Dick Wybrow's Amazing Journey from Radio and TV Star to Becoming an Amazon Best Selling Author

We crack open the secret vault of hilarity with Canada's own Dick Wybrow, who has turned the supernatural fiction genre on its head with his gut-busting humor. Picture this: a Canadian humorist penning bestsellers from a garage in New Zealand - and you've got the man of the hour! Dick regales us with his unlikely tale from a solitary childhood to a life brimming with laughter, best-selling books, and a love affair with radio that has listeners in stitches. His mantra of embracing the unconventional illuminates his journey through stand-up comedy, radio escapades, and crafting tales that have readers howling with delight.

Have you ever wondered what a wolf would do if it turned into a human? Dick's series protagonist, Cain, certainly has his paws full trying to navigate this conundrum. We trace the pawprints of Cain's adventure, from the bite that changed his life to his quest for humanity, all amid the uproar of an expanding book series and audiobooks voiced by Hollywood's finest. Dick's writing ritual is as quirky as his stories - early hours, a makeshift office, and a passion that doesn't know the meaning of 'quit.' His success echoes a truth for all entrepreneurs and creatives: love what you do, and do it with discipline.

But hold onto your funny bones, because Dick doesn't just write - he sells. He peels back the curtain on writing content that captures attention like a moth to a flame, sharing tales of radio campaign triumphs and the allure of humor in marketing. The potency of promise and payoff in storytelling, along with savvy strategies for harnessing the clout of Amazon and Facebook, are distilled into wisdom nuggets for aspiring writers and entrepreneurs alike. We wrap up with a salute to Dick's entrepreneurial spirit, a testament to the fact that a relentless drive and a chuckle can propel you to the top of the supernatural comedy food chain.

How can the guests contact?  website, email, social?

https://www.dickwybrow.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DickWybrow

https://www.instagram.com/dickwybrow/

https://www.tiktok.com/@dickwybrow_

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:41

Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more, then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your host serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast. On today's episode we have the privilege to interview Dick Weibrauch. Dick is an Amazon best-selling author of humorous supernatural fiction. Dick is a Canadian and his novels are mainly set in the United States, where he grew up. A former stand-up comedian, weibrauch is a humor writer who crafts thrillers that incorporate elements of suspense or mystery, science fiction and fantasy. His stuff has been heard on the radio by millions and seen on TV in 213 countries. In his spare time, dick likes to write autobiographies in the third person. Dick loves to talk about creativity, humor, writing, werewolves and love of a great book and narcolepsy.

Speaker 3: 1:49

Welcome to the show, dick hey and welcome from New Zealand, where it's summer and it's 22 degrees, which probably makes very little sense to folks in the US, because I was there too, obviously. So we're going to start out this with a trick to make you sound really smart. So when you hear Celsius at Fahrenheit, don't use this for cooking, but to give you kind of an idea about what 22 means in Fahrenheit, because I still think in Fahrenheit, I still think of an imperial. Here we go Ready, double the number at 30. That's basically the simple, simple rules, not perfect, but it gives you an idea of conditions. So if it's 22 right now, double that 44 at 30, 74. So right now it's about 74 degrees here in New Zealand. Sunny New Zealand. I like it, I like it.

Speaker 2: 2:30

If nothing else, we took something home Awesome. So, to start off the episode, can you share with our listeners a little bit about your background and your path to becoming a best-selling author, right?

Speaker 3: 2:38

That was basically, and you read some of the there. It was my path to avoid proper work. You know, I'd always been somebody who wrote, because when my father was a New Zealander he ended up going to the US in the late 60s because I just back. Then they just saw they could, you know, get off the plane smoking right, and come up there, knock on the door, people that you win up at the Amp and had a quarter system. They're like oh, we're filled up on New Zealanders, go to Canada, they'll take anybody. So he ended up going up to Canada, met my mother but always wanted to be in the US, and so when I was nine years old we moved down to the US and so here I was, a chubby, red-haired boy with a Canadian accent in the New Jersey school system. So I had zero friends, and so that's where some of the writing started, I think, because I just started creating friends on paper and creating worlds that I felt were comfortable with. And actually there was an amazing moment that happened in that New Jersey school system that actually clicked me over to humor, but I always had been a bit of a fan of humor. Then, you know, moved all the way through the Midwest and everything with my father At the time I always thought that, oh cool, we're moving to a new place, it's very exciting. And I found out only later as an adult it was because my father kept getting fired Just the nature of the industry that he was in and I was like, well, we're moving to a new place. Boy, our parents are really intense. Oh, it must be because of the move. And so we spent most of our time up, eventually landing in Edina, minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, and then from there, like I said, I was doing a lot of the writing stuff and it was this sort of thing where this is back pre-internet, back in the old days. And so you would send out your short stories to these various places and you would put in there at SASC, self-addressed stamp envelope so that when you put there and put the stamp on there, put in the envelope, send your story, send it out. That way, when the rejection came back, you were paying for it. That's all that took. But it would take months and months, and months, and so in my head this moment made sense. So it took so long to try and get something published. Why don't I write something and then go on stage. Because this made sense to me, because then that meant that that night I was published, and so it wasn't a great desire to get up and do stand-up comedy, it was just so that I could write something. It was stories, not short stories like I was sending out to these various places, but it was stories because I was a big fan of storytelling comedy, and so I would write these little stories and get up on stage and each night I was getting published and that turned into a stand-up writing, initially a stand-up writing career. Not right away, obviously, because when I first started doing it I was awful. I remember five minutes, man. It's like there is a bending of time and space when you're on stage and no one's laughing. That five minutes is a long time, but 22 seconds of that I got a laugh. I got some chuckles out of people, and so I in this kind of big game a bit of sort of a seed of what I do today you just take the thing that's working, get rid of everything else that isn't, and that has actually really served me over the years of creativity and other places as well. So I had 22 seconds, I had 22 seconds and I built that up into a minute, five minutes, 10 minutes and eventually had myself 45 minutes. I could do a headletting gig. And then eventually I got into radio, transferred that because the market and standup changed a bit when fewer and fewer people were coming out to clubs because standup was all over television. This show was popping up everywhere on USA Today, on A&E and everything. So I got into radio, did that for about a dozen years, transferred off and I got into television. And of course you know you go from radio. I want to do TV. Let me do one of the biggest networks on the planet. I happened to be in Atlanta at the time because I just did a rock show in Atlanta. I was like let me go try work for CNN. Of course you're not going to hire me, I don't have any TV experience. Ah, they hired me. Why would they do that? I think sometimes when you come into a scenario we're like I can do this. I know, even though you don't feel that way, you should have put on airs. Of course I can do it. Not arrogance, just confidence. And they were like well, obviously you can do it, you take a little bit of him, he knows what he's doing, and I did that with CNN for about 10 years. Then 11 years ago we moved to New Zealand and I did seven years here doing seven o'clock PM comedy news live program. So the comedy stuff really came in hand, came in handy, and then in December our show got canceled, even though the ratings were very high. They record ratings. It didn't matter, because television is a paradigm has changed. Ratings don't matter like they used to, and so, as of December 1st this past year, I am now full-time writing.

Speaker 4: 7:02

Excellent. So what a crazy journey so far and well traveled all around the US, new Zealand, canada. Standup comedy, which I think takes a lot of guts to get up and do standup comedy. It sounds like it honed your writing ability, it got your stage fright speaking public. It honed a lot of your skills Going to radio, going to TV. I mean pretty incredible. And so now you've landed in writing and so for anybody on our YouTube channel you can see in the background there the book covers that we're getting ready to talk about are hanging up on Dick's wall. And so let's talk about the most recent book series Wolf Wear series. I believe there's four of them, and maybe can you give like a 30 second brief on each one and kind of share with the listeners.

Speaker 3: 7:45

I can't. And trust me when I say this, I'm not a big monster book guy. I never sit out to write a monster book. The basic key is about this wolf who gets bitten by this infected man out in the woods. The next day he wakes up human. That's a six foot seven French Canadian, by the way, because I thought that was funny. But when the moon comes out, when the full moon comes out, he turns into a werewolf, but depending on the moon phase, he'll turn into a dog and then. So the story basically arc is basically about Cain trying to find out the secret behind what transformed him. Trying to find that secret, find this guy who bit him so he can transform back into a human I've read the back into a wolf because he wants to be able to run through the woods and be naked Once again like he used to. I mean, he could do that as a human, but he'd probably get incarcerated and he's up in Canada. Very good chance you probably get frostbite. I'm very unfortunate for us. So this whole story is about Cain trying to find this, with help from this woman in the middle. The whole story is about them trying to find out how to transform him back into a wolf.

Speaker 4: 8:41

I like it and so so the whole story is broken down into four books. Number one is the best seller on Amazon right now. Number two was recently released. Number three is either released or will release soon.

Speaker 3: 8:51

Is that true? Three has been released.

Speaker 4: 8:52

It just came out at the end of December Three is out just a few weeks now, and four is coming soon.

Speaker 3: 8:58

Four is coming out in in April and I'm about a third of the way done with that. The fifth one will be coming out shortly after that, because I've got readers saying like I don't want to wait for a whole month. It's like that fast, you know. Take a look at the game of thrones. He's taken years to finish that series. He's been years since he published a book. I'm doing I did three books in one year but they want it, so I'm getting it out. What's fun too is the audiobooks come out of here. Furfin comes out on January 16th, so that's really exciting for me because I wrote a picture, because I was still doing the television gig 10 hours a week, so I was getting up at 4.30 in the morning and writing this series in my little in one quarter, because this looks nice and fancy behind me, because my wife made all this, because she is a design talent. But I'm in a garage. I'm in a two car garage is carpeting on the floor, because that's kind of what they do in New Zealand the housing shortage, I guess so they turn this into a room. So my domain is one quarter of a carpeted garage. The rest of this that's all hers. She did this at all, this little, in fact. I got a gate that's around me that's to prevent the dogs from getting in, but I feel like I'm a bit of a cage. I created all that here and it's exciting for me, as I like I say, I did this in Auckland, new Zealand, four or five o'clock in the morning, and now I've got these two Hollywood actors that are putting their voice and their talent into this for the audiobook. I can't wait to hear it. Oh, I can't wait. It's gonna be really thrilling and probably emotional to hear these characters come to life.

Speaker 4: 10:20

So the audiobooks are released and you had them.

Speaker 3: 10:23

They're narrated by so, yeah, the audiobook first one's coming out on January 16th. The next one comes out in February. The third one will come out shortly after that. We're negotiating the fourth and the fifth books right now. So, yeah, that should all be coming forward.

Speaker 2: 10:35

So can we dig into your creative process and what when you're sitting down to write a book, is there anything that you're doing beforehand, or do you have any rituals or routines that helps you get into that focus where you can go in and do some some good writing? I think?

Speaker 3: 10:50

in keeping this, in this thought of you know, we're all entrepreneurs here, right? I really feel and I assume you might agree is if you don't have the passion for that thing, if you don't have the drive that you feel like you have to do that thing, you ain't gonna make it. Oh, really. So I wouldn't make it because, like I said, I've got a sleep disorder yet I was getting my butt out of bed at 3, 3 in the morning to do this. If I didn't have the drive to keep doing that and keep plugging away, if I was sort of like writing in a prescription like I'd rid another stuff. In the past I wrote two-thirds of a trilogy that I felt would make it in the market. I should have read the market, let's see if this works. Unfortunately, it did kind of well. I got optioned by this group called Circle Confusion who later ended up doing the Walking Dead. So I had some real interest in that Fortunately, I say, because that told me, oh, I must be on the right track. But in writing that it was sort of like this fire investigator. It's a thriller series with many humor in there, but not remotely like I'm doing now. But that was more of a trudge to go do that because I wasn't really enjoying it. I didn't feel like that was really coming for me, and so my process is thankfully I have to write these books in this style. I really love this genre, that I'm writing it, and so that gives me that sort of that push to get up and do this at four o'clock in the morning, and then the process just comes down to making sure I do something every day. Stephen King says that he writes six pages a day. I was talking before. You know George R R Martin. He might do six lines a year. I don't really know. I don't know what his process might be, but I really feel so, if you've got your own small business and you are working for the man, the way that you can keep feeling okay about that, because a lot of this is about what's in our head. A lot of this is about our mindset. For my part, I feel I've got to do something every day, because when I don't write one day, the next day I feel awful, I get depressed. So sometimes I might sit down, and there's days because I'm tired or I'm busy or just can't put it together to some days where I feel like I just can't. I just do it anyhow. It might be just one sentence, but even one sentence I get that sort of emotional buzz because I've moved the needle a little bit, just doing something a little bit each day. So when I wake up the next day it's like I'm further along today than I was the day before and that helps. That helps my head a bit and. But sometimes when I sit down and write that one sentence when I'm struggling, it turns into a paragraph. Sometimes a paragraph turns into a page or sometimes it turns into 10 page. So I think my process is sitting down on the dates. That is flowing. Let's keep going On the dates. It's really hard. I just do it anyhow because I know it's good for my head.

Speaker 2: 13:48

I really like that and I think there's a ton of lessons that people, whether they're writing or running their own business or really anything in life, I think there's a lot of lessons that they can take out of that response. And so your invention is sleep disorder. Can we get into that? What is it? How does that?

Speaker 3: 14:04

impact writing. I might call it a sleep disorder, I suppose, but I guess the medical community calls it a waking disorder, which is troublesome. What are those words even mean? But basically, narcolepsy means that I'm sleepy all the time. One I heard somebody once described narcolepsy as stay up for 30 hours now go to work, now come home and dinner and I'll sit down and check your spouse. So I don't know what your perspective is, I only know my own. I just know that I'm always very tired and but I do see it as something that that actually works in my favor. Not initially, because when I first got diagnosed it was funny, I wasn't even going in to get diagnosed. My ex-wife at the time remarried my ex-wife. She went in and she was convinced that she had narcolepsy and she sat down with the doctor to tell him her story. And I was there leaning in the doorway and I was just, you know, as we do. I was just piping in and offering fill in the blanks were necessary and I swear to you guys, he sat across for a second like I don't think you have narcolepsy, but I think he might, and something about the way I was presenting or the way I spoke or whatever it was. And then so the following week I went in and they put me in that bed and they had a monitor is the recording equipment put all the suckers on my face. I slept through the night while they woke me up every hour to quiz me on a couple of things. And then I go back to sleep, which only made the narcolepsy worse, and he let me sleep at all. But I did that. And then, yeah, I've discovered that I would know they'd diagnosed me with narcolepsy and it was actually. That was in itself a positive, because I know a bit of a name for the demon I've heard other people say this Now that I sort of know what that sort of demon is. This narcolepsy which drained in my energy and for the first start of it I was like you know, woe is me. This is something that you know. I've got this thing and why do I have this on that? People don't. But then I started to look at it the other direction, because I saw some of the writing I was doing was sort of different than many other people. It was, it was kind of gonzo, some of the stuff I write about, and I realized and to this day really believe this, that my narcolepsy is a superpower when it comes to my writing and then how I sort of frame. That is like you know, when you're lying down going to sleep, you're lying down in bed and you're just just about to drift off to sleep and you get some amazing idea or some great solution for something. You think I got to write that down. That's just really really good. And you wake up the next morning you don't remember it and you didn't write it down that sort of dream state, that creative state. I'm there 80, 85% of the day and so, whereas I saw that as a negative and even right now you know I've got to push through this and be able to focus I do find that I think a lot of the creativity I have comes because I'm in that crazy little dream state most of the day.

Speaker 2: 16:36

What message would you give to other people dealing with narcolepsy or say it be a learning disability or anything? I love how you've named it and you've called it a superpower, but what lessons whether it be narcolepsy or something else, or what message would you send to people dealing with something like this?

Speaker 3: 16:52

There are plenty of other people that have more difficult conditions than I have. Absolutely. I know plenty of people that have ADHD or even dyslexia, and that they're writers and they have tools they can use. I just think that as best as you can there's so many things because, especially as, like an independent business person, you're sort of as you and maybe maybe your family, just against the world. If you've got support from people, that's great. There's so many things that sort of chip away at your resolve, and so for me, it was this sort of thing that I couldn't have this as well within me also taking away from me. So I needed to get a bridle on it and ride this thing somehow, and so maybe I'm fooling myself, I don't know, but I do feel empowered by doing this way. So if you do have something I don't want to put it this this way because I don't want to judge anybody, but I never want to use my narcolepsy as an excuse not to do what I love or what I want to do. So I think if you're feeling that this becomes your excuse not to do it, try and turn it around. Don't let. Don't give yourself excuses, because there's plenty of people out there not to be negative. There's plenty of people that are just overjoyed if you fail. Your boss would love to see you not succeed because he loves you working for him. So you just kind of push against that, you keep pushing against that, and if you can find some way to take what you have, who knows? You know, when it comes to like in my case with an narcolepsy if, if, if I can use this to create stories and my stories are a bit nuts, I admit. When I'm creating them they're pretty off the rails and the editing they kind of they kind of get more honed into something that in the shape of a story. But if you can use it in some way, instead of being something that attracts from that thing, it really helps your head.

Speaker 4: 18:19

Yeah, now that's powerful and I really like that mindset of kind of using that as a superpower. I want to pivot into your writing. So your next one writer. You've been you've been writing for a while. David and I are in e-commerce. A lot of listeners are in e-commerce and so we write a lot of copy for sales. We're in physical products business. We kind of explain what our products are, how it's going to help the shoppers, why they need our products, all. But as you're writing and your writing process, how do you like draft your journey and kind of grab the reader and take them through that to evoke emotion or something that you kind of carry them through? How do you do that?

Speaker 3: 18:51

I think when it comes to the writing, that's a bit different than maybe a pitch. It's kind of what you're talking about away. If you're talking about selling a product because I sell, because my stuff, their products, these books behind me, their product when I'm putting an ad out, or if I'm putting out a social media post, people are so busy you've got to grab them fast. There's got to be something and you know, we all know the collection and we're into the attention and ADA and all that stuff. But you've got to grab people quick because people are going to blaze by it. And when I was in television we got pitch people all the time and if they had this big old block of like, oh bring me on, because I got this, this and this, and if they're sort of big sell line is near the end, there's a good chance. We never made it. If you don't grab us within the first couple of sentences somewhere, I'm not reading the rest of it. So I think when it comes to social media posts or ads, these sort of things, you've got to have something out of the gate that grabs people's attention. It might be a bit of a video, but I've done plenty of social media videos. I've done them on TikTok, I've done them on Instagram, I've done them on Facebook and I can track the analytic. You take a look at those analytics will crush your soul. Yeah, you put out that minute and take a look at everybody bailed at seven seconds and then your head goes OK, I got to grab them, that seven seconds. What can I do? So I've got one. I came up with this idea from when I understand, at least within podium audio, people haven't done this before. I ended up going because I've got the audio book coming out on the 16th for Kane. I ended up interviewing my narrators. I spoke to Tim Campbell, who plays Kane, and I ended up speaking to Marie McCann, who plays Imelda, and so I took what they were saying with the stories and the characters and turned those into short little social media piece, and I noticed that one of the lines that Tim said was that really done with people, with stuff with people was he goes like not all French Canadian werewolves are the same. When you hear that line, you go what's he going to say next? What in the world is he talking about? And so that's what I mean. So paying attention to some of those analytics now a good number of my videos, when I've got both of them speaking, they start with that line because I know I've got them least hooked when they first see that line to carry through. So I think when it comes to anything with e-commerce any sort of pitches and we all know this you got to grab them quick. The ready side of it is a bit different, because I grab them and then move on. I still have a bit of a sale with that, especially when people are first starting the book. If they're pulling off, like Kindle Limited or something, I've got to grab them early on. So I do what a lot of people do. For the most part, I start sort of midway into the action and I sort of go back. But it's the same sort of thing. You got to grab people quick. There's so much stuff that is out there trying to compete for their attention and anytime you might have put the most beautiful Instagram video together.

Speaker 4: 21:16

If you don't nab their attention early, it's just not going to deliver, like you want it to A quick follow up question because you have so much experience in TV and radio as well. I know on radio did you guys do a lot of commercials and ads for local radio.

Speaker 3: 21:29

Yeah, especially in the beginning, because that becomes part of it. You do your shift and get done, you're stacked, you're stacked in the sales guys and then. But if you create a bit of a personality, then you get requested. You get paid a little bit more for that. But yeah, I ended up doing commercials for definitely for radio for some time.

Speaker 4: 21:44

Was there any of them that jumped out at you as like what you were talking about the hook grabbing the attention? Any of them that jumped out at you as like go-tos or a lot of ads were using?

Speaker 3: 21:54

It's tough because I'm a humor writer and a number of people ask you how do I write humor? And that's almost impossible to answer. I mean, there are answers for that, but I think it's just. It goes back a little bit sometimes to just grabbing attention. And one that sticks out was in your neck of the woods when I was working for KESM and Elderator Springs, Missouri, and all I did was I just took the telephone number and I messed around with it and it was just like, I guess, the request from the person on the business. They just wanted people that are the telephone number and that was kind of like for the 30 second ad. That was the guiding sort of spirit of it. So I had this sort of manic thing. I wrote out with the telephone number and I just the whole thing was just about OK, you start with the six, so six is good because and I did this whole thing of like, let's get to that it's helpful number using these goofy mnemonics, right, this idea of like make it a bit of a game all the way through. And they went gangbusters with that. In fact they ran that ad for like. I left the station after a year. They ran it for five years later and it was just something a bit different. I just was I think the energy help because I inject a lot of energy into it, but just this idea of, rather than saying, hey, buy my stuff or come to our restaurant. The whole ad was about Memorize's telephone number for this incredible restaurant and it worked, because when you start to eat the first one you're kind of like where is this about to go? And people hung into it. It's difficult with radio. There's sort of a figure that was used for many years People listen with about 20% of their attention because they're driving around and working the other doing whatever, and something like that, I think, grabbed that attention. I sort of made a bit of a promise. Right, I made a promise at the start Seven-digit number here's your first digit and kind of want to hear how the other six are going to go, and so you create that from the start. That here's the arc of what this 30 seconds is going to happen. It'd pay attention to the end and I think if there's some way to build, transfer ideas like that into what we're doing, they do seem to pay off when you create that expectation of the start. Make sure you pay off, but create that expectation of the start to keep people watching. You see, you know TikTok videos every now and then. You can't do this style too much but, like you know, there'll be like a little banner. This is I'm like, oh, the time I met Kim Kardashian and you see the person going through the line. Well, let me see you meet Kim Kardashian. And then you get the yen answer poster. I say, well, that is fine and yeah, and you're going to get all these different views, but I'm not going to trust you again, I'm not going to go back to you. So there are ways to get those views, but you got to make sure you're meeting that expectation like a suspense. But you got to deliver. Yeah, you got to deliver it. You really do, and it doesn't have to be a huge delivery. All it was like when I was that telephone number, one that comes to mind all that was was just, I just cut to the seven digit and it was fun. That's all that was, but it worked. You got to make sure you, when you make and it's the same thing with my writing there is sometimes implied or sometimes there's pretty much on the page there's a promise to the reader, and I got to make sure I hit that expectation in some way or you'd lose them. So, dick, what's next?

Speaker 2: 24:27

Are you working on any books that you can share? I've always got ideas.

Speaker 3: 24:31

That's the hardware sometimes when you're writing. So I've got I'm writing book four at the moment about through the way through. Book five is coming up shortly after that. But I've got two or three competing ideas, like knocking on my brain, you know, coming up from my subconscious and subcap. Just give it a second. So they're coming in with the cane series. Like I said, we've got the audiobooks coming out Fingers crossed. There is some interest from the production side, either television or whatever it might be. I don't want to think too much about it, put the guy boss on it, but who knows, something might come up with that it could, it could happen. So fingers crossed is something that raises. It, raises up and makes it happen.

Speaker 4: 25:04

For sure On your you've got the number one on the best seller on Amazon. What's your experience like been selling on Amazon? Do you have a distribution service that sells on Amazon for you? Do you do all the listings? How does that work?

Speaker 3: 25:16

I do all the listings for it. I do that through a lot of this through Facebook. I've got some Amazon ads and it's difficult to scale the Amazon ads because at some point they just don't deliver in the same way before and those can get quite expensive per click. A lot of it was just jitting up interest. When I ended up doing cane, I ran a campaign for about 45 days before it happened and I put together a short video. Videos are great because they capture attention and when people watch that, you can actually retarget some of those people that watch that video. And, like Facebook says, you can do three seconds or 10 seconds, people that watch a video for three seconds, people that watch a video for 10 seconds. If I got you to watch for 10 seconds, you're interested in what I was going to add and so from there I could grab that core of people and then create a lookalike audience and I don't know, you may know some of what I'm talking about Create this lookalike audience from that and then all those, all that group. There I can say, hey, listen, the book's out now, maybe you might be interested, and that really helped launch it in the beginning, and then from there I try to understand who these audiences were and it's paying attention to. Like you know, I took a look In my case. They also bought on the Amazon page, so people are coming from other writers who do they? Like I can target those writers, and so it's definitely a bit of a process to it and I'm always learning something every single day. Yeah it, it took. I mean, that thing shot up so much. So, like within two weeks, podium came knocking on my door. I said we want to turn this into an audiobook series and they're one of the biggest out. And then, about 10 days after that, another big audiobook service came out. So yeah, it really got into a wave. And you know, a lot of people talk about trying to predict the market, which I tried that many years ago and had, like I mentioned, sort of like improper success with. But right now I take a look around and, maybe because it's my own algorithm on Facebook or whatever it might be, there seems to be a fair number of werewolf stories out there. So maybe, who knows, maybe I'm hitting a bit of a wave, so we'll see how things go.

Speaker 4: 26:59

No, that's cool and so it sounds like. So you've got the Amazon and then you're using Facebook ads to drive traffic over to them and you've created some local like audiences. It's also pretty cool that you have multiple books in the series, so like if someone obviously if someone bought book one, they're going to be interested in book two, three and four, so you can retarget them for future books.

Speaker 3: 27:17

Yeah, that is, the read through rate is really good on this series. I read another series that I pretty good read through rate. This one is it's somewhere up around 45%, which is mind blowing. And I think all that comes down to, with all the marketing aside, just writing a story that catches people's attention and, like I said, making sure to that promise at the beginning. And one of the implied promises of my story is or I'll just say it is a good guys will always win. There's enough negativity out there that I promise that good guys will win in the end of the story. And in fact, I had an amazing email from this woman it was so this one of the most beautiful things A few weeks ago. This woman, she was having a hard time because her dad was kind of sick and things weren't going really well at work, and so she said to me with all this going on, she emailed me. With all this going on, she said I knew that at night I have a couple hours in their world and I knew whatever trouble they were getting into, they'd work their way out of it, and so it was my little island of joy that I could do. What an amazing thing, what an amazing gift that she felt that she was getting. But people tell me that I created that for somebody that's really, really powerful and part of that, like I said, is sort of making that promise that things will work out in the end. It might not work out how you think. It might not work out how you think, because I have no idea what these characters are doing sometimes, but in the end things will work out.

Speaker 4: 28:27

So that's very motivational. So does that when you hear stories like that? Does that keep you motivated to push through? When it's those tough days, like you mentioned earlier, you're having a tough time writing those kind of stories. Are those motivated you to write more books?

Speaker 3: 28:40

Yeah, you take your fuel where you can right, because you've got plenty of detract and even some of your frenemies around the go. Oh, I hope it does. Well, I've even used those and I don't get too much into it. But I had a couple of people that I knew within my media circle when I was doing television that would have loved to see me fail. Would just loved it. I mean, I don't know what engendered that. Maybe it's because of the personality types, whatever, and there were times where I used this woman's story as Something makes me feel great and something can power me. I use that negative stuff too because I lay there in bed at four o'clock the morning going, oh I just can't get up and do it again. All I would think I was like boy. They would be so happy for me to say that those, those frenemies of mine, would be so happy if I didn't get up and start writing today. And so I take that negativity and turn around, think I'm gonna get up, just prove them wrong. And so that is. I think you can use some of those negative people too. They could, they could be kindling for your fire. Chuck them on there and help them inspire you to prove them wrong.

Speaker 4: 29:34

Absolutely. I know someone else who has Uses that as inspiration as well.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Very nice, ken. Should we dive into the fire round?

Speaker 4: 29:41

Yeah, let's do it, dick. Anything else we want to cover before we go into the fire round.

Speaker 3: 29:45

No man, I'm all yours. You let me know where we're going. All right, let's do it.

Speaker 4: 29:48

So the fire round. We take all of our guests, we run into the ringer. It's called the fire round. It's a series of four questions and they're very simple and easy and fast. It's rapid fire. Okay, are you ready? Here we go. Yeah, what is your favorite book? Hey, checkers guy, to the galaxy nice.

Speaker 3: 30:02

What are your hobbies? Making my wife happy.

Speaker 4: 30:06

That's a great one, really more, yes, very important. What is one thing that you do not miss about working for the man?

Speaker 3: 30:12

putting all my heart and soul, effort and health into somebody else's business. I mean now I put into my own business, which I love. That's awesome.

Speaker 4: 30:19

Last one what do you think sets apart successful entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?

Speaker 3: 30:25

We talked a little about this earlier. I think it's just finding that thing you have to do. Find that thing you're most passionate about. Find that thing that will no matter how much you get drained, the tank is always gonna have something in there. For my part, I feel this way don't sort of seek out, I think this might work. Find that thing you really have to do, really want to do, and you're always gonna have the energy to keep pushing and pushing and eventually that Removal force gets a lot of the way.

Speaker 4: 30:47

Excellent, excellent advice.

Speaker 2: 30:49

Absolutely, dick. I want to thank you for being a guest on the firing man podcast. If people are interested in Purchasing any of your books, will be sure to put links to those in the show notes. If anyone's interested in following you and Any future publications, what would be the best way?

Speaker 3: 31:05

just go to the website. My name dick why rod comms easiest way to find me awesome and we'll post that in show notes as well.

Speaker 2: 31:11

Dick, Thank you so much for your time today and we're looking forward to staying you touch. Thank you both and good luck to everybody you.