the king, sends her to spend a day with a cow rancher to learn how to milk cows and how dairy production works. Another day she might learn where leather comes from, or how thatched roofs are made.

Those stories let me smuggle in:

• Basic economics
• Supply chain ideas
• Simple “how the world works” lessons

A lot of kids now have no idea where things come from. That is not really taught in school.

By setting it in a medieval world, I can tell versions of these stories that I actually understand. I could not tell you how to manufacture asphalt shingles step by step. But I can describe thatching a roof with straw.

So:

• Princess Luna’s stories are about knowledge.
• Sir George’s stories are more about wisdom and courage.

And of course, they are also meant to be fun and to help the kids fall asleep. Though I am honestly not great at the “make them sleepy” part.

I do not know if stories have one single purpose. But I do think what I am doing with my kids is ancient.

Parents have probably always told:

• Fantasy stories
• Moral fables
• Little epics

adapted to their child.

When scholars collect old folklore, they often find many different versions of the same story, because oral storytelling is extremely audience‑adapted.

In some ways, it is like a role‑playing game. The game master is telling a story, but the players influence it:

“No, Daddy, he did not do that. He did this.”

You adjust.

I think telling bedtime stories is good practice for any storyteller. Many authors I have interviewed, especially dads, tell their kids stories. I do not know if that used to be more of a mother’s role generations ago, but right now a lot of fathers I know do it.

Stories are how we:

• Communicate moral truths
• Communicate philosophical ideas
• Communicate practical knowledge

Listen to Jordan Peterson break down classic fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel. He can preach a whole sermon off a single old folk story.

There is a lot of truth embedded in those tales.

Ryan:

I think I know the lecture you are talking about.

He has a way of unpacking symbols and pulling out coherent meaning that is really impressive.

Who Are Stories For? Superman, Adults, And The Strange Problem Of Growing Up

Ryan:

There is something else I want to ask, because it connects to nerd culture and to what you just said about stories and kids.

There is a trend I do not like. People have lost the thread on who the target audience of certain stories is supposed to be.

Have you seen the new Superman trailer? The James Gunn one with the dog.

Thomas:

I saw the teaser and I think I have seen most of the full trailer.

Ryan:

After that trailer, I had friends and even my brothers say things like, “It just looks like a little kid thing,” as if that is disappointing. As if it being for children is a flaw.

We were children when we fell in love with the character. Superman was designed to be:

• Accessible to younger readers
• Aspirational for kids

And yet, there is this insistence that the character needs to grow darker and more mature at the same rate as our lives did.

Life got harder, we discovered more darkness, so now we want the man in the red cape to be full of angst and existential despair.

There is something selfish about that.

I am not saying adults cannot love Superman. I do. But there is a difference between:

• Loving a story that is also for kids,
• And needing it to be “about your pain” now that you are thirty-five.

I know families whose kids did not like Man of Steel because it terrified them. It is a bleak world.

I heard a toy collector on YouTube, RetroBlasting, say something that stuck with me. He is a man in his forties who loves action figures. He is very clear about the fact that:

“I understand this is primarily for children. I just love it too.”

He wants Star Wars and Superman to remain things kids can enjoy. Because once you pull them entirely out of that context and only make them for adults, they become something else. A kind of Frankenstein creation.

Do you see that dynamic in writing and marketing?

Find Your Timothy: Why Stories For “Everyone” Sell To No One

Thomas:

Yes. This is incredibly important for writers, and it is rarely taught in any serious way in writing programs, especially if the teacher is very postmodern.

The idea is simply this:

You must adapt your art to your audience.

Most authors do not think about their reader until after the book is finished.

Then they start worrying about marketing. They listen to my podcast. And at that point the book is often not shaped for any particular reader at all.

I often tell them:

“That book you wrote before you learned marketing?
Put it away. Do not publish it yet.
Come back in five years.
Meanwhile, write a new book for a specific reader.”

The key is not just to have a loose target demographic, but to have a target person.

I call it finding your Timothy, based on the books of 1 and 2 Timothy in the Bible. Those letters were written to one individual.

In the New Testament, you see a surprising amount of writing that is:

• Addressed to a specific person
• Aimed at a very precise situation

And when you look at great authors’ lives, you find something similar.

Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for one person: Christopher Tolkien, his son.

His goal was simple:

“If I can thrill Christopher, the book will be a success.”

And it was.

My name is not Christopher Tolkien, but I loved The Hobbit. Millions of others did too.

This is the paradox:

• Narrowly focused stories often reach more people than “broad” stories.

They outperform them in sales.

I pulled up some 2025 box office numbers before this. Compare:

• Captain America: Brave New World
• Minecraft: The Movie

Which do you think sold more tickets?

Ryan:

We all know the answer.

Thomas:

Not only has Minecraft done better, it has done roughly twice as well at the time we are speaking, and it still has weeks of theater life left. Captain America: Brave New World is basically done.

This seems counterintuitive. People assume:

“If I make a story for everyone, I will sell more.”

That is not how it works in a world with:

• Millions of books
• Millions of movies
• Infinite choices

People will only choose the very best thing for them at that moment.

The Minecraft movie is for:

• Nerdy teenage boys
• Gamers
• Kids obsessed with blocks and creepers

At least half the ticket sales are hate‑watchers. Parents dragged to the theater.

They hate the movie. They rate it poorly. But their kid is standing up during the show, yelling “chicken jockey” and throwing popcorn.

That is commercial success. If you can thrill that 12‑year‑old boy enough, you sell:

• One ticket to him
• One ticket to his mom

He will drag her to the theater.

That was the secret of Harry Potter too. It targeted 12‑year‑old boys. Hollywood for a long time had an entire engine aimed at that demographic, because if you can win them, they pull in:

• Their parents
• Their friends
• Their peers

So the trick is not to quietly please everybody. It is to fanatically thrill a narrow group so much that they will not shut up about your story.

“Fan” is short for fanatic. If someone simply likes your story, they are not a fan.

Ryan:

People pointed to the Barbie movie as a good example of this.

I have no interest in it personally. But that movie knew exactly who its audience was and went hard for them.

Everything is pink. Every line of marketing is aimed at:

• Women who grew up with Barbie
• The specific subculture around that brand

Meanwhile Oppenheimer came out the same weekend. That is more my thing. History, Nolan, atomic bombs. But Nolan is such a brand now that he could make almost anything and it would be a big event.

And speaking of Nolan, what do you think about him doing The Odyssey?

Barbie, Marvel, The Odyssey, And Why You Must Please Your Own Tribe First

Thomas:

I think Christopher Nolan could do a good job with the Odyssey.

The key, though, is exactly what we just talked about.

Barbie succeeded because it was:

A Barbie movie for people who love Barbie.

Hollywood, for years now, has been obsessed with making:

X for people who do not like X.

A Star Wars movie for people who do not like Star Wars.
A Marvel movie for people who do not like superhero films.

They think this will “expand the audience.”

So they make The Marvels for women who do not like Marvel. Those women still do not go see it.

If someone does not like your genre, they are not suddenly going to love your genre because you changed the casting.

You must be successful first with the people who already love your thing.

Include the in‑jokes. Include the deep cuts. Give the fan an opportunity to turn to the person they dragged to the theater and say:

“Okay, that guy, that line, that symbol, let me explain that to you…”

Those conversations after the movie are free marketing.

Take the early Marvel films. Spotting Stan Lee in cameos was a running joke:

“See that old guy? He created Spider‑Man.”

It was fun. It made fans feel like they were in on something.

With the Odyssey, you have:

• An audience who loves that story
• People who know it is one of the founding myths of Western civilization

Western civilization is a blending of:

• Greco‑Roman culture
• Judeo‑Christian culture

Those two streams hold up a lot of our ideas. You have to be respectful of that.

You cannot just make Odysseus a woman and expect it to land.

Ryan:

Is that what they are doing?

Thomas:

There are rumors and early chatter about a female Odysseus. If they do that, they are not making the Odyssey for people who love Homer. They are making it for people who want to see the Odyssey deconstructed.

Ryan:

It is similar to the rumors about the new Chronicles of Narnia adaptation. The same woman who made Barbie is attached to it.

That is such a strange pairing.

It suggests she is going to deconstruct Lewis rather than honor him. I doubt she sees eye to eye with his worldview.

Even putting aside my personal beliefs, that seems like a bad business move.

You are not going to make anyone truly happy.

• People who love Narnia may stay away.
• People who love her other work might go, but they are not there for Lewis.

From a purely financial standpoint, there are so many directors who would kill to adapt Narnia with reverence.

Thomas:

Part of the reason Peter Jackson did such a good job with The Lord of the Rings was that he:

• Loved the books
• Surrounded himself with people who loved the books

He was making:

A Lord of the Rings movie for Lord of the Rings fans.

He was not trying to expand the audience. He was trying to thrill the existing one.

If you thrill the base, they bring friends.

If you make them angry, they tell their friends not to watch.

Word‑of‑mouth is still the strongest metric there is.

Sometimes movies pick up in their second or third weekend simply because the word on the street is, “This is way better than we expected.”

That is much more likely with a narrowly targeted film.

Look at the box office right now. A film like The King of Kings, or Skinners at number three, is doing well and holding steady. Neither aims at everyone. You can look at the poster and know:

“Oh, this is for that tribe.”

They had the courage to say:

“We are not for everyone.
We are for these people,
and we will make something they absolutely love.”

Creative courage like that makes commercial success easier.

Red Dead Redemption 2, Doom, And The Hunger For Virtuous Power Fantasy

Ryan:

Another angle on this: I find a lot of media assumes we all want to play or watch villain fantasy.

Have you played Red Dead Redemption 2?

Thomas:

I tried. Technically, that game is a masterpiece. It is gorgeous. It simulates everything, down to your beard growth and how much you eat.

But you are forced to play as an outlaw, and I did not enjoy that.

In Bethesda games, you can choose:

• Virtuous path
• Criminal path

But Red Dead Redemption 2 is too much on rails for me. It advertises choice, but from the first mission you are beating a man in front of his wife for money.

I do not want that power fantasy.

For some people, that is exactly what they want. They want to live out an evil path in a game like Fallout.

But if you want to live out a virtuous fantasy, there is not much for you right now.

Arthur, as a good and virtuous king, is rare.

Hollywood does not give us many heroes like that anymore. Everything is so morally gray.

Even the good men we rooted for as kids have been deconstructed.

Luke Skywalker, once the archetype of a hopeful hero, is now:

• A coward
• Bitter
• Almost villainous

There have not been many new heroes built to replace what was torn down.

We can bemoan this, but it is actually a huge opportunity.

Those new archetypal heroes are waiting to be written.

Ryan:

I agree.

Resetting Arthur: Once And Future Myths, Not Renaissance Fanfiction

Thomas:

There has not been a really good Arthur story told in a long time, partly because the people writing Arthurian tales do not understand Arthur as a character.

You cannot understand Arthur if you do not understand David. You cannot understand Merlin if you do not understand Samuel.

You cannot understand Lancelot if you do not understand Joab, David’s second in command.

You have to look at what the authors of the Middle Ages were reading and absorbing.

It is like the founding fathers. You cannot understand the Constitution just by reading the Constitution. You have to read:

• John Locke
• Montesquieu
• The Bible

You have to go one layer back.

For whichever author is willing to dig that deep and really understand Arthur, the field is wide open.

And you must also ask:

“Which part of the Arthurian story resonates in the current zeitgeist?”

Right now, I do not think it is Le Morte d’Arthur. I do not think the betrayal of Lancelot and Guinevere is the main note we need.

The resonant part is Arthur at the very beginning:

• Reinventing government
• Saying, “We will create a kingdom built on laws, not on a single man’s whim.”
• Sitting at a round table as equals with his knights
• Using kingly power in service of justice, not arbitrary cruelty

In a world where many people feel crushed between chaos and tyranny, that is the story we are starving for.

Ryan:

When I first started developing my Arthur graphic novel, I had a co‑writer. We plotted together at the beginning before his first child was born and he became time‑poor.

We agreed on something crucial:

How we were going to handle Lancelot.

If we did not agree on that, we could not have collaborated.

We wanted to acknowledge that Renaissance cheating plotline, but treat it for what it is in the larger history:

• Essentially fanfiction written centuries after the original legends.

In the oldest tales, Sir Gawain is the main knight. Lancelot does not exist yet.

He appears later, as a sort of self‑insert. A knight invented by a particular writer who wanted to:

• Outshine Arthur
• Steal Arthur’s girl
• Recenter the story on himself

Over time, public memory of Arthur got warped. Many modern people know him mainly as:

“The guy whose wife cheated on him with his best friend.”

Which might be the least interesting thing about him.

So my mission statement with this comic is:

“Let’s go back behind the fanfiction.
Let’s tell the story as someone in the 14th century,
with a fervent Christian imagination,
might have wanted to see it.”

Not literally historically accurate in style, but:

• Colorful
• Heroic
• Saturated with moral certitude

I want every page to feel like it could be a Sabaton album cover. Heavy metal plus bombastic Christian certainty.

That is the vibe guiding me.

With Black Marrow, the vibe is:

• Heroic legend that uses horror as an ingredient
• Not a horror book, even though there are demons and monsters

I had a mild fight with my editor when it was at a publisher. He insisted it was horror.

To me it is like Doom the video game. Doom is not horror.

In horror, the agency is with the evil. The protagonists flee.

In Doom:

You are not trapped in hell with demons.
The demons are trapped in hell with you.

Black Marrow is very much that. He is not being hunted by the dark. He is hunting it.

Thomas:

Exactly. It is not horror.

And your vision of Arthur aligns with something I think is historically important.

Founding Myths: Arthur, Caesar, And The Long Shadow Of Our Heroes

Thomas:

Arthur is not just a character. He is a founding myth.

He has haunted the kings of England for over a thousand years.

There is this mythical, good, and just king hanging over every English monarch’s head. The standard they are compared against is not an actual historical king. It is Arthur.

England has never had a historical King Arthur. The United States has had a President Arthur, but England has never had a King Arthur.

It is not for lack of trying. Every time a royal child is named Arthur, something happens. He does not become king.

Arthur functions as the ideal in the English imagination.

Now look at Russia.

Who is their founding myth?

Their rulers called themselves Tsars, which comes from Caesar.

They modeled themselves after Julius Caesar.

Caesar:

• Was not a good king.
• Overthrew the republic.
• Genocided whole regions, including much of Gaul.

“Created a desert and called it peace.”

He destroyed the nation in order to “save” it.

The Russians did not model themselves on Augustus, who tried to restore older virtues. They modeled themselves on Julius. They did not call themselves Augustines. They called themselves Tsars.

The result:

• Oppression under the Tsars
• Oppression under Lenin
• Oppression under Stalin
• Oppression under later Soviet rulers
• Oppression under Putin

When Vladimir Putin might honestly be one of the better leaders you have had in 500 years, you have had some awful ones.

If your measuring stick for leadership is Julius Caesar, then:

• Genocide
• Purges
• Mass repression

become almost normalized.

Founding myths matter. They shape what a people think is possible and acceptable.

The English are blessed that their defining mythical king is:

• Not a tyrant on a high throne
• A man sitting at a round table with his knights
• A king who fights alongside his men
• A ruler who protects justice and vanquishes evil

That is a powerful founding myth.

We have to fight to preserve it.

If you do not have Arthur, you default to Caesar. And Caesar is worse in every way.

Ryan:

I love that.

Your retention of history is insane to me. I read history and then recall it like a half‑remembered dream.

It is also encouraging to me as I work on this Arthur book.

Glastonbury Abbey, A Giant’s Skeleton, And Redesigning Arthur As A Tempest

Ryan:

I want to tell you a story I stumbled onto in my research that changed how I am drawing Arthur.

Are you familiar with the legend of Glastonbury Abbey?

Thomas:

I am not.

Ryan:

You are going to love this.

To set the stage:

You just described how Arthur’s myth hangs over English kings. At one point, a king who was not a native Englishman became obsessed with the Arthur legend. He might have been Norman.

He loved the idea of:

“A superhero king. The once and future king.”

But he did not like that the people said Arthur would return. That made him feel like a mere steward, a placeholder.

So he got clever.

He told the English:

“I love Arthur. I want to honor your culture.
I will find where he is buried and give him a heroic, public resting place.”

There was a long‑running story that Arthur’s body had been hidden after his death because of Saxon invasions.

The monks at Glastonbury Abbey eventually claimed that they had found his tomb beneath their abbey.

What I love is that the way they told it has just enough plausibility to be tantalizing.

If it were a bad fiction, they would have “stumbled” onto a tomb lined with gold while angel choirs sang.

Instead, it goes like this:

• They are digging under the abbey.
• They hit the wood of a simple coffin.
• Inside, they find the remains of a man and a woman.
• The woman’s bones are normal size.
• The man’s bones are huge.

The monks say his forearm is as long as the shin bone of a normal man.

Their tallest monk stands next to it and looks small by comparison.

They assume it is Arthur and Guinevere.

They say Arthur was basically a giant.

They reburied the remains with honor. Glastonbury became a pilgrimage site.

Whether any of that is true is almost secondary to how evocative it is.

Because as an artist, I read that and thought:

“Arthur is not just a king. He is a tempest.
He should feel like a half‑giant on the page.”

According to some historians I have read, Excalibur did not start as a magic relic. It was originally just a word meaning “sword” or “steel.”

It may be that over centuries, people misread a description of Arthur himself as “great steel” or “great strength,” and turned that into a weapon.

Saying someone wields a mighty sword might just mean they are mighty.

That gave me permission to do this:

• Make Arthur eight feet tall.
• Make him feel physically and spiritually weighty.

Not because I want him to be literally a fantasy giant, but because I want to capture that mythic exaggeration those monks were pointing at.

Thomas:

That does give him a bit of a King Saul energy.

Saul is described as head and shoulders taller than everyone else. He is physically imposing.

He starts out good and virtuous, fighting enemies, bringing peace. Then he falls into egotism and disobedience.

He becomes a tragic figure. His line could have lasted forever. Instead, his sin cuts his dynasty off.

Ryan:

What caused Saul’s downfall again?

Saul, Samuel, And Merlin As A Biblical Prophet

Thomas:

Saul was powerful and effective in war. He did a terrible job at trusting God.

He was impatient.

In Israel’s constitution, the roles were divided:

• The king handles war, taxes, executive leadership.
• The priests handle worship and temple matters.
• The prophets stand outside the system, calling everyone back to the law of God.

That was a three‑branch system. Not identical to the US system, but recognizably similar.

Kings were not allowed to offer sacrifices. That was a priestly duty.

There is a moment when Saul is under pressure. Samuel, the prophet, is late. The army is jittery. The enemy is near.

Saul decides to offer the sacrifice himself to keep the troops calm.

Samuel arrives and basically says:

“You violated your office. You disobeyed God.”

That act of self‑will and impatience becomes the hinge of his story.

There is a famous line that comes out of that confrontation:

“Obedience is better than sacrifice.”

As a father, I feel this. I will be trying to get one of my kids dressed for an outing. We are late. I need them to lie down on the changing table so I can change them quick.

Instead of obeying, they give me a big hug.

I love the hug. But in that moment, I do not want sacrifice. I want obedience.

That gave me a new lens on that biblical scene.

Saul thinks his sacrifice will please God. What God wanted was simple trust and obedience.

Ryan:

That is a great parallel.

And that makes Merlin make more sense too in Arthur’s world.

Merlin is not really a priest. He is closer to a prophet.

He is outside the formal power structure. He rebukes. He warns. He does miracles.

He is essentially Samuel with a staff and a robe.

Thomas:

Exactly.

Priests in the Old Testament do not do many miracles. Prophets do.

Merlin dresses and acts like an Old Testament prophet.

That is why it makes sense in the later Christianized Arthur stories to frame him that way rather than as a druid.

Pagan Druids, Christian Wizards, And Arthur As Bridge Culture

Ryan:

The funny thing is Merlin’s origin changes along with the story’s religious transformation.

In the earlier Celtic or druidic version, Merlin is:

• A soldier who sees his first real carnage on a battlefield
• So traumatized that he runs from civilization
• He wanders into the wild and lives there for years
• He learns the language of the birds
• He becomes intertwined with nature

That is very druidic. Magic in that frame is about:

• Nature
• Animals
• Forest spirits

Then the story passes into Christian hands. Christians do not really have room for that kind of magic.

Anything paranormal that is not directly God is, in that worldview, demonic.

So the later version says:

• Merlin’s father was a demon.
• His mother was a holy woman.
• To prevent him from becoming entirely evil, she rushed to have him baptized or blessed as soon as he was born.

He ends up a man who is half in the dark, half in the light.

I like both versions. But I realized something:

If Merlin has lived for as long as he seems to have lived in the legends,
he might not even remember which origin story is true.

Maybe some of that confusion can be woven into the narrative.

I want my graphic novel to acknowledge:

• Britain’s pagan roots
• Britain’s Christianization
• The way the two get braided together over time

Arthur himself can be the bridge:

• A Christian king
• Riding in a land that still remembers druids and old gods
• With a wizard whose presence makes some of his knights nervous

I like the idea that the knights, as serious Christians, distrust Merlin.

Over time, they see that:

• He does not subvert Arthur’s service to God.
• He is an instrument in some of God’s plans.

You can imagine a 14th‑century Christian eventually reaching a place where they say:

“If God moves through all of us,
perhaps He moves even through a strange, liminal man like Merlin.”

In my head, Arthur represents the fusion of:

• Old Celtic courage
• New Christian moral order

Merlin stands at the border between ages.

Rome’s Collapse, Britain’s Abandonment, And The Birth Of a Heroic Need

Ryan:

Another thing I came to appreciate while researching Arthur is how much people miss about cause and effect in history.

We all know:

• Ancient Rome
• Medieval Europe

But a lot of people never connect the dots that the Middle Ages exist because Rome collapsed.

Britain was not just some island. It was a Roman outpost.

When the empire pulled back, they pulled back their troops. They abandoned their infrastructure. The economy collapsed.

Britain was left naked to invaders.

Out of that vulnerability comes the need for a heroic myth like Arthur.

He is the story Britons tell themselves about:

• A just war leader
• Who rises when Rome is gone
• Who defends the land from Saxons

That is so compelling to me.

Thomas:

And it is stark.

Britain had been a beacon of stability as a Roman province.

They were insulated from many of the worst Roman civil wars because they were an outpost.

They had:

• A powerful Roman general
• A powerful garrison
• Prosperity
• Peace

Then that Roman general realized Rome had smashed itself so badly with internal conflict that he could:

• Pull his troops
• March on Rome
• Make himself emperor

That is exactly what he did.

And Britain was left alone.

The Saxons arrive and say, “Nice island you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it.”

The Britons write to Rome: “Come protect us.”

Rome replies, “We are busy in the Middle East. Figure it out.”

The historical record goes dark. It is in that darkness that Arthur may have lived, or where his myth took form.

Ryan:

I love the comparison you made earlier, of late Rome to the later seasons of The Office.

Rome’s imperial core is melting down. The provinces are getting “You guys just manage yourselves for a while. We have money problems.”

Thomas:

The late empire is wild.

They had runs of years where they had three emperors in one year.

The job was a death sentence. I do not know why anyone still wanted it.

One emperor, Diocletian, stands out.

He ruled relatively successfully for a while. And then he had this idea:

“The crowning act of my reign will be that I voluntarily step down like Cincinnatus.”

So he did.

He retired to his farm.

The empire almost immediately went back into chaos. People begged him to return.

He refused.

He basically said, “Have you seen the turnips I am growing? I hate that job. I am not going back.”

He was probably the wisest one of the whole bunch.

Cincinnatus, Washington, And The American Founding Myth

Ryan:

That is a perfect bridge into something you mentioned before that I think is huge.

You talked about how Arthur is the founding myth for England, but he is not ours.

Who is America’s Arthur?

Thomas:

For us, the father figure is George Washington.

But Washington himself had a model.

He and the other founders loved a Roman called Cincinnatus.

So much so that they:

• Named a major American city after him: Cincinnati
• Originally called that place Fort Washington, then renamed it

Short version of Cincinnatus’s story:

Rome, at that time, was still a republic. They were terrified of kings.

They had two consuls who shared power for one year, then rotated out. Former consuls could not run again for ten years.

They were so wary of “supreme executive power” lodging in one man that they built this carousel of leadership.

But they also knew emergencies happen. So they had a constitutional provision for a dictator.

A dictator:

• Could be appointed by the Senate
• Sat above the consuls
• Had total authority
• Could serve a maximum of six months

No dictator was supposed to rule longer than that.

One day, Rome was in trouble.

Neighboring tribes had smashed the consular army. That enemy was now marching on Rome.

There was a poor but highly respected soldier‑farmer named Cincinnatus. He had been bankrupted by his sons’ poor behavior. He was too broke to live in the city. He was out working his field.

Everyone knew he was the man who could save them.

So the Senate sent a delegation to his farm with a purple toga, the garment only a dictator could wear.

They put it on him in the field and basically said, “You are dictator now. Save us.”

He went to Rome.

He:

• Appointed a master of horse, his second in command
• Drafted every veteran he could find
• Marched out against the enemy
• Defeated them in a massive, decisive battle

He came back victorious.

He could have:

• Taken a triumph
• Enriched himself for the remainder of his six‑month term

Instead, after two weeks, he resigned and went back to his farm.

He did not abuse the office. He did his duty and walked away.

That is the model Washington was thinking about when he stepped down from the presidency.

Everyone expected him to stay for life.

They practically offered him a kingship.

He said no.

He retired to Mount Vernon.

That act:

• Shocked the world
• Set the precedent for two‑term presidents
• Probably extended the lifespan of the American experiment by centuries

If Washington had remained:

• President for life
• Then Jefferson had taken over
• Then he stayed until death

We might have turned into a typical “strongman democracy” and burned out by the mid‑1800s.

Ryan:

I knew the story of Cincinnatus, but I did not know Washington was consciously following him.

That is a powerful connection.

Arthur As England’s Conscience, Caesar As Russia’s Shadow, And What Our Heroes Say About Us

Thomas:

This goes back to Arthur in a big way.

Arthur functions for England the way Cincinnatus functions for America. He is the figure everyone in power is quietly compared to.

And then you have rulers like Napoleon explicitly modeling themselves on Caesar.

Napoleon:

• Called himself consul before he called himself emperor
• Posed in Caesar‑like postures
• Tried to follow that path

He wore the myth he admired.

Leaders copy the heroes in their heads.

Today, some leaders might model themselves on Churchill. I do not know who Churchill modeled himself on.

He was such a student of history that I think he drew from the whole tapestry.

In any case:

You can tell a lot about a man by who his heroes are.
You can tell a lot about a people by who their collective heroes are.

Do we celebrate:

• Tricksters?
• Warriors?
• Saints?
• Artists?
• Conquerors?

There will always be many heroes, but a few sit at the top and shape a culture’s imagination of what a human can be.

Arthur has defined the English.

We Americans gravitate toward Washington and Cincinnatus.

Russia gravitates toward Caesar.

The myths you honor are choices. They are not trivial.

Churchill, Language, And Drafting Words For War

Ryan:

Speaking of Churchill, I have to mention one more thing.

There is a story, maybe apocryphal, from early in World War II.

Some English leaders were already talking about terms of surrender to the Nazis. This was before America entered the war.

Churchill is supposed to have said something like:

“We will talk about surrender when every man in this room has choked on his own blood.”

Whether he actually said it or not, it feels perfectly in‑character.

He had no illusions about the Nazis. He knew surrender was not a way to go back to normal. It was a way to have:

• Millions of English men, women, and children killed or enslaved

So he dug his heels in.

Thomas:

There is another line about Churchill I love. I will paraphrase it.

Someone wrote that:

“He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

He is perhaps unique among top‑tier leaders for being:

• A warrior
• A statesman
• A world‑class writer and orator

Most of those archetypes do not overlap.

Napoleon was not famous for his oratory. Arthur is not famous for speeches. George Washington’s greatest speech was leaving office.

Churchill is almost his own archetype.

Wrapping Up: Archetypes, Culture, And Why Clear Heroes Still Matter

Ryan:

I know you have to get back to your family. I do not want your wife to resent me for keeping reinforcements from her.

I want to say this before you go:

This has been a total pleasure.

I feel like I could listen to you talk for twelve hours straight. It is like history ambience for artists.

My chat loves you.

Thomas:

I love the chat too.

Ryan:

So before we wind down, please tell people where they can find you and your shows.

Thomas:

There are three shows, plus my site.

• Novel Marketing

• My flagship show.
• About getting more readers.
• We also sometimes dive into culture and zeitgeist.

• The Christian Publishing Show

• Focused on writing craft and the publishing process.
• Audio‑only right now.

• Author Update

• A weekly show on the Novel Marketing YouTube channel.
• We talk about news and how it applies to authors.

If you want more of my cultural and narrative commentary, look for the Crafted Culture playlist on YouTube. Those are the episodes where I really dig into:

• Story
• Culture
• Archetypes

And my personal website is thomasumstattd.com. If you can spell Umstattd, you can get there.

Ryan:

God bless you, Thomas.

This was wonderful. I had a great time and hope you can come on again.

Thomas:

This was fun. Thanks for having me.

Aftermath: Chat Reactions, English Class, And The Work Still To Do

Ryan:

Well, all right, everybody.

I probably missed a lot in the chat during that conversation.

What I can tell you is this:

• English class was a lie.
• My guest is really smart.
• His brain seems like a steel trap for history.

He actually came on specifically because he wanted to talk King Arthur.

I want to pick his brain more, especially as I keep working on the Knights of Camelot graphic novel and the next volumes of Black Marrow.

I have some paid client work to do now. It is all under NDA, so I cannot show you yet.

I will post this episode on Patreon and in the Discord. Maybe I will do an uncut version there, because I will probably tighten the public version a bit and cut some of my stair‑tumble rambles.

We explored the similarities between marketing novels and creative projects like board games. We talked about Kickstarter strategies, email lists, engaging newsletters, and more.

I asked ChatGPT to write a summary of the episode and here is what it said:

In a recent episode of the Axe to Grind podcast, Alexander McCreese hosted Thomas Umstead, a marketing expert and founder of Author Media, to discuss the secrets of marketing for indie creators. The conversation bridged the world of indie novelists and creators in gaming, board games, and Kickstarter campaigns. Here’s a comprehensive recap of the insights they shared.

Marketing Across Industries: Lessons from Novels and Games

Thomas Umstead began by highlighting the parallels between marketing indie novels and other creative products. He explained that Kickstarter has been a transformative platform for creators, starting with its roots in the board game community. Stretch goals, a common feature of crowdfunding, originated in board game campaigns and have become a standard across industries. However, the most successful Kickstarter projects today are often books, thanks to innovative approaches adopted by authors.

For creators launching their first Kickstarter, Umstead suggested leveraging their personal networks—the same people who would attend a wedding or baby shower. These early supporters create momentum and establish credibility. The second Kickstarter, however, relies on fans rather than friends. At this stage, creators must build a dedicated email list, a strategy long perfected by authors.

The Power of Email Lists

Umstead emphasized that an email list is one of the most powerful tools for indie creators. Authors meticulously cultivate these lists, keeping fans engaged through newsletters. A good email list converts superfans into backers who eagerly preorder new products. He encouraged creators to incentivize sign-ups by integrating invitations and QR codes into their existing content, like board game rulebooks.

When asked about the ideal size for an email list, Umstead noted that 500 engaged subscribers could make a significant impact for indie authors or creators. He also stressed the importance of sending regular updates, at least quarterly, to keep lists active and avoid spam filters. The key, he said, is balancing quality and quantity—an engaged list of superfans is far more valuable than a large, disinterested audience.

Creating Content Fans Want

McCreese shared his struggle to consistently generate newsletter content. Umstead advised against weekly newsletters unless inspiration strikes regularly. Monthly updates often suffice, with more frequent emails before and after a launch. Content ideas include reviews and recommendations of books, games, or media that align with the creator’s niche. These insights demonstrate shared tastes and build trust.

For example, a writer of military science fiction could review similar books from a unique perspective, such as a former military member’s take on authenticity. This approach resonates with fans and cements the creator’s authority in their genre. Reviews don’t need to be groundbreaking—honest opinions can be enough to spark engagement.

Building a Brand: Personality vs. Product

A recurring theme in the conversation was the balance between marketing the creator and marketing the product. Umstead explained that human connection drives loyalty. Fans are more likely to follow and support a person than a faceless brand. This doesn’t mean overexposing oneself on social media. Instead, creators should strategically reveal aspects of their personality that align with their audience’s values and interests.

McCreese reflected on his experiences managing multiple brands under his name. Umstead recommended creating a central hub, like a personal website, that links to all projects. This simplifies the discovery process for new fans and strengthens the creator’s overall brand.

Advertising and Platform Strategies

The conversation also touched on paid advertising. Umstead noted that ads can be highly effective when executed well. However, advertising amplifies existing strengths and weaknesses. A great product with poor advertising will underperform, and vice versa. He suggested creators focus on three key elements before investing in ads: an appealing product, a clear pitch, and professional presentation.

While platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and BoardGameGeek offer ad opportunities, Umstead cautioned against relying solely on them. Creators must own their audience through email lists and personal websites to mitigate the risks of algorithmic changes or deplatforming.

Understanding Your Audience

Knowing the target audience is fundamental to any successful campaign. Umstead advised creators to focus on specific individuals rather than broad demographics. By identifying and engaging with one real-life “Timothy,” creators can gain valuable insights into preferences and motivations. This approach ensures that products resonate deeply with a niche audience, which is often the key to success in indie spaces.

Marketing to Men vs. Women

The discussion also explored differences in marketing to men versus women. Umstead observed that content designed for men often attracts women as well, while the reverse is less common. He encouraged creators to focus on thrilling their core audience rather than diluting their message to appeal to everyone. Authenticity and specificity, he said, are inherently inviting.

Navigating Political Divides

In today’s polarized environment, creators must also navigate political divides. Umstead acknowledged that marketing efforts might resonate more with one side of the political spectrum than the other. He advised creators to embrace this reality and focus on building a loyal audience rather than attempting to appease everyone.

Direct Selling and Cancel-Proof Strategies

The podcast concluded with a discussion on direct selling and cancel-proofing one’s platform. Umstead championed direct sales as a viable option for creators with an engaged audience. By owning email lists, websites, and other platforms, creators can safeguard their businesses against deplatforming and algorithm changes. He warned against relying on social media as the sole means of reaching fans, likening it to being a chicken in a coop controlled by others.

Final Thoughts

The episode offered a wealth of actionable advice for indie creators. Whether you’re an author, board game designer, or content creator, the principles of knowing your audience, building an email list, and presenting a clear, engaging brand are universal. As Umstead succinctly put it, “Great marketing can’t save a bad product, but it can help a good one reach its potential.”

In this episode of Writing of Social Sandy, Mary K. and I talk about what kind of marketing actually works for authors.

About Writing off Social

Sandy and Mary believe that creativity flourishes when writers are free to choose their own path. They spent years feeling trapped by social media, believing it was the only way to grow their audience and share their work. But not anymore. They have discovered countless ways to connect to and nurture their audience—ways that offer a better return on their investment of time, and that don’t drain their energy.

As they have become more vocal about their decision to leave social media, writers like you are emerging from behind your computer screens to say, “Hey there! Social media isn’t working for me either.”

They see you and are glad you’re here.

If they call you Hitler, explaining how you can make the trains run on time won’t win you the election. 

The 1990s Were 30 Years Ago

In 1992, Bill Clinton won the election with a single line: “It’s About the Economy, Stupid.” Back then, the American people didn’t care about Clinton’s affairs, alleged rapes, or sordid morality. They cared about the economy, and Bill Clinton promised a good economy. He won in 1992. Clinton wouldn’t win today.

People change. Culture changes. Even you change. The commercials that made us cry back in the day now make us cringe.

One shift among voters is they’ve become more morally motivated, which surprisingly has hurt Republicans. Culture’s ethical code has shifting away from traditional values.

Republicans celebrate that the American people think Biden is terrible with the economy. They revel in the failure of Bidenomics. They think voters will vote their pocketbooks. Don’t bet the future of the country on that.

Why?

Because most Americans stopped going to church.

And, since most Americans don’t go to church, they can’t draw a sense of moral superiority from feeling like they go to the right kind of church. There are few feelings in the world as intoxicating as moral superiority. So if they can’t find moral superiority from church, where will they get it? The ballot box.

In 1991, 44% of Americans went to church every Sunday. In 2023, that number dropped to 31%. That is around 35 million Americans who used to attend church and have since stopped. 35m extra voters is all you need to win an election.

The Democrats say if you vote for them, you will be a virtuous and inclusive person. And many voters, longing for moral validation, accept this line. Voters have traded the confession booth for the ballot box as the path to virtue. 

You are suspicious of this idea, and I understand. Let me flip things around to make my point.

Flip #1: Brexit

Voters in the UK wanted to live under their own laws. The media and their leaders (from all three parties!) told them it would be bad for their economy if they left the EU. Voting “leave” would mean Brits would lose jobs, and everyone would be poorer. The voters said, “We don’t care about the economy. Our sovereignty is more important than our economy. We want our country back.” This moral argument is the reason there is no push to rejoin the EU despite economic turbulence in the UK. 

Flip #2: Argentina

In 2023, Javier Milei won presidential election in Argentina as a libertarian. How? He was willing to call his socialist opponent evil, decadent, and stupid. Decadence is a powerful concept because it conveys a moral judgement on economic behavior. “Decadent democrats feasting while the people starve” is a more persuasive image than pointing out how Marxist economic theory is flawed.  

Pointing out how the opponent is stupid is not enough to win in 2024. Remember, people need a moral reason to vote. Milei’s moral arguments for his economic positions resulted in a landslide in a country historically run by socialists. Libertarians typically lose because they get lost in the numbers.

Why do people vote? I think for most people, they vote to feel good about themselves, to feel virtuous. In the ballot box for this kind of voter, moral arguments beat economic arguments.

Moral Victories in Elections

So, let’s take the last few presidential races and look at them through a moral lens.

2008 Election: Obama: Vote for me & prove you’re not racist.

The pitch for Obama was an invitation to prove to yourself and others that you were not racist. Oh, and the other guy is Hitler. Sure, John McCain and Mitt Romney were pretty milquetoast and not very Hitlerish, but according to the media, they were Hitler!

2016 Election Trump: Vote for me and drain the swamp. Also, I’m not a corrupt murderer. 

2016 was an interesting year. Trump would have lost the moral authority to just about anyone. Anyone, that is, except for Hillary Clinton. Hilary suiciding her close confidants is a meme that is hard to shake. Of the two, Trump looked like the more moral choice. Hillary failed to make voters feel virtuous voting for her. 

2020 Election Biden: Vote for me. I’m not Hitler.

In the 2020 election, the Democrats painted Trump as a science-denying, grandma-murdering Neo-Nazi. Biden was a kindly old grandpa who felt your pain. When given the choice between Hitler and Grandpa, the American people chose Grandpa. 

Making it Make Sense

Now that we understand this moral approach to politics, it explains a few things.

Why does The Left fear QAnon?

What motivated the incredible media backlash to the QAnon conspiracy? Seriously, why all the attention and censorship for a fringe theory most voters have never heard of? QAnon was an existential threat to Democrats because it threatened the left’s moral superiority. The QAnon conspiracy claims that Democrat elites were raping, murdering, child trafficking pedophiles. Voting for a murdering pedophile does not give voters a feeling of moral superiority. 

Why is Biden’s approval falling?

The economy has been bad for a while. But Biden’s popularity is not tracking with the economy. Biden’s numbers are the lowest they have ever been, even though the economy is better than last year.

So, what is hurting Biden’s numbers?

The bribery scandal and the Israel conflict. 

The more Biden looks like a liar, a rapist, and Hamas terrorist loving, crime lord, the more his support among Americans drops. For the Democrats to win, their candidate must be the virtuous choice. Especially with a bad economy. This is why the left fights so hard to define what virtue is. 

The Path to Electoral Victory is the Moral Path

Stop calling Biden an old man. That makes him look benign. Voters long for benign. And, Biden is not benign. Biden is a tyrant who takes bribes, perverts justice, and backstabs our allies. When Biden is lucid, he is dangerous. When he is not lucid, the people around him turn him into an evil puppet. 

If Republicans want to win in 2024, voters must see them as the more virtuous choice. Democrats must be shown for the corrupt, censoring tyrants that they are. Remember, when you give Democrats power, they use it to kill babies, castrate children, and take voters rights away. 

Make The Left Nazis Again

The Far Left has given Republicans a fantastic opportunity. When the Far Left calls for Jews to be purged “from the river to the sea,” they sound a lot like Nazis. Republicans can’t let them get away with this kind of rhetoric, not only for the sake of the Jews who need a homeland to be safe but for the sake of winning in November. 

The more Republicans call the Far Left “Antisemitic Nazis” the worse the Far Left will look. Plus, when the Far Left inevitably call the Republican nominee a Nazi (which they do every cycle), it will ring hollow. Eventually, voters will start enforcing Godwin’s law, but until they do, the other side must be Hitler. 

Make “Communist” a Meaningful Slur

Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to turn November 7 into Victims of Communism Day. This is how you achieve moral victory. Few Americans know that communism killed more people in one century than all of the religious wars throughout all of history combined. Communism is not a harmless move toward fairness. It is death, destruction, and evil. Those who call for communism call for evil. Those who vote for communists do evil.  Good virtuous people don’t vote for communists. 

Stand Strong for Life

Moral victory on abortion is critical to long-term success. If Republicans want to win, start calling pro-abortion candidates baby killers. Stop equivocating. Our lack of moral conviction is killing our electability. If Republicans lose, pro-life candidates become rapists telling innocent women what they can do with their bodies. No one wants to vote for a rapist. If Republicans wimp out on abortion, they will sacrifice the moral high ground and any chance for victory long term. Democrats are either baby killers or Republicans are rapists.  There’s no middle ground.

You either win, or you lose. It’s time to start winning.

About Writing off Social

Sandy and Mary believe that creativity flourishes when writers are free to choose their own path. They spent years feeling trapped by social media, believing it was the only way to grow their audience and share their work. But not anymore. They have discovered countless ways to connect to and nurture their audience—ways that offer a better return on their investment of time, and that don’t drain their energy.

As they have become more vocal about their decision to leave social media, writers like you are emerging from behind your computer screens to say, “Hey there! Social media isn’t working for me either.”

They see you and are glad you’re here.

In this episode, Kent Sanders and I discuss:

• Non-book related ways to monetize your author platform.
• How to diversify your income stream.
• The role of Patreon in his business.
• And more!

Last week, the blog version of an episode of Christian Publishing Show went viral, or at least it sparked a lot of discussion. Mostly here and here. In that episode, I talked about how Morality is key to making a book sell across both culture and time. Muddled morality is why newer superhero movies are failing, where the films of the last decade sold like crazy. I had a lot more to say than that and you can listen to the episode here.

The guys at the Fantastical Truth Podcast wanted to talk to me about the topic. So you can think of this as a sequel episode where we give many more examples or morality in fiction and get deeper into the theology. You can find the blog version of the episode here.

There is also a video version you can find here:

In this episode of Cary and Cooper Have Words, we talk about the process of writing a novel, how to do it, and what pitfalls to look out for.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The fundamentals of marketing fiction
• Content marketing for fiction
• Utilizing the nonfiction themes beneath your fiction for marketing
• The hallmarks and history of Christian publishing
• Why readers choose certain genres
• Tips for pitching a podcast

You can find the blog version of the interview here. If you don’t yet listen to the Creative Penn podcast, you should check it out. It is one of the best publishing podcasts out there.

In this episode you will learn:

• Advice for authors who worry “if I start talking about my book NOW, no one will buy it when it releases LATER”
• How to maximize the back of your book to build your email list and sell more books
• How podcast hosts can collaborate on one episode to air and market on both shows (see below for example)
• Using a Guestcast to share your own guest interviews (see Thomas’ linked below)
• His podcast host directory (with email addresses) for his Patreon members
• & more!

In this episode of Fantastical Truth, E. Stephen Burnett, Zackary Russell, and I talk with me about how Christian authors can and should navigate secular publishing markets.

Specifically, we talk about the myth that long ago, Christians and publishing companies lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when evangelicals got fearful and/or legalistic, so they chose to leave the big publishers and start their own Christian publishers.

If you want to find out what really happened, listen to this episode.

Learn the first steps an author should take before creating a course, the common mistakes course creators make, how to attract students to your course, how to help your students benefit the most from your course.

LInks:

• Author Websites Course
• Book Launch Blueprint Course
• Obscure No More Beta Course

Here is the blog version:

Welcome to Your Best Writing Life, an extension of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference held in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I’m your host, Linda Goldfarb. Each week, I bring you tips and strategies from experts in the writing and publishing industry to help you excel in your craft.

Today, we’re discussing creating online courses. My industry expert is Thomas Umstattd, Jr. Thomas, the founder of Author Media and the host of the Novel Marketing Podcast. Thomas helps authors build their platforms, sell more books, and change the world with writing worth talking about. He has also been creating online courses for ten years, making him the perfect fit for today’s topic.

Why are online courses so popular now?

Linda: Online courses have recently taken off in popularity. Why is that?

Thomas: Learning online has been a part of the internet from the beginning. But online courses grew as people got faster internet connections and could listen to audio and watch videos. The real explosion came during the pandemic in 2020. People were locked down, conferences were canceled, and a lot of people tried online courses for the first time in 2020. That’s when the market took a massive step forward in terms of people’s acceptance of online courses. Their children were going to school online, and online learning became almost normalized.

Online learning is here in a big way, and it’s here to stay.

Linda: I agree it’s here to stay. It’s a new normal that has infiltrated families and homes. Everyone has a device to learn from online courses. Zoomers make this a popular new process for everyone.

Why would an author want to create a course?

Thomas: In short, the money is a lot better, and the transformation is better. If someone reads a book on dieting, they may or may not implement what they learn. However, if they take a course that includes interactive elements like coaching and community, they are much more likely to apply what they’re learning and finish the course. People buy books on various topics all the time but never finish them. Sometimes, they don’t even start reading, and if they do, they rarely put the information into practice.

That’s one of the main reasons I became interested in creating courses. I wasn’t seeing much transformation from people who only read books, partly because they weren’t as invested. A book might cost around $20, which isn’t a significant amount of money, so there’s little motivation to finish it or act on its contents. For many people, buying the book feels like enough, so they end up with bookshelves full of unread or partially read books.

By contrast, a course, particularly one that is expensive, requires a higher level of commitment. The cost itself creates a sense of investment, which makes people more determined to complete the course. And since courses tend to be interactive and offer more than just words on a page, participants are more likely to apply what they learn, which leads to the transformation they want.

How can we track our return on investment when we pay for a course?

Linda: When we talk about the financial investment of wanting to expand our knowledge by taking a course to improve our craft, how can we track the return on that investment?

Thomas: Tracking return on investment is a pretty straightforward financial calculation. You track how much money you spent on something, and then you track how much that activity brought back financially. Education is a little tricky because how can you measure the value of a high school diploma? What’s the value of a college degree?

I took some classes in business school that were invaluable. They saved me from multi-million-dollar mistakes. I also took some useless classes that cost me the same amount of money. The good professors and the bad ones were all the same overpriced amount of money. College is incredibly expensive. Even when I went to school years ago, my textbooks alone cost $300, and the price of education has only increased since then. Today, some college degrees aren’t worth the investment. Many liberal arts degrees, for example, don’t provide a return that justifies the cost. If you look at the data, degrees in engineering or nursing are still solid investments, but degrees like art history often leave graduates struggling with debt. Many art history majors never earn enough to comfortably pay off the loans they took out to finance their education. When pursuing a career-focused degree, it’s important to consider how the earning potential of that new career compares to your previous one.

When I was considering getting an MBA, the university provided information on the ROI for their programs. The ROI for the executive MBA program was significantly higher than for the regular MBA program because, in the executive MBA program, you could continue working your day job. In contrast, leaving your job for two or three years to attend a traditional MBA program increases the overall cost. Not only are you paying for tuition, but you’re also missing out on the income you would have earned during that time. That creates a lot of financial pressure.

Let’s say you take a simple course on how to build a website. You take the course, and it’s $100, and you spend $300 on building the website. Now, you’re $400 invested in the website. Hiring somebody to build the website would have cost you $2,400. So, that course had an ROI of $2,000 of saved money. But really, it’s more than that because since you’ve built your website, you now know how to make changes to it, and you have more control of it. You don’t have to call someone.

On the other hand, that professional probably would have done a better job. A professional web designer has more experience because they’ve built hundreds of websites. They know how to avoid things that you didn’t learn about in that course. So, it makes it hard to judge. What’s better, spending less money and getting the experience plus control or hiring the professional? Learning about business is important because you’ll have to answer those kinds of questions, and often, there are no simple answers.

Linda: I ask because many people will hold back and wait for that perfect opportunity. Most of the time, there’s no perfect situation. But if we don’t take action—if we don’t invest in a course or take steps toward improving our lives or building that website we dream of—then we’ll stay exactly where we are. And who has time for that?

I love online courses. I may be addicted to them. I determine my return on investment by which course is applicable right now for my next best step. It narrows my field a little. I used to want to sign up for everything, especially if it had a good price on it, but I’d find I wasn’t ready to use the information. I do like courses that offer lifetime access because I can come back to the course when I’m ready for it.

What are the first steps a writer should take to create a course?

Thomas: The first step is to master your content. You need to practice presenting what you’re teaching in public. Having a podcast is the most natural first step for creating a course because it allows you to get used to creating multimedia content. A YouTube channel also is helpful because you can practice teaching via video.

Choose a method that allows you to build both your audience and your credibility. It’s tempting to jump in too quickly by creating a course before anyone knows who you are or trusts your expertise. You could develop the best course in the world, but if you don’t have an audience or a way to spread the word, no one will take it. As a result, no lives will be changed, and you won’t make any money.

The quality of your course alone isn’t what sells it; it’s the quality of your other content that drives sales. The first step is to establish yourself by blogging, podcasting, or creating YouTube videos. Focus on providing valuable content where you can begin teaching people about your topic. For example, if you have a course on parenting that includes a five-step system for building a better relationship with your children, start by creating a podcast on parenting. Share your insights, discuss your five steps, and interview parenting experts. This approach builds your authority and attracts an audience that will be more likely to invest in your course.

It’s not about keeping your knowledge secret because people don’t pay for knowledge. Some course creators offer a course on a topic for $500, and they have a book on the same topic for $20. It’s the same information, but information alone is not transformation. Don’t feel like you have to keep your information secret because somebody will always be willing to give it away cheaper. You can’t patent or copyright an idea. Ideas spread from person to person.

Another good way to practice is teaching in real life. Go to meetup groups and present on your topic. Speak at conferences. Most of my course came from material I presented at writers conferences. I presented in Hawaii and Switzerland for a week, and I put in a lot of work to teach a career’s worth of training. The live trainings had to be adapted for video, but in the live setting, especially the Q&A at the end, I learned what made sense and what resonated with the students. In Switzerland, I learned that some of my cultural references were offensive to the Europeans.

How do you balance your teaching and podcasting career with your busy home life?

Linda: You have a full life with three young children, the youngest a newborn, and you are effectively teaching in the arena where God has you. You have a couple of podcasts, you’re training and teaching authors, plus you have a busy home life. Do you ever find it a challenge to balance it all?

Thomas: For sure. In 2019, I was spread so thin that I had a mental breakdown. I couldn’t get out of bed for a whole day. I had so much to do. That breakdown led to a season of pruning where I gave up a lot of things. I stepped down as a literary agent, stopped three of my five podcasts, and cut other activities. I was forced to make a full-time job of helping authors. Most people in this industry have writing as a side hustle, and they have another primary source of income. For me, this is it. I’m the sole breadwinner. If I’m going to feed my family, the income has to come from authors I help, people who listen to the podcast and support me on Patreon, or the people who go through courses. When I talk about courses and making money, I’m not doing that in a mercenary sense. I’m doing it because I have to pay the bills. Diapers aren’t cheap, and I have three kids and diapers right now.

Linda: It’s important for writers to understand that creating an online course isn’t just a fun side project or another task to add to their list. It requires a significant investment of both time and training.

It’s also important to consider the need for networking and to plan how much time you can realistically dedicate to this effort. Creating an online course isn’t something you can just wake up and start doing tomorrow. It requires careful planning and a big-picture view. If you’re going to do it, be prepared, stay organized, and remember to maintain balance at home.

Christians want to impact the world with knowledge of the good news through writing and podcasting, but God has also given us our families as a ministry. If you have a family but don’t have that balance, at some point, you’re going to crash and be ineffective.

So don’t jump into course creation tomorrow if it’s not God’s best next step for you. But, if he’s directing you there, make sure you’re investing in yourself and the opportunity so that when it comes to fruition, it will be your best effort.

Thomas: You can create courses without making it your full-time business. For me, creating courses is my full-time day job. However, many authors write a book on a topic and start to get emails from readers saying, “That was so helpful, but I want more than what’s in the book. Coaching is very time intensive, so authors often create a course. It’s like the advanced version of the book. You can get the book for $20 or the course for $150. They develop the material and sell it online or in person at conferences.

You don’t have to create a huge course. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it, especially right away. It took me ten years to get here, and I took a lot of wrong turns along the way.

Linda: Do you have a course on making courses?

Thomas: I do not. The best course on course making is from Teachable (Affiliate Link), a platform for course creators. You have to pay for teachable, but as a perk, you get their robust course, too.

What are some common mistakes course creators make?

Mistake #1: Make the course first.

Thomas: The biggest mistake is that they make the course first. They start outlining the material they want to teach and start recording videos. That’s actually backward.

One thing I learned the hard way is that when you’re making a course, the first thing you need to make is the landing page or the sales page.

If you want somebody to spend several hundred dollars with you, you have to make a compelling promise of life transformation that your course will give. For example, one of my courses is Obscure No More. It’s all about how to build an author platform, and the promise is that you’re going to go from being obscure, where no one really knows who you are, to being notable. You’re going to have a platform. People are going to know who you are, and they will be anticipating your book’s release because they already know, like, and trust you.

Step #1: Create the Sales Page

Build your sales page first and figure out the right promise to make for your prospective students. Instead of trying to sell them what you think they need, sell them something they actually want. Nobody wants to take a course on eating more vegetables, but they might take a course on weight loss that teaches them to eat more vegetables. It’s important to frame it correctly.

Step #2: Gather Beta Students

After you create the landing page, you still don’t create the course. Everyone wants to jump into course creation at this point, but it’s still a mistake.

The next step is to gather beta students who get the course cheap and as it’s made. As you’re making the course for this initial group of students, you’re getting immediate feedback from students, and you can iterate. The nice thing about having beta students is that while they’re paying less, they’re still paying something. If you can’t get beta students, you don’t make the course.

Step #3: Launch it for Real

Once you’ve finished with creating the course for beta students, you can launch it for real.

Don’t spend 100 hours creating a course before you find an audience. You might be slightly off in your approach, and a small adjustment to the promise or your target audience could make all the difference. For example, you might think you’re creating content for women, only to realize your audience is actually teenage girls. While that might seem like a small shift, it can change everything. You’d suddenly find yourself needing to re-record hours of video because your references aren’t relevant to a younger audience. That’s why it’s crucial to figure these things out in advance. As tempting as it is to dive into course creation, building your audience first is key.

I learned a valuable lesson the hard way with my first business. After experiencing that failure, I came across a book called The Lean Startup, which introduced the concept of a “minimum viable product” (MVP). The idea is to create the simplest version of your product that people would be willing to buy. You release this MVP as an experiment to test whether there’s genuine demand for it. From there, you can gradually build on that base, adding more content and features. The key is to use the MVP to determine if people actually want the course and, more importantly, if they want it from you. Even if it’s a great course idea, without the credibility or audience to back it up, it might not succeed. In many ways, creating the course should be the final step in building your platform.

How do you choose good beta students?

Thomas: A beta student is still a paying student. I wouldn’t give away free versions of the course for beta students. In my experience, when you give somebody a course for free, they almost never finish it. They’re not invested.

Linda, you could probably name a dozen free courses you’ve signed up for but never actually started. You saw they were free, so you enrolled, and now you’re on their email list, which was their real goal all along. But you never ended up going through the course. If you spend $500 for a course, you’re going to watch those videos.

You won’t get good feedback from somebody who’s not a paying student. If they saw your landing page, read the description of the course, and decided they wanted to pay for it, then they’re probably a good beta student.

My course Obscure No More is still in beta. We’re doing an extended beta because it’s a big course, but it has been really informative. I’ve been asking students which module they want next, and I let them vote. They voted for search engine optimization (SEO) and learning how to make their websites rank better on Google. That is the most technical, esoteric topic I ever speak on, but they hadn’t received that training from anyone else. Suddenly, they’re the only author in their space that’s got an optimized website, and they’re ranking really well. I would have never guessed they wanted to learn SEO because most authors that I interact with don’t want to. Building the website is hard enough. But it was an interesting topic for students who are paying for the course. That process allowed me to make the course that they wanted, and I wouldn’t have known that without that feedback.

Linda: If we’re in our own head thinking we’re giving someone what we think they need, we’re going to miss the mark. If we open it up and ask, “What do you want now?” we can feed students something they’re hungry for instead of trying to tell them what they should eat or be hungry for.

How do you attract students who want to register?

Thomas: I’ll tell you what most gurus advise, and then I’ll tell you what I do.

Most course creators allocate a significant portion of their budget to Facebook ads. For example, if they offer a course priced at $500, they might spend up to $250 per student on ads to attract them. That means half of the course revenue goes to advertising. It’s common for course creators to spend thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars on Facebook ads. And to be fair, that approach does work; there’s a reason so many people use it. While I’m not dismissing that strategy, it’s just not what I currently do, though I reserve the right to try it in the future.

Leveraging the Email List

What’s worked for me is leveraging my podcasts and their respective email lists. The Novel Marketing Podcast and the Christian Publishing Show have large, engaged audiences. In fact, we have more email subscribers than individual episode listeners because many people prefer to subscribe via email and only listen to episodes that interest them. Over the past 15 years, I’ve built those strong email lists, which I use to let subscribers know about new courses. My core group of students for my courses usually come from my email lists.

Another promotional tool I use is affiliate webinars. Instead of directly inviting people to the course, I invite my email list to a webinar where I present what I call “Session Zero.” It’s essentially an introductory session about why this topic is important. It’s the class I wish all my college professors had taught. You know that first day of class when you’re just going over the syllabus? Some professors would walk through the expectations and then dismiss class early, while others would take 15 minutes to explain why the topic was important and how it would benefit us long-term. I always did better in those classes where the professor emphasized the importance of the material, saying, “You’re going to need this for the rest of your life, and here’s why.”

Sometimes, I already understood the importance of the subject before I even walked into the classroom. For example, when I took business law, I knew from growing up in a family of businesspeople how crucial legal knowledge was and how costly legal mistakes could be. After just two classes, I realized that my professor wasn’t challenging us enough, so I dropped the class. I intentionally sought out the hardest, most rigorous business law professor because I knew that learning these lessons through experience or hiring a lawyer would be far more expensive. I attended every class, sat in the front row, and took detailed notes because I understood how valuable that knowledge was.

Well, that “why this is important” also happens to be a really good sales pitch for why you should spend the money.

I adapt “Session Zero” into a kind of sales pitch webinar where I’m both teaching and selling at the same time. The content is structured so that even if attendees don’t end up purchasing the course, they still feel they learned a lot from the webinar. This way, they’re more likely to join future webinars. Since I offer multiple courses, I recognize that the one I’m presenting might not be the right fit for everyone at that moment. For example, if the course is about launching a book and they’re not ready for that stage yet, they might need a course on writing the book instead, and I have that course, too. My goal is to maintain a positive relationship with my email subscribers, providing value so they’ll keep engaging with my content.

Conducting Affiliate Webinars

The second technique I use is affiliate webinars, where I present the same webinar to someone else’s audience. For example, Linda, if you have a large email list, you’d host the webinar and invite your subscribers to join. I’d deliver the webinar on Crowdcast, presenting it to your audience, and we’d include a link for them to register. You would earn a commission for each sale generated through that link. Many of our students come from these affiliate webinars because many influencers and experts have their own unique audiences. They can earn good money from these webinars without having to create a course themselves, and I gain students I might not have reached otherwise.

What if an author doesn’t have a robust email list?

Thomas: The email list is the first step. If someone won’t trust you with their email, they won’t trust you with their money. You have to learn how to gain enough trust for somebody to give you their email address first.

One technique you can use to build your list is to create a small course that offers one small but specific transformation and give that course away for free. When people take that free course, they get a taste of your teaching style and expertise, and you get their email address. They pay you with their email address. I get a lot of my email subscribers from my free course about how to build an author website.

At the end of each podcast episode, I might promote my free course on building an author website, where I guide you step-by-step through the entire process. I show you exactly what to sign up for, which buttons to click, and how to create your own WordPress website. By the end of the course, participants have a website they built themselves. I use the podcast to promote this course, which helps convert listeners into email subscribers while giving them a taste of what an Author Media course is like. Giving away a small course in exchange for a student’s email is an effective way to build your list, but it’s essential to have a strategy for spreading the word about the course. Otherwise, your list won’t grow.

Linda: We often invite people to be involved in their area of expertise, even if they are not the expert being featured, which is similar to what you’re doing with affiliate webinars.

Writers wanting to build their email lists need to network. They need to get out there and find out where their audience is spending their time before they invite their audience to spend time with themselves. That takes an investment of time, energy, and research. It is work. It’s not a matter of deciding to explode my email list in a day. It’s finding out what works and how to approach my audience. It’s discovering the best way to touch the heart of my audience and give them content that makes them willing to support me. I’m willing to invest in the knowledge this person has because I know it’s going to help me be a better coach.

When I meet someone for the first time, I try to determine if we’re a fit for coaching. It might not have to do with coaching at the time, but I want them to walk away with something that makes them say, “Wow, she gave me something, and I didn’t even pay her for this. If this is what I get without paying her, what am I going to get when I do pay her?”

It’s a similar approach to your “Session Zero.”

You don’t give away all your experience or expertise, but you give enough to make them change their posture and lean it to hear more. The next time you do a webinar, they’ll show up.

When we are willing to give someone something of value, regardless of whether they purchase anything, they will spread the word about your content.

They’ll say, “Have you heard of Thomas Umstattdd, Jr.? Have you attended any of his online events or seen him in person?” I’ve done both, and whether it’s in person or online, you always over-deliver. You provide more value than people even realize they need, which is why they keep coming back for more. That’s exactly what we should all aim to do. We should focus on giving generously without the fear of, “If I give too much, they won’t buy the book.” Just give them what they need, and they’ll keep showing up. So, yes, keep giving!

Thomas: That’s the principle of reciprocity in action. Jesus taught about the principle of reciprocity in his puzzling parable of the unjust steward. In the story, there’s a steward—essentially a CEO—who’s caught embezzling money from his employer. Instead of firing the steward immediately, which is what we’re taught to do in business when someone is caught stealing, the owner allows him to stay on. The steward then goes on to reduce the debts of everyone who owes his master money, essentially buying favor with them by saying things like, “You owe 500 bushels of wheat? Let’s make it 300.” Surprisingly, at the end of the parable, he’s praised for his shrewdness, and Jesus remarks that “the children of darkness are more shrewd than the children of light.”

What lesson is Jesus trying to teach here? We all have an innate sense of justice and a conscience built into us by God. When someone wrongs us, our natural instinct is to strike back, even in small children. Yet, as Christians, we’re taught to leave vengeance to God. The deeper lesson from this parable is that this sense of justice works both ways. If you do a favor for someone, like blessing them instead of cursing them, they will often feel a desire to balance the scales and bless you in return.

While some people keep score, doing favors to get something in return, I don’t believe that’s the right approach.

I believe that when you’re generous and seek to bless others, you will eventually reap what you sow. But it’s also essential to ask for support, and this is something I’m learning myself, especially with patrons who support the podcast. I have to be willing to let them know about the need and say, “Hey, this isn’t a volunteer operation. This is my job. If you’re enjoying the podcast and getting value from it, please consider supporting it.”

It’s important to recognize the value of your work and to be willing to charge for it. This is something many Christians struggle with, feeling that they shouldn’t charge for a book or course because it’s Christian content. But that kind of thinking is both unbiblical and unhelpful. The Bible clearly teaches that “the worker is worthy of his hire” and “do not muzzle the ox that treads the grain.” Paul explicitly states that Christian workers, including pastors, deserve to be paid for their labor.

If you insist on not getting paid because you think it’s more noble or holy, you might actually be setting yourself up as more righteous than your pastor, who does receive compensation for his work. The reality is that everyone needs to pay bills and put food on the table. Don’t let pride hold you back from charging for your work. If your work provides value, it’s worth being compensated for.

In fact, charging for your courses often leads to a greater transformation for the students. I’ve seen this firsthand when I give away free copies of an expensive course. Those who receive it for free rarely experience any real change. They don’t watch the videos, skip the live events, and aren’t engaged. They don’t value the course because they didn’t invest in it. As the saying goes, “Where your money is, there your heart will be also.” When people pay for something, they’re more committed and more likely to experience the transformation they’re seeking.

How do we ensure that our students complete and benefit from the course?

Thomas: I’ve spent the last several years really trying to study what makes students complete a course and implement the change. In fact, I even bought a book by educators for educators in public school settings trying to figure out this whole online learning.

One of the things I realized is that there’s a difference between selling knowledge and selling education. Knowledge wants to be free. You can share knowledge easily, and it’s really hard to charge a lot of money for knowledge because somebody else can share that secret or tip for free to the next person, and you start competing with your own students. You can make knowledge valuable by keeping it secret, but that’s not really compatible with the whole course-teaching ethos. The people who do well with courses are teachers, and teachers don’t like keeping secrets. It’s not the way we think. So you don’t want to sell knowledge.

You want to sell education because education always wants to be expensive. Did you know you can watch any MIT lecture from any of the MIT professors for free right now? And yet, for some reason, MIT is still able to charge tens of thousands of dollars per semester for school.

TED conferences used to be relatively unknown. Then, they started offering their sessions for free on TED.com, allowing anyone to watch TED Talks online. As a result, the demand for attending the live event skyrocketed, and the ticket prices jumped from around $300 to $3,000. The increased visibility created a higher demand for the live experience. It drove up the value of attending in person.

If you want to achieve good student outcomes with your courses, you can’t just record a bunch of videos, post them online, and then walk away. People need more interaction to get the most out of the experience. There’s nothing wrong with a self-paced course, and I do offer that type of course. However, you have to charge less for it because the level of transformation is lower due to the lack of direct interaction. The benefit is that it requires less of your time and effort once the course is created, and it can still generate revenue since people are willing to pay for knowledge.

I’m not criticizing anyone who offers self-paced courses because there’s value in them, and they’re often exactly what people need. For example, my free course on building websites is entirely self-paced; I’m not providing personalized coaching or homepage reviews. However, if I wanted to charge for that course, I would consider adding interactive elements. And if I wanted to charge a higher price, I would definitely include opportunities for direct feedback and engagement.

A Mix of Live and Recorded Sessions

When it comes to achieving great student outcomes, I’ve found that two key elements make a big difference. First, it’s essential to have well-produced, concise presentations of the material. This means pre-recorded, edited videos that are clear, focused, and typically five to ten minutes long. That short format allows students to easily reference the topic later. This is much more effective than simply uploading a long Zoom call.

The second element is to combine these pre-recorded videos with live, interactive sessions. For example, in my course Obscure No More, I released a module on search engine optimization (SEO). After students had gone through the material and made changes to their websites, I held a live office hours session. During that session, students could join me on screen, share their websites, and get direct feedback. Not only did that student benefit from personalized advice, but all the other students watching learned from the examples as well, even if they hadn’t completed the homework yet.

This combination of live interaction and on-demand content is crucial. Students don’t have an easy way to review specific information if everything is live. Hunting through an hour-long Zoom or Crowdcast recording for one piece of advice can be overwhelming and discouraging. By blending both approaches, you create a more effective learning experience that supports students at every stage of their journey.

The Cohort Model

The second approach that works incredibly well, though it requires much more effort, is the cohort model. We currently use this model for our course called the Book Launch Blueprint. The course starts on a specific date, and all students progress through each day together. Every day, the instructors remain actively involved with the students.

The Book Launch Blueprint focuses on launching your book and is probably our most popular course in terms of student satisfaction. Many students enjoy it so much that they return to take the course again the following year since it comes with lifetime access. Returning students benefit from the refresher and become a valuable part of the community by interacting with and encouraging new students each year.

The cohort model is not a new concept. It’s something that armies have understood for centuries. Think about why they put the drummer at the front of the line to keep a steady beat while everyone marches in unison. For some reason, when soldiers march in step with each other, they can go faster, cover more distance, and experience less fatigue than if they were marching alone. I can’t explain the science behind it, but it’s a proven fact. If you want your troops to march all day and still have energy left when they reach the battle, put a drummer at the front because it makes a difference.

Most traditional education models use the cohort model. From elementary school to college, students go through their studies together, at the same pace, alongside their classmates. For some reason, this approach consistently leads to better outcomes and helps students stay motivated.

The downside of the cohort model is that students can’t sign up whenever they want. For example, with the Book Launch Blueprint, we only open registration for about a month each year, with a specific start date for the course.

While this limits when students can join, the cohort model is highly effective at helping them stay motivated and make progress. Knowing that they’re moving through the course alongside their peers encourages them to keep up and go further. In the Book Launch Blueprint, much of the homework is open book, meaning students can see each other’s book launch plans and get inspired by their ideas. This environment fosters encouragement and collaboration among our students.

The cohort model also helps ensure that students actually go through the material. For example, if you haven’t watched the video on how to use Goodreads, you won’t be able to fully understand or evaluate your classmates’ Goodreads plans. This structure pushes students to stay on track with the course content, maximizing their learning and outcomes.

The cohort model also boosts sales by creating a sense of genuine urgency. This isn’t the typical “buy now, or the discount disappears” kind of urgency. It’s a real, authentic urgency that says, “Sign up now, or you’ll have to wait until next year to join.” This isn’t a marketing gimmick. There’s a valid reason behind it. We only offer one session of the course each year, so if students don’t join now, they’ll miss out until next year.

A Good Feedback Loop

The third key to improving student outcomes is having a strong feedback loop. It’s crucial to make it easy for students to ask questions, whether during live sessions or through a community board because those questions help you refine and enhance the course material. A good course should never be static.

For example, we’re constantly updating and improving the content with the Book Launch Blueprint. We re-record several sessions from scratch every year so that the material stays up-to-date. The changes we make aren’t just about better production quality or new video equipment; they’re also based on student feedback. After years of listening to students’ questions and identifying the areas where they get stuck, we know which concepts need to be clarified or explained differently.

This iterative process allows us to address misunderstandings and points of confusion and create a higher-quality course than we could have delivered the first time around. Over time, these improvements lead to a course that meets the needs of the students and delivers a better learning experience.

Linda: The cohort model has a biblical foundation as well. We’re called to come together in community, united in mind and heart, to support and strengthen one another on our journey. This approach helps us move forward more effectively as a cohesive group. I can see how the cohort model fits this principle, and I appreciate the sense of urgency it naturally creates.

Can you tell us more about your free course?

Thomas: When you first met me, back in the early days of my career, I was juggling a lot of roles, including running a web design agency for authors. I had a team of people working with me, building websites for authors, and it was a big part of what I did. Though I eventually gave up that business and stopped building websites, I still get referrals to this day because the authors we worked with loved the sites we created for them.

In the beginning, I needed a solution for handling those referrals, especially as they kept coming in even after I left that side of the business. I partnered with some other agencies to pass along those referrals, but I realized that, for many authors, the best approach was to build their own websites. That led me to create a course on how to build your own author website, guiding authors step-by-step through the process.

The course is divided into two parts: the first half covers the basics, like setting up WordPress, installing a theme, and getting the right tools in place. The second half assumes that you already have a website and focuses on how to make it more effective—how to turn it into a website that readers love to visit and share. The goal is to shift the focus from a site that’s all about the author to one that’s all about the reader because, ultimately, readers care more about content that benefits them than they do about the author.

Even though the course is free, it generates some income through affiliate links. I recommend a theme and hosting provider that I use for my websites, and when students choose to use these affiliate links, I earn a commission. Not all students use the links, but enough do, and that income helps cover some of the costs of running the course. There’s nothing wrong with earning money this way, as it allows me to keep the course free while still supporting my business.

If you’re thinking about creating your own courses, look for opportunities to include affiliate links. It’s a great way to monetize a free course without charging students directly.

Linda: And it doesn’t cost the individual who clicks on the link more. You’re simply advertising for someone else, and they pay you a little commission.

Thomas: That’s right. It doesn’t cost them more. Sometimes it costs them less because there’s a coupon code attached. For example, when you click an affiliate link for a podcast host, often you get the first month for free, and you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. The most common affiliate is Amazon. If you recommend a book in your course, add an affiliate link to Amazon. It’s the same price for your student, but Amazon makes a little bit less money. Amazon making a little bit less isn’t going to hurt them at all.

Tell us about The Book Launch Blueprint.

Thomas: I teach the Book Launch Blueprint course alongside James L. Rubart, a Christy Hall of Fame inductee and bestselling author. The course is all about launching your book, focusing on those crucial first few days after its release. This period is especially important for traditionally published authors, but it’s also critical for indie authors.

For traditionally published authors, a good publisher will help get your book on bookstore shelves, but the book will only stay there for 30 to 60 days unless it sells well. If the books don’t sell during that time, the bookstore will return the copies, and you’ll lose your spot on the shelf. A strong launch is essential to ensure your book sells quickly enough to trigger reorders so that the bookstore keeps your book in stock.

Indie authors selling on Amazon also benefit from a strong launch because of the initial grace period for new releases. During this time, having only a few reviews isn’t a big deal, but once that window closes, a low review count can hurt your book’s credibility. Readers tend to look at the number of reviews more than the star rating, so getting as many early reviews as possible is crucial.

A successful launch can create a virtuous cycle. If your book sells well, bookstores that initially ordered just a couple of copies may start ordering more. When your book is displayed “face out” instead of “spine out,” it catches the attention of shoppers, which leads to even more sales.

The Book Launch Blueprint covers everything you need to create this virtuous cycle, including securing media appearances, building your email list, developing a strong email strategy, and putting together a comprehensive book launch plan. Each day of the course focuses on a different aspect of launching a book, such as branding, email campaigns, or organizing launch parties. We guide you through the process, showing you what to do, what to avoid, and how to learn from the experiences of others to save time and money.

For traditionally published authors, a successful first book launch is especially crucial. Publishers often base future contracts on the sales performance of your debut book. As a literary agent, I saw many talented authors struggle to get a second contract because their first book’s sales were poor. That made publishers hesitant to take a chance on their next project. This course aims to help you avoid that scenario by setting you up for a strong, successful launch.

In this episode of The David Lee Martin Show, David and I talk about how to use podcasts to bless listeners.

In this episode of God in the Ordinary, Sharon Tedford interviews me about my mental breakdown and recovery. I talk about how I had to change how I spent my time both in work and at home.

God In The Ordinary is a twice-monthly interview podcast filled with encouraging and engaging stories, be inspired to learn how you can make an eternal difference in your community and beyond! Let’s band together on both sides of the Atlantic as we reveal ‘God in the Ordinary’.

In episode 084 of the Wish I’d Known Then . . . For Writers Podcast I talk with Sara Rosett and Jami Albright about mistakes authors make with social media and how to avoid them. We delve into the world of ubiquity and scarcity and discuss how to use scarcity to sell your books. He’s also got some great ideas on how to find and get to know your readers. We wrap up by talking about trends in publishing in general and in the Inspirational market in particular.

I had a lot of fun on this podcast and wanted to thank Sara and Jami for inviting me to come on their podcast for authors.