The Show Will Go On, (But a bit more manageably)

So, being sick for over a month took me from being overwhelmed and behind on everything to just having all the pieces fall on the ground. The advantage, though, is that as I go through the pieces of all my various responsibilities and start picking them back up, now that I can stand up and be productive again, is that I have been doing some real hard thinking about what is worth picking up and what is not. A lot of that is happening in my personal life, but on the podcast I have decided that I really don’t need to focus on growth, I need to focus on the core of telling the story, the parts that I really like.

What happened this summer is this: I had a rough time at work in the spring and said something like “I sure wish I could quit my job and be a full time podcaster/youtuber”. Which, to be fair, is still the dream. But then I got invited into this supposed Spotify Growth Program that they were running to help channels they thought had potential to grow, and shortly after into some Youtube High Five promotion, plus I got some other encouraging signs and advice, like the Total War Pharaoh release, and I convinced myself that if I really worked at it, I could grow the channel enough over the next few months to really start to launch.

But, of course, it didn’t happen. Podcast listens have actually been down since switching to video, which is the biggest thing the spotify people were pushing, and all that growth stuff turned out to be one carrot dangling in front of the horse after another. And then I got seriously ill and all the stuff I was barely keeping up with fell apart.

Anyway, podcast will return, my target date is Oct 2, and back on normal schedule after that. However, we are going back to audio only, no promotional episodes, no distractions. If free time comes my way in this new, more streamlined lifestyle I am adopting, the first big chunk is going towards playing video games and just relaxing for a while. After that, I will see if there is time to work on the books again, I have the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylon book about 80% done and want to get that out at some point, but the only deadlines for me now are the bi-weekly releases and whatever nonsense is happening in my day job.

So that is where I am. I really appreciate everyone who has supported me so far, I do this for the joy of getting deep into the story, but having an audience makes a big difference in all this. And I will probably be pretty quiet for a while aside from the regular episodes until the next book comes out at least.

There is a ton coming up, all the plans for the show are still just where they have always been, the next episode will be a dive into Babylon’s little recovery period, and after that we are building up towards a fun little section where we will seriously ask if the period between Shalmaneser III and Tiglath-Pileser III was actually a period of decline or not, and then of course if you think that Assurnasirpal and Shalmaneser have been a big deal, I fully expect the Big Six kings of late Neo-Assyria to take us well over a year, including all the daily life and culture stuff that we will be able to get back in to at that point.

Thanks for listening.