Tell us about the new the show – what’s the elevator pitch?

From Gay to Ze celebrates LGBTQ+ parenting and the messy reality of modern families. We chat to fabulous guests about their own experiences and projects including the latest film, TV, books and music. We delve into queer pop culture as well as queer parents need a switch off too! Plus both of us work in the entertainment and media industry so we love all that jazz. The show is designed to be inclusive as we want non-queer families to listen who want to be good allies and understand the queer parenting community.

‘Some Families’ was the first UK podcast dedicated to queer families, and so influential. Was it sad to say goodbye to the brand?

Some Families will forever hold a special place in our hearts. It was ground-breaking in the sense that it was the first EVER podcast that focused on LGBTQ+ families in all their different guises. The show is still there and we did 40 episodes (award-winning none the less!) and we are so proud of it, but if Some Families was the “how” you become a family From Gay to Ze is all about navigating around the day to day of parenting with wider and varied topics and with our book coming out we felt it was due a refresh.

We all know I love a pun name – for readers who might not be familiar, can you explain where the podcast’s title ‘From Gay To Ze’ came from?

You can’t beat a good pun!! We came up with the title whilst we were working on the book as the format is an A-Z. When looking and exploring pronouns we discovered the pronoun Ze which can be used by those who identity as non-binary. We immediately loved it as it stood for everything we are about, inclusivity and learning something new about our community. Neither of us had never heard of Ze so we wanted to share something that not only our allies can use in their ongoing queer education, but something for the community as well. It was also about celebrating the range and diversity of the LGBTQ+ umbrella… it’s so empowering to think we have so many ways to identify.

You’ve got a book on the way – tell us how you found adapting podcast skills to book writing?

Oh did we mention we had a book? Ha. Yes, The Queer Parent: Everything You Need to Know From Gay to Ze is out in May and is the first LGBTQ+ parenting book to ever be published by a major author. Isn’t that insane? We took a lot of the essence of a podcast into the book in the sense that whilst we rattle on a little about our own experiences we are a tiny, tiny representation of the full queer parenting spectrum so we speak to loads of different people to try and ensure we reflect our community, in the best way we can.

Munroe Bergdorf, Suzi Ruffle, Ben Aldridge – you are straight out of the gate with some incredible guests! But is there a dream guest you haven’t spoken to yet?

Elton John. Would have to record it in person in his villa in the South of France. Think we would call the episode “Parenting is Fabulous, Darling”

Lastly, anything else you’d like to share.

We have a loyal and fabulous queer audience but if you are reading this as a cishet parent (A term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth and is heterosexual) then do give us a listen. We are hopefully offering something a bit different from a usual parenting podcast and every non-queer person we’ve spoken to whose listens say they learnt so much from our guests and their stories.

Listen to From Gay to Ze now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps >>

The post From Gay to Ze: “Queer parents need to switch off too!” appeared first on POD BIBLE.

1.) You already have a head start

You won’t be starting from scratch like other debut authors. You will have existing content that can be adapted into a different format and an established platform from which to market your book. While you may still have a considerable amount of work to complete, you’ll have a good understanding of what your listeners want from you, which will help you to plan and write a book that you know will be of value to them. And it’s not necessarily a numbers game when it comes to audience size. Having dedicated fans who repeatedly engage and truly back your work gives you so much more selling power than mere likes and follows, and the podcasting format lends itself well to that.

2.) To create something with staying power

While podcasts most often feature content and commentary that is timely and topical, books sit proudly on bookshelves for years to come, where they are revisited, shared around and gifted. As with any form of content, not all books are created equal. Publishing a book that is timeless and of exceptional quality requires specialist support from the right editors and designers for your genre. But done correctly you will be creating something that’s here to stay. From Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to Tara Westover’s memoir Educated and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, books have the power to stand the test of time. The world may be developing into a mostly digital space, but nothing beats holding a book in your hands, especially if it’s your very own.

3.) To cement your authority & generate publicity

Launching a book gives you a fresh talking point that can open doors to more opportunities as you promote your work and build your profile as an author. Publishing garners respect and can cement your authority in your subject, presenting with it relevant media coverage, influencer engagement and speaking slots that may not have previously been accessible. Regardless of physical sales, a book can get your name and brand out into the world, giving audiences a reason to connect with you in the first place while offering them something they can take away.

4.) A physical product = additional revenue

As a tangible product, a book is the perfect complement to other ventures like a podcast, generating an additional stream of revenue that will last for years to come. Book revenues vary significantly depending on your chosen publishing route, the marketing commitment to the project, and, to put it bluntly, the quality of the work. But authors have never had more power than they do today when it comes to monetisation options, and ‘massive change’ isn’t nearly adequate enough to describe the seismic shifts in publishing and bookselling in the last two decades. Thanks to the digital revolution, an audience can be built and spoken to directly, and today’s authors no longer need to rely on the traditional route or bricks-and-mortar retailers for their books to attract sales. This opens up multiple viable options for those who have an existing platform.

5.) To strengthen your fanbase & reach new listeners

Sometimes it’s less about having something to sell than about having something to strengthen. A book can be a wonderful marketing tool. For your existing listener-base the aim may be to build a more powerful connection. A book, then, is a special object that they can own and use to explore your themes in greater detail. By making your content available in a format that can appear on additional platforms, such as Amazon or Waterstones, you are also making yourself discoverable to new audiences who may never have heard about your podcast otherwise. So not only are you giving back to your loyal listeners, you’ll be gaining a fair few too.

If you’re a podcaster with an idea for a great book but aren’t sure where to start, creative publishing agency whitefox have a FREE in-depth guide filled with expert tips, insightful interviews and all your possible publishing routes explained. Download it HERE now.

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This article was produced as part of a paid advertising package. To enquire about advertising with Pod Bible email info@podbiblemag.com.

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Adam is here to walk you through the weeks podcast proceedings, with guests including the people behind Not Another Love Song, Distraction Pieces and On The Outside, and bonus chat with this episode’s sponsor WHITEFOX (turning podcasts into books)!

THIS WEEKS GUESTS

Not Another Love Song • Acast • Spotify

Distraction Pieces • Acast • Spotify

On The Outside • Online • Apple Podcasts

Whitefox • Creating exceptional books for industry leaders, writers and brands

THIS WEEKS RECOMMENDATIONS

2 Girls 1 Shop • Acast • Apple Podcasts

Out There • Apple Podcasts • Spotify

PODBIBLE LINKS

Pod Bible Magazine

Pod Bible Twitter

Pod Bible Instagram

Pod Bible Facebook

Pod Bible Email

The post #096 • Not Another Love Song • Distraction Pieces • On The Outside • Whitefox appeared first on POD BIBLE.

Matt Stocks, host of Life in the Stocks

Hi Matt. First up, tell us a bit about yourself and your podcast.

The podcast is called Life In The Stocks, and it features candid, unedited, in-depth interviews with a wide range of musicians, actors, comedians & creatives. I’ve been interviewing people for over a decade now. I started out hosting the Evening Show on Kerrang! Radio from 2010-2013. Then I worked at Team Rock Radio, co-hosting their Breakfast Show from 2014-2015. I also presented a Punk Show and an-depth interview show called Soundtrack Apocalypse, which is when I began to really hone and develop my skills as a long-form conversationalist.

I’ve also written over a hundred articles for the likes of Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Vive Le Rock and Louder Than War. I spent three years (2015-2018) presenting for Scuzz TV. I wrote, produced & directed a feature-length documentary on the band Airbourne, called It’s All For Rock N’ Roll, which has had over 150,000 views on YouTube.

And at the end of last year, I released my first book, which is based on conversations from my podcast. It’s called Life In The Stocks: Veracious Conversation with Musicians & Creatives (Volume One). But no one likes a show off, do they? So I’ll shut up now.

Well, that does lead us nicely into the next question: how did the idea to do a podcast book come about?

It’s something I’ve had in the back of my head for a long time. I’ve been doing the podcast for four years now, and I’ve published 200 episodes. When you host a show for that long, and you talk to that many people, a Venn diagram starts to form between all the guests and their shared histories—both on a personal and a cultural level. And if you’re paying attention, which I always am, you start to form a mind map of when and how the dots connect. So I’ve been toying with the idea of how to combine and present these stories in a new format for quite some time.

Then on March 10th last year, the day before my birthday, I received an email out of the blue from Rare Bird—a publishing company based in Los Angeles—asking if I wanted to meet up for a chat whilst they were in London. I agreed to meet them the next day in the hope that I’d blag a free drink and a meal out of them—I always try to take business meetings on my birthday for that very reason.

I thought they’d maybe ask me to host some Live Q&A events for them, or perhaps see if I’d have one of their authors on my podcast or something like that. But within five minutes of sitting down, they offered me the chance to turn Life In The Stocks into a book. It was the best surprise birthday present ever—much better than a free meal, which they never bought me, by the way.

So that would’ve been right before the UK went into national lockdown. The timing couldn’t have been better really.

Right? It was like a gift from the gods—if you believe in that stuff, which I think I do. After the Coronavirus hit, I instantly lost all my work. I used to make a living as a DJ: 70-80% of my annual income came from touring and local London residencies. And all of that dried up immediately, of course, the minute we went into national lockdown. Then I lost all my podcast sponsors, too. So the book deal could literally not have come at a better time. Someone up there was definitely looking out for me, because aside from the book advance, I haven’t had a paid gig since March 2020. Bleak times.

Thanks to the support of my listeners via Patreon, though, I’ve managed to just about scrape by with money from the Patreon page, the book advance, and the government self-employment support income. It’s funny, I calculated my earnings for 2020 just before Christmas, and it was my worst financial year since leaving university in 2008. I say “funny,” it’s obviously not… but if you don’t laugh then you’ll cry. And I just about managed to get by, so I can’t really complain.

If the last twelve months have taught me anything, it’s to be grateful for what you’ve got. And writing a book has always been a lifelong dream of mine, so 2020 wasn’t all bad—at least for me. And I don’t know if I would’ve had time to write a book if it wasn’t for the Coronavirus and resulting lockdown, so I have to look at things in that light too. I made the best of a bad situation, I guess.

There’s 35 guests in the book, and you said you’ve published 200 podcast episodes. So how did you go about choosing who appeared in Life In The Stocks Volume One?

The first decision I made was that all the guests in this book would be from the United States or Canada. There’ll be time down the line for a UK edition, and I’m already excited to get into that one. The publishers are LA-based, so it just made sense to focus on that market—if you want to call it that. I also love the history of American music and pop culture, too. So this gave me the chance to really delve into that.

As far as picking who the specific guests would be, I just went back to the start of the show—Episode 001: Steve-O (Jackass)—and worked my way chronologically through the back catalogue, pulling out what I believed to be the strongest and/or my personal favourite conversations as I went. I then transcribed the highlights from each episode along the way, and I wound up with an average of 2-3,000 words per episode. And books of this kind are usually around 80-90,000 words in total, so 35 guests just seemed like a good number to go with. I guess I’m a pretty methodical person in that sense; there’s always method to my madness.

As far as the guests go, just so people have a vague idea of who to expect, here’s a short list of some of my favourites and/or the ones that really stand out for me: Andrew W.K., B-Real, CJ Ramone, Doug Stanhope, Kyle Gass, Laura Jane Grace, Michael Monroe, Monique Powell, Nick Oliveri, Steven Van Zandt, Steve-O, Tom Green… As you can see, there’s a lot of crossover, and a lot of these artists come from similar scenes, eras, and cultural backgrounds. If you came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, and you lived on a steady diet of alternative music & comedy, you’ll absolutely love this book.

You’ve split the chapters into themes, and you cover everything from childhood and punk rock to success, drugs, politics, and creative partnerships. Plus a lot more. What are some of your personal stories from the book?

I particularly love all the old New York stories courtesy of people like Clem Burke from Blondie, CJ Ramone, Tommy Victor from Prong, who also used to be the sound engineer at CBGB, and the “Mayor of the Lower East Side” himself, Mr Jesse Malin. Jesse played his first gig at CBGB when he was twelve years old, and he’s friends with all the New York cats and legends. He’s been on the scene since forever, and he’s still plugged in to what’s happening now in music, too. Everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Billie Joe Armstrong is a friend and a fan of Jesse, and the stories he has are incredible—especially the one he tells in the book about Joe Strummer. Jesse also wrote the foreword to the book, and I was so humbled and honoured by what he wrote. He’s an absolute legend.

There’s some pretty touching and harrowing stuff in the book, too. It isn’t all rock ‘n’ roll tales of fame, fortune, and fun, although there is plenty of that in there of course. Laura Jane Grace and Mina Caputo discuss their experiences coming out as trans, Monique Powell from Save Ferris and my friend Amie Hawick—a famous therapist and writer—talk about feminism and the #MeToo movement, Tom Green describes surviving cancer, Steve-O discusses beating addiction, Al Barr from Dropkick Murphys talks about the opiate crisis in America, I get into mental health and depression in great detail with quite a few guests, and there’s some really beautiful stories about friendship, parenthood & community in there as well.

I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve achieved. And I can say that because I’m only in the book about 10% of the time. The rest of the time, it’s all the guests sharing their amazing stories, experiences, and insights. I kind of just set each chapter up and then get out of the way.

It sounds like a great read, and definitely one for everyone interested in alternative music and comedy. Presumably, there’ll be more volumes down the line?

Most definitely. I’m already working on Volume Two, which will feature another round of American artists: Gene Simmons, Tommy Lee, Chuck D, Perry Farrell, Buzz Osbourne… people like that. Then book number three will be UK centric, which I may also split into two volumes. With 200 episodes to choose from, I’m not exactly short on material.

I’m incredibly proud of every podcast I’ve ever done, too. I think there’s great stuff to be found and taken from all of them—even if I do say so myself. I have been doing this for over a decade after all, so you’d hope I’m able to conduct good interviews by now. If not, it’s probably time to pack up and try something else.

You’re perfectly within your rights to be proud of what you do. We’re big fans of Life In The Stocks here at Pod Bible, and you’re right: there’s an extremely vast back catalogue of conversations to choose from. Why don’t you tell us about a few of your favourite episodes, which people should check if they’ve never heard Life In The Stocks before.

It all depends on what you’re into, I guess, but if we’re going purely on the strength of the conversation, then I’d say the Gail Porter episode is as good a place as any to start. The Kate Lawler episode is another one of my all-time favourites as well. They’re a couple that are outside the realms of music, but still music related in that they’re both TV & radio presenters—not to mention two of my favourite people. The John Lydon and Shaun Ryder episodes are fantastic, too. Two UK legends right there.

The Tom Green episode is well worth checking out, just because it’s nothing like what you’d expect. We’d go deep: we talk about death and the meaning of life for about half an hour. The Gene Simmons episode might also give you a different perspective and opinion on him. And it’s hilarious. He’s just a ridiculous person. But I rate him, and it’s great interview. Have you had enough yet? Ha ha! There really is something for everyone in there: James Lavelle, Dom Joly, Stephen Graham, Tommy Lee, B-Real, Doug Stanhope, Alice Lowe, Perry Farrell, Ralph Steadman, Wayne Kramer, Pauline Black… you name it.

Any good guests or exciting news about upcoming stuff that you’d like to share?

I’d really love it if people just checked out the podcast, if they haven’t heard it already. It’s available in all the usual places. And if you like the show, please subscribe and give me a follow on social media (@mattstocksdj), that way you can keep updated with all the new podcast developments.

I’ll be relaunching the podcast after a short break in February, and I’ll going into Series Three—I do 100 episodes per series because I’m hardcore like that—with Alice Cooper as my guest. So that’ll definitely be an episode you don’t want to miss.

Thanks for letting me chew your ear off about all things Life In The Stocks, though. I promise I don’t talk this much on my podcast—I like to give my guests the floor, and allow them the chance to shine. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to do the same on here. I really admire what you guys are doing for the podcast community, and I really appreciate your support.

Cheers, Matt. All the best with the book release and Series Three of Life In The Stocks.

You can listen to Life in the Stocks on Acast, Spotify and your favourite podcast app.

 Life in the Stocks: Veracious Conversations with Musicians & Creatives (Volume One) is out NOW and available from Amazon, Waterstones, Blackwells, and you can get signed copies direct from the publishers: rarebirdlit.com

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