Tag Archives: blogger

Helping People Get Paid to Play: John Williams – Epsiode 63

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Listen to the end of the chat for a special offer on John Williams’ Find Your Money-Maker course!

John Williams has done all sorts of things. Though he’s a writer, blogger and coach at the moment, he’s programmed special effects software for movies and TV, done work for the BBC, and even been a stand-up comedian. The one through-line of his recent efforts is his choice to not work to anyone else’s job description or schedule for a living.

John has taken his experiences in getting out of the rat race and turned them into a blog called “Screw Work Let’s Play” which has since become a book (with a second one due in July 2016). The blog and book feed into the coaching courses he offers to help others find their own thing (or selection of things) in life. Naturally, I had to get him on the show!

John and I have a great chat about what the process of ditching the nine to five is really like, the conflict between experimenting with work for low pay and not settling for less than pro rates and how the current education system still moulds people for factory-era work.

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The Thrill of Self-Publishing Thrillers: Joanna Penn – Episode 45

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If Joanna Penn wasn’t an entrepreneur when the novelist bug bit, she was certainly on her way there, with a web log and podcast about self-publishing and a regular speaking gig. Then a chance encounter with NaNoWriMo, an annual writing challenge, resulted in over fifty thousand words of her first novel, the occult action thriller Pentecost.

Joanna levered her existing knowledge of the publishing industry to make Pentecost (now known as Stone of Fire), its sequels in the Arkane series and her second book series, London Psychic, into independent publishing success stories. After having listened to her podacst for years, it was a privilege to chat with Joanna about how she makes sure to keep her noveling, blogging, podcasting and speaking plates all spinning, how Australia helped her discover the Amazon Kindle and just what it means to keep showing up for your dream every day, even when you’re already what most would consider a success.

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Episode 15: Kelly Gurnett, Cordelia Calls It Quits

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(I might be far too late on this, but: Welcome, all you fine Cordelia Calls It Quits readers! I hope you enjoy your stay! If you want to know where anything is, please ask!)

UPDATE: As of 2014, Kelly is now fully self-employed!

Changing your career, no matter what you’re aiming for or leaving, is a scary endeavour. Embrace your skills and talent all you like, there are still a heap unknowns that you have to face and a lot of habits and familiar things that make staying where you are a more tempting option.

Freelance blogger Kelly Gurnett has made breaking free of those habits and letting go of the familiar things the purpose of her blog, Cordelia Calls It Quits. In each post, Kelly, in the guise of her alter-ego Cordelia, examines an aspect of her life that she either has changed or is in the process of changing. It’s a phenomenal way of keeping yourself honest; her Quits List numbers twenty-seven, with the most recent having gone up in the last couple of weeks, and she reviews her progress against that list on a regular basis.

By any measure, Kelly has been successful; she’s turned her full-time job into a two-day-a-week job and is blogging on several large life-change web sites. Naturally, this put her on my first List of People I Want As Guests, which made it a double pleasure to interview her about how she got to where she is now – especially juggling the day job with the dream job – and the places she still wants to go!

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Gavin Lucan, with sword

Episode 11: Gavin Lucan, SFtv Scheduler and Blogger

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Update: At the end of 2013, Foxtel closed SFtv Australia down, making Gavin redundant. He still blogs at his own domain, ShoutyBeardyThing (see the links below).

Don’t let the picture of the medieval gent with the sword fool you; Gavin Lucan is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. I’ve known him since the late nineties, and was frankly a little envious when I found out he’d parlayed his experience in scheduling pay TV channels into a gig at Australia’s branch of the SciFi Channel.

Shortly afterward, I signed up for an e-mail newsletter in which Gav offers wry observations on the week’s events in genre fiction, from books to comics, movies to television, games to conventions, and now SFtv feature that newsletter as a weekly blog on their website!

Given that he’s a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, my friend Gav is definitely getting paid to play. Join me as I find out how he got there!

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Episode 1: Raymond Masters, Self-Published Author

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After interviewing my web host, I realised that it was both pretty scary and heaps of fun – so naturally, I wanted to do it again! This episode, therefore, is the first of the newly-rechristened Paid to Play Podcast, where I talk with folks who are making money out of having fun.

Raymond Masters.

I’m quite proud to have as my first guest someone who’s getting paid to play the way I want to be – by writing superhero action novels. Raymond Masters has already completed and self-published Forging Truth (you can buy it both in paperback and as a Kindle e-book on Amazon) and is currently touring blogs across the globe to spread the word about both it and his next novel, Corrupting Truth. He has a Kickstarter campaign underway to fund his promotion of both books.

In this podcast, we get to to have a good geek-out, talking comic books, science fiction and TV in between finding out just how Ray gets paid to play.

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