In this episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, I reveal the details of a recent survey of my community of friends and fans — the first one in seven years — and evaluate what the results say about my creative brand, my audience, and the direction and intention behind my creative endeavors.

Anyone depending upon others for the success of their art (in other words, all creators) will benefit from the insights I acquired in this exercise. Give it a listen!

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• The Shaper’s World Cycle includes last year’s LIGHT OF THE OUTSIDER, the novelette “The Perfumed Air at Kwaanantag Bay” released in April of 2021, and the forthcoming work in progress, my next novel, SHADOW OF THE OUTSIDER.
• Garrett Morris created the fictional baseball character Chico Escuela and his catchphrase “Baseball… been berry berry goot to me…” Here’s Garrett talking about the origin of the Saturday Night Live character.
• Along with myself, a number of authors are listed as those survey respondents “always buy.” Some, you’ve heard of. Some, you have not. You should check ’em out:
  • Scott Sigler
  • Chuck Wendig
  • Nathan Lowell
  • Paul E. Cooley
  • Chuck Palahniuk
  • David Sedaris
  • Patrick Rothfuss
• Kevin Kelly‘s “1000 True Fans” essay is often quoted by indie creators, with good reason.
• Scribtotum is my blog, where you’ll find periodic, often-long form, in-depth articles and essays on living a healthy and successful creative writing life.
• Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights: “How It All Got Started” is my free serial fiction offering to subscribers of my mailing list.
• Here’s the Big Plan.

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Be A Guest on Sonitotum

I’m always interested in talking to independent creators willing to have a transparent, in-depth, unguarded conversation about making stuff, finding success as you define it, and staying healthy and sane in the process. Check out this episode with musician Emma Wallace to get a sense of what I’m talking about.

Fill out this form, and when you do, select “Sonitotum Podcast Guest Inquiry” as your contact category.

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The Music!

The opening theme song of Sonitotum is “Anastasia” written, performed, and recorded by yours truly, Matthew Wayne Selznick.  You can hear or buy the full song on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon.com, iTunes, or just about anywhere you can buy or stream music online.

The closing and interstitial music is a little ditty I call “Gwinton,” also by yours truly, Matthew Wayne Selznick. It’s super-short and really just a looping thing, so it’s not available outside of the show.

On both songs, I play a 1972 Gibson Ripper bass guitar and a Fender “Bullet” Squire electric guitar. On “Anastasia,” the drums are performed on an Akai Professional MPD218 MIDI drum pad controller. For “Gwinton,” the drums are royalty-free loops found in the excellent Mixcraft Pro Studio software, which was also used to record, mix, and master both “Anastasia” and “Gwinton.”

Podcast Production and Hosting

Sonitotum is usually recorded using an Aurycle a460 large diaphragm studio condenser microphone through a Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD (audio interface for directly connecting microphones and musical instruments to a computer). The show is edited and mixed in Adobe Audition.  The episode files are hosted and delivered by Zencast.fm; the website is hosted by Dreamhost.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Need help managing your existing show? I can help you like I help The What Matters Most Podcast and The Possibility Podcast with Mel Schwartz, among others. Reach out!

Affiliate Declaration

Many of the links in these show notes are to products and services with which I have an affiliate relationship. This means that when you purchase that product or engage in that service, or, in some cases, related products or services, I may receive a modest commission at no extra expense to you. This is a great way to help support Sonitotum and my related creative endeavors, so thanks for doing business with these companies!

Licensing

Sonitotum, including the Sonitotum podcast media, is released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License. You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following terms:

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
• No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

The full license can be found here.