Milestones and Memories: A Celebration of 100 Episodes

Has it really been 100 episodes?! Yes!!

Here's something fun

Download this FREE PDF poster and hang it on your wall to remind yourself each day: YOU'VE GOT THIS!

In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena celebrate their podcast’s third year and 100th episode by taking a look back at their top five most listened to episodes. They discuss the importance of avoiding cliches in writing, explore the wide range of materials that can be written for children, highlight the benefits of using an email newsletter for marketing, delve into the different types of editing needed for a manuscript, and provide a step-by-step guide on self-publishing on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. They also give an honorable mention to an episode on making time to write based on listener feedback. Listeners are encouraged to subscribe, review, and share the podcast, and are provided with a goal-setting planner and information on an upcoming membership site.

Episodes we talk about:

• 62: https://www.writingmomentum.com/writing/avoid-this-writing-trap-like-the-plague/
• 80: https://www.writingmomentum.com/podcast/all-you-can-write-for-children/
• 60: https://www.writingmomentum.com/marketing/our-best-kept-email-marketing-secret-2/
• 75: https://www.writingmomentum.com/podcast/why-your-manuscript-needs-editing-four-times/
• 4: https://www.writingmomentum.com/publishing/what-you-need-to-self-publish-on-amazons-kindle-direct-publishing-kdp/
• 9: https://www.writingmomentum.com/writing/how-to-make-time-to-write-your-answers/

Links:

• Join Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership at https://wmdeal.com/liz
• Get your FREE Move the Needle goal-setting for authors ebook at https://www.writingmomentum.com
• Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let’s get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com

Prefer to watch it on YouTube? Visit https://www.youtube.com/@writingmomentum

episode 102 transcription:

[[00:00:00] Gena: What are your favorite Writing Momentum podcast episodes? Hey, 

[00:00:03] Christopher: we're going to find out together right now.

[00:00:09] Christopher: Hello and welcome to the Writing Momentum podcast. I'm Christopher Maselli and I'm here with my wife, Gena Maselli. 

[00:00:15] Gena: Hi everybody. We're so glad you're here and I'm so glad to be here with you. And it's 2024. 

[00:00:19] Christopher: 2024. This is a whole new year. We are so excited because this is, for those of you who've been listening a while, this is year three of our podcast.

[00:00:30] Christopher: We've been doing this for three years now, can you believe that? 

[00:00:32] Gena: We're going into our third year, but I remember at this point a couple years ago, we were just getting ready to release our first episode and Kind of talking about what we wanted it to be and what we hoped we could bring and so 

[00:00:44] Christopher: it's fun.

[00:00:45] Christopher: Will anyone listen? That's the big question. It's true. And you guys have. We're so thankful for every one of you who've tuned in on a regular basis. You've subscribed, and you download, and you listen, and you make this to where [00:01:00] it's a conversation. It's something we get to talk about together, about our writing.

[00:01:03] Christopher: Our publishing, our branding, and our marketing, and it's not just us talking into a microphone, because that, I think, would be 

[00:01:09] Gena: boring. Yeah, and we've had, like you said, I don't know, did you say, we've hit 100 episodes now. Yeah, we sure did. We've hit 100 episodes now that 

[00:01:18] Christopher: we've episodes ago we did.

[00:01:20] Christopher: This is episode 102 that you're listening to right now. We hit it over the holidays, so we didn't record a, this, yay, we did an episode until now. But yeah, we hit 100 episodes. 100 episodes. Yeah. Big deal, I think, in podcast 

[00:01:32] Gena: land. I think it is, and I think we've learned some things along the way, and I think we've had a lot of fun bringing new information and things that we're learning to the people, hopefully to our listeners.

[00:01:44] Gena: I'm hoping that we've helped some people. I think that's the whole goal, is that we want 

[00:01:47] Christopher: to help people. Recording a podcast is a lot like writing, in that you discover over time that the Consistency is probably the most important thing, right? Just showing up and doing it every time. [00:02:00] And so that's what we've hopefully been able to do is show up on a regular basis and just every week have a new episode out here for you.

[00:02:08] Christopher: And it's actually super fun to do. This is one of I think the More fun things we do when it comes to writing momentum because it's just an opportunity for us to get on here and just kind Off the cuff record answers to maybe some of the questions you've had or take some of the thoughts we've been having recently or a recent training we've Done and say hey, let's go ahead and put it out there right just complimentary to everyone.

[[00:02:29] Christopher: Yeah, I think So, 

[00:02:30] Gena: and I think, we've tried to share the things that we've learned over our 30 year careers, but also the things that we're still learning. This market is this industry is changing so fast. And so it's fun to hopefully bring that to listeners in a way that they can apply it.

[00:02:50] Gena: And we have gotten some feedback from people. who have said what we've shared with them has made them feel like they could do this. Yes. That they [00:03:00] feel like, it's not, hopefully we've taken a little bit of the mystery out of it and people have thought, I want to write. It's something I've always wanted to do and I'm gonna do that.

[00:03:09] Gena: And so because I've listened to the Writing Momentum podcast, I know a little bit more how to navigate how the industry is changing. And so that's really, that's been a lot of 

[00:03:18] Christopher: fun. It's absolutely true. And in today's world, more than You have the opportunity to get published, right? It used to be that you had to go through all kinds of gatekeepers to get published.

[00:03:30] Christopher: And now you can get published. Anytime you want. All you have to do is put your material out there. Now, that does require, as you've heard us say, creating your own gatekeepers to make sure that your material sounds good, that it's edited, that it's, sound material. But, for the most part, anyone can be published today if you have the discipline for 

[[00:03:50] Gena: it.

[[00:03:50] Gena: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

[00:03:51] Christopher: So today what we're going to do is, we thought it would be fun to go back through and look at the top five [[00:04:00] episodes according to you. The episodes that you all have listened to the most over the last 100 episodes and this I think is important to listen to because you may have missed some of these and remember these episodes are not Particularly, like Deadline Timely, right?

[00:04:15] Christopher: They are what you call evergreen. You can listen to these anytime and they apply as much today as they did on the day we recorded it, even if it was six months, nine months ago or more, it still applies. And so we wanted to share some of the, everyone's favorite episodes, but before we do that. We wanted to share where some of you are listening from because we were surprised when we looked at the analytics for our episodes to see where all of you were listening from.

[[00:04:39] Christopher: Gena where have people been listening? 

[00:04:41] Gena: Okay, so we know that the majority of people are listening from the United States, but then we're seeing on our analytics that we're getting a lot of people from Europe. We're getting people from Southeast Asia, from Australia, and from South 

[[00:04:55] Christopher: Africa. and Austria and Singapore has a big [[00:05:00] Lithuania and even some in Mexico, which is cool.

[00:05:03] Gena: Yeah. So it's just really fun to, to realize that we're reaching out across. Across the oceans, all around the globe that we're reaching people in all these different places and hopefully even more as we continue to grow. So we just really appreciate it. We realized that none of this would be happening if it was not for our writer or for our listeners.

[00:05:25] Gena: And so we're we're just really 

[00:05:27] Christopher: thankful. Yes. Okay. So now let's jump into it. So the number 5, 5th most listened to episode out of the 100 we've recorded, is episode number 62, which was titled Avoid This Writing Trap Like The Plague. So you want to go back and listen to that if you haven't listened to it yet.

[[00:05:46] Christopher: What were we talking about in 

[00:05:47] Gena: that episode? We were talking about cliches in that. That's the title. Avoid It Like The Plague. Avoid It Like The Plague. So we were talking about words, and this doesn't matter if it was It's fiction or nonfiction, [00:06:00] if it's children's, it just doesn't matter. You want to avoid phrases, words, or even situations that will make your audience want to roll their eyes.

[00:06:12] Gena: When something has been overdone to the point that people are just so tired of hearing it. then it becomes a cliche and it loses its punch and it loses the weight a lot of times that you're trying to Bring to it or even the comedy that you're trying to bring to it I mean there's times when you're writing something and if it's a if it's even if it's a comedic moment in your writing if you use a certain phrase or something if people have heard it a lot They they just lose that.

[[00:06:42] Gena: And 

[[00:06:42] Christopher: we show you in that episode how to avoid those certain cliches. We show you how to look for them, how to find them, and then what you can do to replace them and find something better, which is pretty cool. 

[00:06:53] Gena: And I think it's important to point out in this, I'll just add this in as a little bit of an aside, when we're talking about [00:07:00] comedy, really listen to Comedy whether it's stand up comedians or whether it's a comedic show or whatever.

[00:07:09] Gena: Notice, in comedy, a lot of times it's the unexpected that gets the laugh. Yes. It's the thing, people are going along with you, they're going along with the comedian, they're going along, and then all of a sudden, they don't end with the cliché, they end with the unexpected. That's what makes it funny. That's good.

[[00:07:27] Christopher: Alright. 

[[00:07:28] Gena: Going on to our next one, number four in our countdown here is all you can write for children. It was 

[00:07:34] Christopher: episode 80. Episode 80. I can't believe it took us 80 episodes to get to the topic about everything you can write for children. This is a really good one. We really deep dive into all the different kinds of things that you can write for children.

[00:07:49] Christopher: And what's good about this episode is that so many of them are things that you may never even have thought of before. These are things that Gena has written for over the years for children, that I have written for, that some other [00:08:00] writers that we know have written for types of materials. So it's not just, picture books and magazine articles.

[00:08:06] Christopher: There is so much more included in that episode and you're gonna find that the children's market is much more wide open than you might expect. . And so just like a teaser for this, one of the things that I've written for over the years is I've written comic. I don't illustrate comics, but I write the script for comics and writing that material for children has been a steady career, something that I've had for the last probably, I don't know what, 20, 25 years, maybe even 30 years.

[00:08:34] Christopher: I think you're pushing 30. Yeah, I may be pushing 30 years on that. That is a consistent source of income for me. And most writers never even think, it never even crosses their mind that they could write comics for children. So listen to that episode, there's a whole lot more we talk about in that episode and you won't want to miss it.

[00:08:52] Christopher: That's episode 80. Another one of our our personal favorites is called our Best Kept [00:09:00] Marketing Secret. And this was episode 60. Now, if you don't know what our Best Kept Marketing Secret is, that means you definitely missed that episode. Because we have mentioned it a few times. And what is our Best Kept Marketing 

[[00:09:11] Gena: Keyword?

[00:09:11] Gena: It is Liz Wilcox's her, let's see. Email Marketing Membership, E M M. Email Marketing Membership, yes. We just think so much of Liz. We're so very thankful that we found her. And she has helped us. with developing our newsletter. And we think that is so important. And not just we think that, but if you talk to writers who are making money.

[[00:09:38] Gena: On their writing, I would say the majority of them have some kind of email marketing that they are doing where they are writing to their readers and just really developing that 

[00:09:48] Christopher: relationship. Yeah, so if you haven't heard us talk about it before, she's got a basically email marketing template club where she does the work for you.

[00:09:57] Christopher: She does the research. She gives you a general [00:10:00] template. That you can then write your own newsletter from every single week. She only charges nine dollars a month for that. It is quite a deal. And we'll put the link to that in our show notes also. But that's episode 60. And then, as a special bonus, if you listen to episode 89, we have Liz on this podcast, and we talk about why newsletters are so important for authors.

[00:10:22] Christopher: And then on episode 100, just a couple episodes ago, Liz talked about why we need a long term strategy. We had her on a second time. She's always a great guest and a great influence on us, and I think she'll be a great influence on you, too. So definitely check 

[00:10:36] Gena: those out. And I want to point out here that in that episode about newsletters, when we have Liz on, we pose the question of what do you do if you don't have a mailing list?

[00:10:48] Gena: If you're going from zero to hopefully whatever, Where do you start? Yes. And I think that's a great question that a lot of people would probably have where they think who wants to get my newsletter? What [00:11:00] do I do? She answers that question. So definitely check that out because newsletter marketing They're just so so so important for today's writers.

[00:11:13] Christopher: Absolutely. What's the 

[00:11:14] Gena: next one, Gena? The next one is why your manuscript needs four times, four times, four times. And that was episode number 75. And we talk about the different types of editing that need to happen in your manuscript. If you are writing something now, that's not necessarily for a magazine article or something, but if you're doing a book, you want to have you want to have all your bases covered.

[00:11:41] Gena: You don't want anybody to, Get halfway through your book and get frustrated or not want to read your next book because there's too many typos, or it's not worded correctly, or the structure of the story isn't quite there, especially if you're, if you're doing fiction. Yeah, why you need your manuscript [[00:12:00] edited four times.

[[00:12:00] Gena: So check that out, episode number. 

[00:12:03] Christopher: 75. 75. And then our number one episode, the one that you all have listened to more than any other episode is episode four. And that is what you need to self publish on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. We go through and walk through step by step exactly what you have to have if you want to publish on KDP.

[00:12:25] Christopher: And here's a hint. It's a lot easier than you might think. Really, this is something anyone can do, and we just break down the steps in that episode, and I think that's why that one is so popular, because we all want to self publish, and we just want to have someone show us the way, and that's exactly what we do in Episode 

[[00:12:40] Gena: 4.

[00:12:41] Gena: Absolutely, and like you said, it is a lot easier, but even that is I'm sitting here thinking we need to do a new one, because even that is changing some, even though The information that we have on there is really important and still vital, but there's, it's growing and evolving still, so there's new little [00:13:00] elements that they're adding to it.

[[00:13:01] Gena: Yeah, do 

[00:13:01] Christopher: you know since we published that episode, they now allow you to publish hardcover books. Wow. And that didn't even exist when we recorded that episode. Yeah, there are some things we need to update. Maybe we'll do that here in a few episodes. Now, we do have one more episode we wanted to give as an honorable mention.

[00:13:18] Christopher: The reason we wanted to give this an honorable mention is because after we started recording these, this podcast, we switched podcast providers, which means the provider that sends our podcasts out across the internet. And our last provider showed us having an extremely high number, and this didn't transfer over between the two.

[00:13:37] Christopher: On episode number nine, which was how to make Time to write. And these aren't just our answers on how to make time to write, but we did a poll and asked a lot of you, how do you make time to write in your world? . And you gave us your answers and we read those on the podcast and shared those with you.

[00:13:55] Christopher: It's a really good episode. Number nine. . So just to recap, we [[00:14:00] you wanna listen to 4 9 60, 62, 75, and 80 at the bare minimum. Those are the top. Really six episodes and All the ones in between. 

[00:14:10] Gena: And all the ones to come. So please go ahead. And if you haven't yet, subscribe for this podcast.

[00:14:16] Gena: Whether you're listening to us, if you're also watching the video, please subscribe there as well. We're on YouTube as well. And yeah, great review, subscribe and share. We talk about that. What does that mean, Chris? 

[[00:14:29] Christopher: First of all, the reason you want to subscribe is because then it drops into your podcast player.

[00:14:34] Christopher: Every time we release a new episode, that means you won't miss an episode. It's not, you're under no obligation of course to do anything with it if you don't want to, but at least it's there when you need it. And it's so nice when you're out and about and you're thinking, I want to listen to something. To not have to look up the podcast you want to look for.

[00:14:50] Christopher: It's just there. The latest episode is there. So subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player or on YouTube, and it'll always be there [00:15:00] whenever we come out with a new one. It'll also notify you when it comes out with a new one. The other thing we ask is that if you've enjoyed this podcast, if you've listened to more than just a few of these podcasts and you're like, man, this is one of those writing podcasts I really like.

[00:15:12] Christopher: Would you do us a favor and please leave us a written review? Now, we just want you to leave an honest review and just go ahead and put it out there on the platform. You're gonna have to search in your player to find out how to leave that review. But if you do that, if you would Send us an email, let us know, and we'll give you a shout out on a future podcast.

[00:15:31] Christopher: We'll even mention your book if you want to send us the name of your book. We're happy to do that. And that helps us because it helps other people find the podcast too. 

[00:15:39] Gena: And then we're talking about sharing as well. If you know another writer or someone who's an emerging writer or a potential writer, and you think.

[00:15:47] Gena: You know what? This person just needs to sit down and do it, but they need a little encouragement. Please share a podcast with them. We would love to be able to speak hopefully into them and into what is on their hearts to bring out [00:16:00] into the world. And just, we'd love to be a part of that 

[[00:16:03] Christopher: journey. Yeah.

[00:16:04] Christopher: And if you go to writingmomentum. com, you will find there that we have all the podcasts. Individually on there, on video, on audio, and on a full transcript. So however you like consuming it, or however a friend might like consuming it, they can find it there. There's no cost to any of it. It's absolutely free.

[00:16:22] Christopher: And and then don't forget in the show notes for this episode, we'll have direct links to all of these episodes so you can listen again. Okay. So we thank you 

[00:16:30] Gena: so much. I've got a little bit of a pop quiz for you. Oh, here she goes. It's a pop quiz. I didn't even tell him I was gonna do this. Okay.

[00:16:36] Gena: What are you working on right now? We're talking about writing. We're talking about a writing podcast. So what's on your 

[00:16:42] Christopher: plate right now? The biggest thing that's on my plate right now is I am planning for 2024. At the beginning of every year I sit down and I do a very comprehensive goal setting plan for the new year.

[00:16:54] Christopher: I'll break down the year. First of all, I say what I want to accomplish by the end of the year, then what I want to accomplish every quarter, [00:17:00] then week by week or month by month rather than week by week. And then sometimes you granularly day by day. So I'm working on that right now. But one of the main things that I'm working on this part of that list.

[00:17:10] Christopher: Is our Writing Momentum membership site. We have a membership site that we are creating. It's gonna be pretty cool. We can't talk a whole lot about it yet because we want it to be a little bit of a surprise, but if you want to find out more about that, definitely subscribe to our email list@writingmomentum.com.

[00:17:27] Christopher: And when you go to writing momentum.com, you'll find that we actually have a goal setting planner. , that you can download, that you can use to set your own goals for the next six 

[00:17:35] Gena: weeks. That's wonderful. Yeah, that's been a really popular one. What am I working on? So I am working on our first event coming in 2024.

[00:17:46] Gena: So that's a bit of a surprise. I'm going to be getting together with our helpers and hopefully getting the plans set for that. So you'll be hearing more about that. And then I also have a ghost written piece on [[00:18:00] my. on my plate right now that I gotta finish in the next few days. 

[[00:18:04] Christopher: Wow. We are busy. I know you are busy.

[00:18:06] Christopher: We thank you so much for listening. Again, please rate, review, subscribe, and share. And we look forward to talking to you again next week. Because remember, we're not in this alone. It's together. 

[[00:18:18] Gena: We have writing momentum. Bye bye.