January 6, 2025 • 41 mins
Welcome to Episode 277 of Spun Today, your creative sanctuary where writing meets inspiration! I’m your host, Tony Ortiz, and today’s episode is a special year-in-review recap of 2024, packed with reflections, achievements, and lessons learned. We'll revisit some of the most monumental deals in the creative world, like Issa Rae turning down a multi-million dollar offer to ultimately secure a better deal for her successful career, Kobe Bryant's incredible investment in Body Armor that paid off big time, and the $15+ million Stitcher deal landed by the "Your Mom’s House" podcast network.
We'll break down the top five episodes from Spun Today in 2024, including writing sessions, book reviews, and popular discussions about shows like "Black Mirror" and "Jack Ryan." I’ll share personal milestones, like the challenging journey through my wife’s breast cancer battle. Plus, we’ll dive into the highlights and lowlights of tracking listener engagement, social media expansion efforts, and my aspirations for 2025.
Join me as we celebrate the wins, analyze the setbacks, and set the course for a more consistent and productive year ahead. Whether you’re a writer, a creative professional, or simply looking for a dose of inspiration, this episode is crafted just for you. Let’s jump in and wrap up 2024 with insights and motivation to fuel your creative journey into 2025!
The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:19):
What's up folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today Podcast, the only
podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in scope. I'm
your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode
277. It is the first episode of
2025 and is the
official 2024 Spun Today wrap up show.
(00:42):
In this episode, I'm going to reflect on the
top five spun episodes of 2024
in terms of listenership and I also share some of my
writing and podcasting goals for 2025, as well
as look back on the goals that I set last year for 2024
so I can beat myself up a little bit on all the shit that I
(01:03):
did not achieve. Stick around for all that good stuff.
But first I wanted to
share a quick way that you can help support this podcast. If you so
choose. Your support means a ton. It's very
motivating, much appreciated. And there's a bunch of different
ways that you can help support not just financially if you want to go that
(01:24):
route, but by rating and reviewing either my books or my
podcast. And there's a bunch of different shopping discounts that you
get, maybe for something that you're already looking for. And I benefit
from that by you using my affiliate links. All this can
be found on my website Sponsored a comm forward slash
support. That's where you'll find all my merch, all the links
(01:46):
to discount codes, my affiliate links, donation
links, so on and so forth. But here is just one of those ways
you can help support and then we'll jump right into the show.
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(02:08):
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Podcast of the Week. I listen to tons of podcasts from an
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(02:30):
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(02:52):
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time. Again, go to spun.com
subscribe drop in your email address and you'll get the very next
one. And now let's
recap the top five most listened to episodes of the Spun
(03:14):
Today podcast in 2024. Starting off at the
fifth spot is episode
255. Jose de la Rosa, Golden Gloves
champ, firefighter and fitness aficionado. Shout out
to Jose and this episode which was a bit of
a surprise for me because it was a re
(03:36):
released episode. This year's actual top five has a
few surprises in it, but it's a re release
episode. An episode that I
initially released the prior year I want to say in 2023
or maybe even 2022 when we released the original.
But sometimes on a either like
(03:58):
around the holidays or for whatever
reason I can't record a brand new episode while I do
is is kind of like remaster and re release
a prior episode prior released
episode or if it's fitting for for whatever reason
like I do yearly. For example with the 911 episode that I
(04:19):
recorded where I interviewed close friends and
family, all of which were around and affected
here in New York during 9 11. Never
released that every year, but it's one of those like re release episodes
so I wouldn't expect it to have garnered so
much listenership, but super happy that it did. Shout out again to Jose and
(04:41):
it's a dope episode. You guys should definitely go back and listen if you haven't.
Jose is a friend of mine from junior high and high
school that we went to together. He went off to become a
Golden Gloves champion. He also won the Silver Gloves.
For those who don't know, it's a prestigious boxing title to
achieve. He's also a New York City firefighter and he's super into
(05:03):
fitness. He's always posting like videos on on his workouts
and and recommended workouts and ever since that episode we're always saying
we're gonna link up again to do another episode because they had like so
much more to his story to to to speak on and it was just a
great episode. So definitely one of the the goals I want to circle back
to later this year and I'll link to Jose's page in
(05:25):
the episode notes so you guys can go check him out as well.
The fourth most listened episode of the Spontane podcast in
2024 was episode
253 of the Spun Today podcast. Yet another
Surprise on the list. It was technically not a re release, although some of the
content is. But I was actually very happy to see this on the list
(05:47):
because episode number 253 is the goats
doing goat mashup number one.
So there's a segment that I started doing, I want to say a
year, maybe, maybe even like a year and a half, two years ago,
but it's where I wanted to highlight folks
that are goats within their respective fields, greatest
(06:10):
of all time, that go above and beyond in a certain way
that they didn't have to. And I want to give that type of
mentality and action. I want to give that in and
of itself, it's flowers, just people doing dope,
whether morally or in some sort of financial space
that I think deserves much more attention. So I created this
(06:33):
segment called Goats Doing Goat
for that purpose and what episode 253
is because I usually have like a go per episode,
but I want to make it per episode, which is another again 2025
goal. But every, I usually have one goat
mentioned during an episode. And this is every single episode. It
(06:55):
could be every, you know, other or every two or three episodes. But
what I did was create this episode
253, which is a mashup of a bunch of
different, these, if you will, into the spun Goats
Doing Goat Shit list. So if you've missed any of the prior
episodes and you're interested in just this type of
(07:17):
content, you can obviously listen to this episode, which is a mashup
of a bunch of them. Not all of them, but a bunch of them, which
included in this episode, Conor, just to give you guys an idea of what it
is, but Conor McGregor, who's, you know, double UFC champ,
UFC superstar, he went off to do a great
spirit steal with his whiskey Proper 12
(07:38):
and wound up doubling his net worth in the process, which was
already impressive after he made something like 100 million or something like that after
fighting Floyd Mayweather in a crossover boxing
match. So really impressive financial move. So I added him to
to the list. I also broke down Joe Rogan versus Carlos
Mencia. So this is when Joe went out of his
(08:00):
way to stand up to Carlos Mencia, which was a bigger act at the
time because Carlos was stealing jokes
from allegedly from fellow comedians that
were within Rogan's orbit, like some of his boys, but, you know,
lower on the totem pole in terms of stand up comedy. So Carlos
would just get away with it because he was such a big name and a
(08:20):
big act and they were scared to like speak up for themselves. So
Rogan took it upon himself to stand up to Carlos in a very
public fashion in the middle of a comedy club on stage, and the
rest is history. I also added Rory and Malls in this episode.
Rory and Mall's initial Stitcher deal, which has
since run its course. It was a licensing deal and
(08:43):
now they have a new licensing deal, which is why I always harp on,
you know, maybe one day, knock on wood, I'll be in a position to do
so. But just even like with your writing, with podcasting,
with music, with any creative work, shoot for
owning your ip, because folks, you know, might get like,
wide eyed and take the short bag, take the short money
(09:06):
and just, you know, sell something that they created, give all the rights
away, essentially, because they say, you know, here's a million
dollars, but if you want to keep your, your IP, then it's, it's, you know,
50 grand or 100 grand or something like that. Take the 100 grand, take the
50 grand, because what you can do, instead of taking the million or, you know,
whatever it is, hypothetical numbers, obviously, but
(09:28):
similar to how Rory Mall did. They got their money from the Stitcher deal. It
was a licensing deal. They still own their podcast and their ip, their
intellectual property, and now they're in another licensing deal.
So they resold it again. And as long as you keep the ownership of what
you create, you can keep doing that forever in perpetuity.
Alternatively, you sell it for the million bucks and then that
(09:50):
company that buys that IP from you, they're going to do that, they're going to
keep selling it perpetuity and make the money off of you forever.
So I wanted to shout them out for, for that deal.
I also added Issa Rae for her Issa Rae Warner Media
deal. Great. Incredible. Content creator. Not even
content creator. She's a showrunner, movie star,
(10:12):
writer. I've taken her master class, which is great. Created
the, the HBO like, big series
Insecure, which was spawned from her
Awkward Black Girl YouTube series that she was creating herself.
Creating, directing, and acting in herself. That led to the Insecure
HBO deal, which ultimately led to this Issa Rae Warner
(10:33):
Media deal for multiple millions. And I think if I remember
correctly, I shouted out specifically for.
There was like some sort of like 10 or 2015 or 20
million dollar offer that they offered her for the deal, which she turned down.
And most, most folks were like, what, are you fucking crazy? How do you
turn down $20 million? And from her perspective, essentially,
(10:55):
she was like, because I know my worth. I know what I have to sell
is not worth 20, it's worth a lot more. You know, from the outside looking
it's like 20 million. Take that. But again, sticking to your guns,
knowing what it is that you're selling, owning your ip. And she wanted getting, you
know, multiple times that when they came back around.
So shout out to Issa Ray. And in this episode, two more
(11:15):
goats doing goat segments that I mashed together here. Second
to last being the Kobe body armor deal. Rip to
the goat. Kobe Bryant who
invested in a company called Body Armor, which
is a competitor or within the same space, smaller market
share, but within the same space of Gatorade, you know,
(11:37):
one of these sports drink beverages. And he
invested $6 million into the company when they were in its
infancy, in very nascent stages for a 10 stake in
the company. Coca Cola wound up acquiring that company
and that 10% stake turned into a 400
million dollar payout for Kobe and his family. Now it's
(12:00):
family. So $6 million investment saw the opportunity
there with just a lion's share of the market that
Gatorade owned. So the, a competing company had a very small
percentage of that market share. He
invested in that company because thought it was a wise
investment to do so, I would imagine. And you know, good tasting beverages,
(12:23):
you know, very similar stuff. And they had a chance to be
acquired by a company that wanted to either
buy them, for example to, so that they
can own even more of the market share. If it's the same
company that, that if Coca Cola owns Gatorade, I'm not sure. Or if
it's Pepsi maybe like those parent companies,
(12:45):
they're just like conglomerates and own, own everything.
But it's a, it's a smart play because it could go one of two ways.
Either that same company will buy you so that you know, they can own
even more of the market and just sell, sell you two seemingly
different things, you know, Gatorade,
Powerade body armor and meanwhile the same company owns it and
(13:07):
they're just making money and you think you're buying different things or an actual
competing company will buy them out to gain
market share against Gatorade. And essentially
either which way it went, that six million dollar investment turned
into $400 million.
Again, shout out to Kobe the goat and Rip.
(13:29):
And last but certainly not least, the last goats doing
goat that I added to this specific mashup episode
was the YMH stitcher
deal. YMH for those who don't know, is your mom's house. It's
become a podcast network. It's initially a podcast
soul podcast by hosts the hilarious
(13:51):
Tom Segura stand comic and the
hilarious Christina Pazicki his wife. They have a podcast
together. They both stand up comics and super
popular. They, they innovated within the field doing like pay per
view style podcast for certain events.
Ever a pretty popular cult following
(14:13):
started got this stitcher deal. I think it was like a 10
or 15 million dollar deal for the podcast.
And you know, started putting out other
podcasts under their YMH umbrella. Like Ari Shafir's new
UB Tripping podcast is under there. Danny Brown's podcast is on
there. Two Bears One Cave which is Tom and Bird's podcast is on
(14:36):
there, so on and so forth. So that was a pretty dope deal. Pretty cool
to see especially if you know them and follow them from, you know, early on
in their careers when famously for example, Tom Segura didn't even know what a
podcast was. He's one of these comics in like Rogan's orbit
when Rogan was first starting his podcast and he would go
on there and be like, what is this? Who's listening to this? How does this
(14:57):
what? And then you know, fast forward to him having his own podcast
network including his flagship show
and garnering, you know, tens of millions of dollars in the process.
The number three most listened to episode of the Spun Today podcast
in 2024 was episode two titled
Mastering the Myth, Navigating Imposter Syndrome and
(15:19):
Cultivating Created Creative Currency. This was a
free writing session episode. For those of you don't know, one of the types of
episodes that I do on this podcast, which are honestly one of
my favorite types to do because it's very, very writing
centric. You know, this is after all a
mainly writing podcast, right? Like I touch on, you know, current events
(15:41):
and, and topical things and you know, just
break down like movies and TV shows. But I always try to do it from
the lens of a writer or an aspiring writer if you will.
But these free writing session episodes specifically are a lot more in the weeds
of writing. So it's more like writing inside baseball
and they're some of my favorites to do. And in this
(16:03):
episode specifically, and the general format of it is that I
share a writing tip for fellow writers out there,
usually one in this episode I actually share two, one from Kevin Smith
and another one from K.M. weiland. And just
like great anecdotal, little, you know, pieces of advice related to writing
and just like creative motivation in general that I want to
(16:26):
share put out there, I also share My writing stats, you know, let you guys
know how much I've been writing over
the past, you know, month or two. That's more so for, you know,
just keeping myself honest for my tracking purposes so that I can see,
you know, I have a goal of X, for example, to like write a
book by the end of the year. But then I can reflect on these
(16:49):
specific writing stats and see, you know, instead
of wondering at the end of the year, oh man, why didn't I write the
book? I could look at these writing stats and be like, okay, that's why I
wrote, you know, 10 of the days in April. I
wrote, you know, 15 of the days of March,
so on and so forth. With the low numbers like that, obviously it's not going
to yield good results. So it's kind of like a way for me to like,
(17:11):
track and try to motivate myself to write more. So I share those
writing stats, I share what I've been reading and I break down a book,
for example, once I finish it. And I share my, like, my favorite takeaways from
that book in these episodes, this one specifically, I
shared the Daily dad by Ryan Holiday.
And I tell you guys a little bit of what that's about. And I also
(17:33):
shared in this episode, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E.
Frankl. And last but not least, what I do in these free writing session
episodes is I share a piece of my own writing, usually a piece of free
writing, which is a practice that, that I like to do often. And
you know, it could be something that I wrote, you know, three, four, five, eight
years ago, just a paragraph or two on anything. And I just share with you
(17:54):
guys, I reflect on it myself and yeah, that's pretty much the format
for these freewriting session episodes. And that One
was episode 256, which again was the third most listened
to episode of 2024. The second most listened
to episode of the Spontane podcast in 2024,
this one was definitely a surprise for me because it was the
(18:16):
2023 Spun wrap up show. So
this specific show that I'm doing right now, which is the wrap up of
2024, the 2023
wrap up show was the second most listened to episode of
2024, which surprising, I guess, but
yeah, it was surprising to me. But yeah, thank you folks for
(18:39):
listening. And last but certainly not least,
the number one most listened to episode
of the Spun Today podcast in all of
2024 was just pretend
you're hearing a drum roll right now. Episode
254 of the Spun Today podcast, which
(19:01):
was Black Mirror, the Jack Ryan
finale, American Fiction and Joe Rogan's renewed
Spotify deal. Shout out to the number one
episode. This was one of those pretty
like self explanatory episodes in terms of if you're following the
title. I broke down watching recent season
(19:22):
of Black Mirror, which is was season six of Black
Mirror. Great TV show on Netflix, super creative.
Each episode is like its own little movie. Very, very, very
much so recommend it. I tell you guys who the
writers are. I share the official synopsis, I break down certain episodes, I tell you
guys what my favorite parts of each episode were. And they definitely
(19:44):
do have spoilers when I do these little breakdowns. So
beware if you don't want to hear any. I also
spoke about the Jack Ryan finale, final season, the
series finale where again to a TV show. It's on
Amazon. I like bumped into the show on accident, watched
one episode years ago and just got completely
(20:06):
roped in. It's a great action Mission
Impossible type of series. John
Krasinski, who plays Jim from the Office is the
lead in this dramatic series which was like interesting
juxtaposition from what we're used to seeing him acting in or at least me.
And he knocked it out of the park. He plays Jack
(20:27):
Ryan, which is like a CIA, you know, like smart
desk guy, but he has this like military background of being just a
badass on the field also, but nobody like really knows about it. And he chases
down terrorists and it's a, it's a dope series. And the final season,
which is what I break down in this episode, definitely did not
disappoint. Then I also broke down American
(20:49):
Fiction, the movie which was amazing, starring
Jeffrey Wright, Tracy Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Issa Ray's in
it, which I mentioned earlier. Erica Alexander.
It was a great, great movie that I definitely highly recommend
folks watching. I broke that down in this episode and the last thing I
spoke about in that episode was another addition to the goats doing
(21:12):
goat segment. And in this instance it was Joe
Rogan's second segment Spotify deal after his
first. Again going back to the whole licensing deal concept. Instead of
him like selling his podcast rights to some company
for $100 million, which folks would have probably
done. He licensed it specifically for three years for
(21:34):
that 100 million. You know, if somebody wanted to buy it outright, you know, maybe
they would have offered him, you know, like two or three. But he took 100
million and it was just for three years. Then everything goes back
to normal. He keeps his 100 million. He owns his podcast, Continue, you
know, has continued doing it throughout. And at the end of the
100 years, it was such a lucrative deal from like a, a stock
(21:55):
share, share price vantage point for
Spotify that they wound up his
licensing deal for more than double what they gave him the first time. So the
second time around it was 250 million. And
he was also allowed to go wide, which meaning that
not just exclusively to Spotify like the first deal was for the first three years.
(22:17):
Now you can listen to JRE on every single platform.
And because of that deal, again, where I like to highlight goats
that do goat shit, I added Joe
Mr. Rogan to the list once again. And that,
folks, was the number one most listened to episode of
2024. Episode 254.
(22:40):
Thanks again to each and every one of you who take the time to listen.
It is much, much, much appreciated.
So now let's reflect on goals. When I do
these year end wrap ups, I like
to reflect on the goals that I set for
myself in the prior year. So in this case 2024,
(23:01):
analyze if achieved or not, and then also establish
my goals for 2025 moving forward so that when I do the 2025
recap next year and kind of follow suit and you know,
reflect and take inventory, if you will, on what was achieved, what
wasn't achieved. And these are, you know, like high level goals for the year.
Right. So I'm going to do that for both my writing goals
(23:24):
and my podcasting goals, which are obviously
intertwined in a sense. Start off with the writing. So in
2024 I set out two
specific writing goals for myself for the year. I like toned it
down a notch from 2023, if I remember
correctly, where I had just like a shitload of goals.
(23:46):
Unrealistic. So I scaled it back in an effort
to now overwhelm myself in
terms of the specific writing goals, but also, you know, to have something more, more
manageable, more doable. Now if you're a listener to the pod, you know that this
year went through a very tough time from a family perspective with my
wife battling breast cancer. And
(24:08):
that obviously took a toll and
warranted much more attention on that and
her and getting through that period and actually did an episode
with her for the podcast all about it, just to spread awareness on
the topic and just to share her story on what she
went through. And I say that not as an excuse, but just
(24:30):
to. Because I don't, how do I say it? I'm a firm
believer that everybody has everybody's dealing with their own. And everybody gets
the same amount of time. Everybody gets 24 hours in a day, regardless of who
you are. So it's not an excuse, but I did want to highlight
that a lot of time was obviously the majority,
the rightfully so time was spent
(24:51):
in dealing with that situation. So circling
back to the goals that I actually set for myself in the beginning of the
year was to submit a
draft of Fractal 2 for editing and
or at least finish the first draft of Fractal 2.
Fractale for those who may not know, is my novel.
(25:13):
It's my science fiction time travel novel available now. The book one
is all the links you can find that spun .com
books search on Amazon or wherever it is that you get your
books. And this is a deeper series. That's the first novel that I
published a few years back and my goal was to finalize
the at least the first draft of the
(25:35):
second in the series. That goal was not achieved. I did
work on it a bit more. Definitely not anything,
not in any amount that I'm proud of. Feel
like I could have done more, but definitely considering that
goal of failure. The second goal, which I thought the second and
last goal actually that I established for myself for 2024
(25:57):
was to record the audiobook of
my short story series that I did publish last
year, Melted Cold. That book also available
sponsor.com books forward/ melted
Cold. You find all the links of where you can purchase there. I definitely
thought I was gonna have more time to focus on that or to
(26:19):
achieve that. I felt it was a less of a heavy lift
for whatever reason, but also a failure
and not an achieved goal. Now looking forward
to 2025, I'm definitely carrying both of those goals
forward to achieve them for 2025, but
actually adding this year a couple more kind of as like a bit
(26:41):
of a catch up for myself. First and foremost, consistency.
Just like an overall foundational stick to
a writing schedule consistency.
I've done that in spurts throughout my writing quote unquote
career. Obviously I've yielded much more results when I have stuck
to a schedule. A lot of it since has been just
(27:04):
more sporadic. Whenever I can find time, you know, juggling family
and kids and work and you know, just life in
general. When you leave it up to just like write whenever it is that
you think you have some free time, you want to, you wind up not doing
it. So definitely want to firm up and stick to a consistent schedule. That's
goal number one. Goal number two would be recording the
(27:25):
audiobook for Melted Cold, a short story series. Goal number
three would be finishing the first draft of
Fractale 2 2. That's a working title by the way,
as well as submitting both Fractal one and Fractal two for
editing. Because what I want to do is re release the first book in the
series after getting it professionally edited the way I did with my
(27:48):
short story series Melted Cold and re put it
out when I re put out a fractal too.
So that's kind of like a dual goal there within that fractal series.
And last but not least, revisit and finish writing and
publishing Make Way for your. En Espanol
Make Way for your is the first book that I ever wrote. It's a
(28:11):
nonfiction. I call it the Poor Man's War of
Art by Steven Pressfield. And I've written probably around
30 or 40%. I've translated myself into Spanish
and I would like to finish that off to put that out. Something
that I started doing, I dropped. I started doing close to
like right after publishing it honestly and
(28:34):
just like dropped it. Never, never picked it back up or that's a lie. I
picked it up here and there, translated a passage or
two. Just haven't followed through with finishing it.
So that is. That would be the fourth and
final goal I'm setting for myself from a writing perspective
for 2025.
(28:56):
So in 2024, now speaking to podcast
goals, my podcast goals for 2024,
I set an overall arching goal to
increase my listenership by 50%. And that was
definitely not achieved. It actually
dropped year over year specific downloads just from
(29:17):
podcatchers itself by
64%. That deserves another. And
overall, a year over year drop, factoring in just
complete views like with shorts and, and clip videos and stuff like
that, which I did successfully track this year, which was a sub goal,
which I'll get to that dropped as well by about
(29:38):
57%. So yeah, a lot of womp, womp, womp, womps there.
So that's how he failed on that goal, which again I attributed
to just trying to be objective to, you know,
not being as consistent as I have been in, you know, the last nine
years prior with re. With releasing episodes every other
Thursday on the dot. I started slipping with that towards
(30:01):
like the latter half of last year. And there were a lot more
RE release episodes this past year as well just because,
you know, time constraints with being able to record and edit so on and so
forth. So I'm not terribly surprised by the drop
in in listenership There now. I also wanted
to set a goal for myself last year to track year
(30:22):
over year, not just the downloads, which is what I was doing for many
years, but also the YouTube videos as well as the
shorts and having a total across the board, year over year,
grand total, which I did do successfully, so kind of
achieved that sub goal. I also set a goal for myself
of being more creative with posts and more consistent with
(30:44):
posting podcast clips and posts on Instagram,
Twitter, et cetera. And I wanted to
also start posting on LinkedIn and TikTok just to like
expand the base there a bit. And I successfully did
so. So I started leveraging this tool called
Author Social Assistant, which was great for.
(31:07):
And I recommend, I. I think I actually have a. An affiliate link
in my support page that you guys can check out for, you know, fellow writers
or creatives out there that may be interested. It gives you
like posts like little like mini
reels and, and just like memes and the opportunity to like add
your book to some stock imaging that looks really good and
(31:29):
professional and it gives you like a sample blurb to add as
well, literally for like each day of,
of a month. And you can add your branding to it. So I have like
the Spontane Today logo on them and you could choose to remove it for ones
that you want to remove it from. You can, you know, customize the, the text
obviously and, and edit it how you want. Just like a great starting
(31:50):
template. And I've been using that and it's, you know, really increase.
Helped increase like engagement on like IG and Twitter and stuff like
that for those specific posts. And I've
honed in on specific and consistent clip
formats for the podcast just visually in the way it looks. And
that's all been going well. I've been pretty consistent with that. So I'll
(32:12):
definitely consider that in an achieved goal minus the tick tock thing,
which by the way, bam banned me. I have no idea
why I just like joined. Just, just start adding like podcast clips and stuff like
that and try to reach out and it's like, you know, black box, you know,
never get anything back. I also set a goal for myself in 2024 to start
customizing clips for the platform that they're
(32:35):
going on, which that I haven't done and
kind of like don't consider that a goal that I'm gonna be attempting
or implementing moving forward. Because
the, for example, a. What's it called, like the nine by
16, you know, like the story style clips
that when I implement them on like YouTube or
(32:57):
LinkedIn and Twitter get like not exactly like
widescreen for example on YouTube, but it does like some
visual formatting where it gives it like a widescreen
background based on like the standard
square or or vertical post that you put on. And that's
working fine for me I believe just like the cost benefit of the time it
(33:18):
would take to do like separate individuals, it just
isn't there. I also gave myself a goal, a possible
goal of increasing the output of the podcast to weekly from bi weekly
that I said then was not feasible and definitely still is not feasible
moving forward. And I also had a goal in 2024. The
last goal I set for myself for the podcast to do at least
(33:41):
three plus interviews, separate interview episodes
for the podcast which I also did not achieve. I just did the one
that I referenced earlier with my wife Zoila speaking about her
battles with the breast cancer. So that is also another not achieved
goal. Moving forward and to establish the goals for
2025 I want to again similar to the writing, return
(34:03):
to a consistent every other Thursday release
which would imply a return
to a consistent every other week strict
recording time for the pod so then I can hit those Thursday
releases. I also want to drastically reduce the re release of episodes. I'm not
going to say I'm not going to rerelease any episodes because you know life will
(34:24):
be life but definitely don't want to rely on any just due to like laziness
or like anything like that. In terms of listenership
I want to increase it obviously a million
fold but given the trajectory of the past two years
of slipping listenership I think if I focus on
continue focusing on the quality which I normally do for anything I put out
(34:47):
but hone in on the consistency and continue on the
like exposure and like posting of episodes which I also really like
slacked on. Not good like the self promotion side specific to the
podcast. But the goal is
once honing in on that stuff to increase listenership by at least
25% year over year. And the last goal for 2025
(35:09):
related to the podcast is to continue and stay consistent with the social
posts how I have been doing on the writing side. But to establish that
consistency again with the
shorts posts on YouTube which really slipped this
year and just more video clips as well
or video style clips of the podcast episodes as
(35:30):
well. And that
folks was episode 277 of the
Spun Today podcast. The 2024 Spun Today wrap up show.
Let me know your thoughts. Let me know if you have any. Tips, advice,
things that I can implement on my end that you would like
to hear as a listener or if you're a fellow podcaster or writer, things that
(35:53):
you think may help me implement the goals that and achieve the
goals rather that I want to achieve
by the time I do the next Sponsor the
Wrap up show with that folks. Keep your head up looking
up to a Prosperous and
Healthy 2025. Wishing you and yours the
(36:14):
same. I'll check you guys out next time. Peace.
What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today
Podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a few
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(37:19):
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(38:02):
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(38:46):
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(41:20):
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(41:42):
I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy.
I love you, Grayson. I love you, Daddy.
What's up folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today Podcast, the only
podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in scope. I'm
your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode
277. It is the first episode of
2025 and is the
official 2024 Spun Today wrap up show.
(00:42):
In this episode, I'm going to reflect on the
top five spun episodes of 2024
in terms of listenership and I also share some of my
writing and podcasting goals for 2025, as well
as look back on the goals that I set last year for 2024
so I can beat myself up a little bit on all the shit that I
(01:03):
did not achieve. Stick around for all that good stuff.
But first I wanted to
share a quick way that you can help support this podcast. If you so
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(01:24):
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support. That's where you'll find all my merch, all the links
(01:46):
to discount codes, my affiliate links, donation
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subscribe drop in your email address and you'll get the very next
one. And now let's
recap the top five most listened to episodes of the Spun
(03:14):
Today podcast in 2024. Starting off at the
fifth spot is episode
255. Jose de la Rosa, Golden Gloves
champ, firefighter and fitness aficionado. Shout out
to Jose and this episode which was a bit of
a surprise for me because it was a re
(03:36):
released episode. This year's actual top five has a
few surprises in it, but it's a re release
episode. An episode that I
initially released the prior year I want to say in 2023
or maybe even 2022 when we released the original.
But sometimes on a either like
(03:58):
around the holidays or for whatever
reason I can't record a brand new episode while I do
is is kind of like remaster and re release
a prior episode prior released
episode or if it's fitting for for whatever reason
like I do yearly. For example with the 911 episode that I
(04:19):
recorded where I interviewed close friends and
family, all of which were around and affected
here in New York during 9 11. Never
released that every year, but it's one of those like re release episodes
so I wouldn't expect it to have garnered so
much listenership, but super happy that it did. Shout out again to Jose and
(04:41):
it's a dope episode. You guys should definitely go back and listen if you haven't.
Jose is a friend of mine from junior high and high
school that we went to together. He went off to become a
Golden Gloves champion. He also won the Silver Gloves.
For those who don't know, it's a prestigious boxing title to
achieve. He's also a New York City firefighter and he's super into
(05:03):
fitness. He's always posting like videos on on his workouts
and and recommended workouts and ever since that episode we're always saying
we're gonna link up again to do another episode because they had like so
much more to his story to to to speak on and it was just a
great episode. So definitely one of the the goals I want to circle back
to later this year and I'll link to Jose's page in
(05:25):
the episode notes so you guys can go check him out as well.
The fourth most listened episode of the Spontane podcast in
2024 was episode
253 of the Spun Today podcast. Yet another
Surprise on the list. It was technically not a re release, although some of the
content is. But I was actually very happy to see this on the list
(05:47):
because episode number 253 is the goats
doing goat mashup number one.
So there's a segment that I started doing, I want to say a
year, maybe, maybe even like a year and a half, two years ago,
but it's where I wanted to highlight folks
that are goats within their respective fields, greatest
(06:10):
of all time, that go above and beyond in a certain way
that they didn't have to. And I want to give that type of
mentality and action. I want to give that in and
of itself, it's flowers, just people doing dope,
whether morally or in some sort of financial space
that I think deserves much more attention. So I created this
(06:33):
segment called Goats Doing Goat
for that purpose and what episode 253
is because I usually have like a go per episode,
but I want to make it per episode, which is another again 2025
goal. But every, I usually have one goat
mentioned during an episode. And this is every single episode. It
(06:55):
could be every, you know, other or every two or three episodes. But
what I did was create this episode
253, which is a mashup of a bunch of
different, these, if you will, into the spun Goats
Doing Goat Shit list. So if you've missed any of the prior
episodes and you're interested in just this type of
(07:17):
content, you can obviously listen to this episode, which is a mashup
of a bunch of them. Not all of them, but a bunch of them, which
included in this episode, Conor, just to give you guys an idea of what it
is, but Conor McGregor, who's, you know, double UFC champ,
UFC superstar, he went off to do a great
spirit steal with his whiskey Proper 12
(07:38):
and wound up doubling his net worth in the process, which was
already impressive after he made something like 100 million or something like that after
fighting Floyd Mayweather in a crossover boxing
match. So really impressive financial move. So I added him to
to the list. I also broke down Joe Rogan versus Carlos
Mencia. So this is when Joe went out of his
(08:00):
way to stand up to Carlos Mencia, which was a bigger act at the
time because Carlos was stealing jokes
from allegedly from fellow comedians that
were within Rogan's orbit, like some of his boys, but, you know,
lower on the totem pole in terms of stand up comedy. So Carlos
would just get away with it because he was such a big name and a
(08:20):
big act and they were scared to like speak up for themselves. So
Rogan took it upon himself to stand up to Carlos in a very
public fashion in the middle of a comedy club on stage, and the
rest is history. I also added Rory and Malls in this episode.
Rory and Mall's initial Stitcher deal, which has
since run its course. It was a licensing deal and
(08:43):
now they have a new licensing deal, which is why I always harp on,
you know, maybe one day, knock on wood, I'll be in a position to do
so. But just even like with your writing, with podcasting,
with music, with any creative work, shoot for
owning your ip, because folks, you know, might get like,
wide eyed and take the short bag, take the short money
(09:06):
and just, you know, sell something that they created, give all the rights
away, essentially, because they say, you know, here's a million
dollars, but if you want to keep your, your IP, then it's, it's, you know,
50 grand or 100 grand or something like that. Take the 100 grand, take the
50 grand, because what you can do, instead of taking the million or, you know,
whatever it is, hypothetical numbers, obviously, but
(09:28):
similar to how Rory Mall did. They got their money from the Stitcher deal. It
was a licensing deal. They still own their podcast and their ip, their
intellectual property, and now they're in another licensing deal.
So they resold it again. And as long as you keep the ownership of what
you create, you can keep doing that forever in perpetuity.
Alternatively, you sell it for the million bucks and then that
(09:50):
company that buys that IP from you, they're going to do that, they're going to
keep selling it perpetuity and make the money off of you forever.
So I wanted to shout them out for, for that deal.
I also added Issa Rae for her Issa Rae Warner Media
deal. Great. Incredible. Content creator. Not even
content creator. She's a showrunner, movie star,
(10:12):
writer. I've taken her master class, which is great. Created
the, the HBO like, big series
Insecure, which was spawned from her
Awkward Black Girl YouTube series that she was creating herself.
Creating, directing, and acting in herself. That led to the Insecure
HBO deal, which ultimately led to this Issa Rae Warner
(10:33):
Media deal for multiple millions. And I think if I remember
correctly, I shouted out specifically for.
There was like some sort of like 10 or 2015 or 20
million dollar offer that they offered her for the deal, which she turned down.
And most, most folks were like, what, are you fucking crazy? How do you
turn down $20 million? And from her perspective, essentially,
(10:55):
she was like, because I know my worth. I know what I have to sell
is not worth 20, it's worth a lot more. You know, from the outside looking
it's like 20 million. Take that. But again, sticking to your guns,
knowing what it is that you're selling, owning your ip. And she wanted getting, you
know, multiple times that when they came back around.
So shout out to Issa Ray. And in this episode, two more
(11:15):
goats doing goat segments that I mashed together here. Second
to last being the Kobe body armor deal. Rip to
the goat. Kobe Bryant who
invested in a company called Body Armor, which
is a competitor or within the same space, smaller market
share, but within the same space of Gatorade, you know,
(11:37):
one of these sports drink beverages. And he
invested $6 million into the company when they were in its
infancy, in very nascent stages for a 10 stake in
the company. Coca Cola wound up acquiring that company
and that 10% stake turned into a 400
million dollar payout for Kobe and his family. Now it's
(12:00):
family. So $6 million investment saw the opportunity
there with just a lion's share of the market that
Gatorade owned. So the, a competing company had a very small
percentage of that market share. He
invested in that company because thought it was a wise
investment to do so, I would imagine. And you know, good tasting beverages,
(12:23):
you know, very similar stuff. And they had a chance to be
acquired by a company that wanted to either
buy them, for example to, so that they
can own even more of the market share. If it's the same
company that, that if Coca Cola owns Gatorade, I'm not sure. Or if
it's Pepsi maybe like those parent companies,
(12:45):
they're just like conglomerates and own, own everything.
But it's a, it's a smart play because it could go one of two ways.
Either that same company will buy you so that you know, they can own
even more of the market and just sell, sell you two seemingly
different things, you know, Gatorade,
Powerade body armor and meanwhile the same company owns it and
(13:07):
they're just making money and you think you're buying different things or an actual
competing company will buy them out to gain
market share against Gatorade. And essentially
either which way it went, that six million dollar investment turned
into $400 million.
Again, shout out to Kobe the goat and Rip.
(13:29):
And last but certainly not least, the last goats doing
goat that I added to this specific mashup episode
was the YMH stitcher
deal. YMH for those who don't know, is your mom's house. It's
become a podcast network. It's initially a podcast
soul podcast by hosts the hilarious
(13:51):
Tom Segura stand comic and the
hilarious Christina Pazicki his wife. They have a podcast
together. They both stand up comics and super
popular. They, they innovated within the field doing like pay per
view style podcast for certain events.
Ever a pretty popular cult following
(14:13):
started got this stitcher deal. I think it was like a 10
or 15 million dollar deal for the podcast.
And you know, started putting out other
podcasts under their YMH umbrella. Like Ari Shafir's new
UB Tripping podcast is under there. Danny Brown's podcast is on
there. Two Bears One Cave which is Tom and Bird's podcast is on
(14:36):
there, so on and so forth. So that was a pretty dope deal. Pretty cool
to see especially if you know them and follow them from, you know, early on
in their careers when famously for example, Tom Segura didn't even know what a
podcast was. He's one of these comics in like Rogan's orbit
when Rogan was first starting his podcast and he would go
on there and be like, what is this? Who's listening to this? How does this
(14:57):
what? And then you know, fast forward to him having his own podcast
network including his flagship show
and garnering, you know, tens of millions of dollars in the process.
The number three most listened to episode of the Spun Today podcast
in 2024 was episode two titled
Mastering the Myth, Navigating Imposter Syndrome and
(15:19):
Cultivating Created Creative Currency. This was a
free writing session episode. For those of you don't know, one of the types of
episodes that I do on this podcast, which are honestly one of
my favorite types to do because it's very, very writing
centric. You know, this is after all a
mainly writing podcast, right? Like I touch on, you know, current events
(15:41):
and, and topical things and you know, just
break down like movies and TV shows. But I always try to do it from
the lens of a writer or an aspiring writer if you will.
But these free writing session episodes specifically are a lot more in the weeds
of writing. So it's more like writing inside baseball
and they're some of my favorites to do. And in this
(16:03):
episode specifically, and the general format of it is that I
share a writing tip for fellow writers out there,
usually one in this episode I actually share two, one from Kevin Smith
and another one from K.M. weiland. And just
like great anecdotal, little, you know, pieces of advice related to writing
and just like creative motivation in general that I want to
(16:26):
share put out there, I also share My writing stats, you know, let you guys
know how much I've been writing over
the past, you know, month or two. That's more so for, you know,
just keeping myself honest for my tracking purposes so that I can see,
you know, I have a goal of X, for example, to like write a
book by the end of the year. But then I can reflect on these
(16:49):
specific writing stats and see, you know, instead
of wondering at the end of the year, oh man, why didn't I write the
book? I could look at these writing stats and be like, okay, that's why I
wrote, you know, 10 of the days in April. I
wrote, you know, 15 of the days of March,
so on and so forth. With the low numbers like that, obviously it's not going
to yield good results. So it's kind of like a way for me to like,
(17:11):
track and try to motivate myself to write more. So I share those
writing stats, I share what I've been reading and I break down a book,
for example, once I finish it. And I share my, like, my favorite takeaways from
that book in these episodes, this one specifically, I
shared the Daily dad by Ryan Holiday.
And I tell you guys a little bit of what that's about. And I also
(17:33):
shared in this episode, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E.
Frankl. And last but not least, what I do in these free writing session
episodes is I share a piece of my own writing, usually a piece of free
writing, which is a practice that, that I like to do often. And
you know, it could be something that I wrote, you know, three, four, five, eight
years ago, just a paragraph or two on anything. And I just share with you
(17:54):
guys, I reflect on it myself and yeah, that's pretty much the format
for these freewriting session episodes. And that One
was episode 256, which again was the third most listened
to episode of 2024. The second most listened
to episode of the Spontane podcast in 2024,
this one was definitely a surprise for me because it was the
(18:16):
2023 Spun wrap up show. So
this specific show that I'm doing right now, which is the wrap up of
2024, the 2023
wrap up show was the second most listened to episode of
2024, which surprising, I guess, but
yeah, it was surprising to me. But yeah, thank you folks for
(18:39):
listening. And last but certainly not least,
the number one most listened to episode
of the Spun Today podcast in all of
2024 was just pretend
you're hearing a drum roll right now. Episode
254 of the Spun Today podcast, which
(19:01):
was Black Mirror, the Jack Ryan
finale, American Fiction and Joe Rogan's renewed
Spotify deal. Shout out to the number one
episode. This was one of those pretty
like self explanatory episodes in terms of if you're following the
title. I broke down watching recent season
(19:22):
of Black Mirror, which is was season six of Black
Mirror. Great TV show on Netflix, super creative.
Each episode is like its own little movie. Very, very, very
much so recommend it. I tell you guys who the
writers are. I share the official synopsis, I break down certain episodes, I tell you
guys what my favorite parts of each episode were. And they definitely
(19:44):
do have spoilers when I do these little breakdowns. So
beware if you don't want to hear any. I also
spoke about the Jack Ryan finale, final season, the
series finale where again to a TV show. It's on
Amazon. I like bumped into the show on accident, watched
one episode years ago and just got completely
(20:06):
roped in. It's a great action Mission
Impossible type of series. John
Krasinski, who plays Jim from the Office is the
lead in this dramatic series which was like interesting
juxtaposition from what we're used to seeing him acting in or at least me.
And he knocked it out of the park. He plays Jack
(20:27):
Ryan, which is like a CIA, you know, like smart
desk guy, but he has this like military background of being just a
badass on the field also, but nobody like really knows about it. And he chases
down terrorists and it's a, it's a dope series. And the final season,
which is what I break down in this episode, definitely did not
disappoint. Then I also broke down American
(20:49):
Fiction, the movie which was amazing, starring
Jeffrey Wright, Tracy Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Issa Ray's in
it, which I mentioned earlier. Erica Alexander.
It was a great, great movie that I definitely highly recommend
folks watching. I broke that down in this episode and the last thing I
spoke about in that episode was another addition to the goats doing
(21:12):
goat segment. And in this instance it was Joe
Rogan's second segment Spotify deal after his
first. Again going back to the whole licensing deal concept. Instead of
him like selling his podcast rights to some company
for $100 million, which folks would have probably
done. He licensed it specifically for three years for
(21:34):
that 100 million. You know, if somebody wanted to buy it outright, you know, maybe
they would have offered him, you know, like two or three. But he took 100
million and it was just for three years. Then everything goes back
to normal. He keeps his 100 million. He owns his podcast, Continue, you
know, has continued doing it throughout. And at the end of the
100 years, it was such a lucrative deal from like a, a stock
(21:55):
share, share price vantage point for
Spotify that they wound up his
licensing deal for more than double what they gave him the first time. So the
second time around it was 250 million. And
he was also allowed to go wide, which meaning that
not just exclusively to Spotify like the first deal was for the first three years.
(22:17):
Now you can listen to JRE on every single platform.
And because of that deal, again, where I like to highlight goats
that do goat shit, I added Joe
Mr. Rogan to the list once again. And that,
folks, was the number one most listened to episode of
2024. Episode 254.
(22:40):
Thanks again to each and every one of you who take the time to listen.
It is much, much, much appreciated.
So now let's reflect on goals. When I do
these year end wrap ups, I like
to reflect on the goals that I set for
myself in the prior year. So in this case 2024,
(23:01):
analyze if achieved or not, and then also establish
my goals for 2025 moving forward so that when I do the 2025
recap next year and kind of follow suit and you know,
reflect and take inventory, if you will, on what was achieved, what
wasn't achieved. And these are, you know, like high level goals for the year.
Right. So I'm going to do that for both my writing goals
(23:24):
and my podcasting goals, which are obviously
intertwined in a sense. Start off with the writing. So in
2024 I set out two
specific writing goals for myself for the year. I like toned it
down a notch from 2023, if I remember
correctly, where I had just like a shitload of goals.
(23:46):
Unrealistic. So I scaled it back in an effort
to now overwhelm myself in
terms of the specific writing goals, but also, you know, to have something more, more
manageable, more doable. Now if you're a listener to the pod, you know that this
year went through a very tough time from a family perspective with my
wife battling breast cancer. And
(24:08):
that obviously took a toll and
warranted much more attention on that and
her and getting through that period and actually did an episode
with her for the podcast all about it, just to spread awareness on
the topic and just to share her story on what she
went through. And I say that not as an excuse, but just
(24:30):
to. Because I don't, how do I say it? I'm a firm
believer that everybody has everybody's dealing with their own. And everybody gets
the same amount of time. Everybody gets 24 hours in a day, regardless of who
you are. So it's not an excuse, but I did want to highlight
that a lot of time was obviously the majority,
the rightfully so time was spent
(24:51):
in dealing with that situation. So circling
back to the goals that I actually set for myself in the beginning of the
year was to submit a
draft of Fractal 2 for editing and
or at least finish the first draft of Fractal 2.
Fractale for those who may not know, is my novel.
(25:13):
It's my science fiction time travel novel available now. The book one
is all the links you can find that spun .com
books search on Amazon or wherever it is that you get your
books. And this is a deeper series. That's the first novel that I
published a few years back and my goal was to finalize
the at least the first draft of the
(25:35):
second in the series. That goal was not achieved. I did
work on it a bit more. Definitely not anything,
not in any amount that I'm proud of. Feel
like I could have done more, but definitely considering that
goal of failure. The second goal, which I thought the second and
last goal actually that I established for myself for 2024
(25:57):
was to record the audiobook of
my short story series that I did publish last
year, Melted Cold. That book also available
sponsor.com books forward/ melted
Cold. You find all the links of where you can purchase there. I definitely
thought I was gonna have more time to focus on that or to
(26:19):
achieve that. I felt it was a less of a heavy lift
for whatever reason, but also a failure
and not an achieved goal. Now looking forward
to 2025, I'm definitely carrying both of those goals
forward to achieve them for 2025, but
actually adding this year a couple more kind of as like a bit
(26:41):
of a catch up for myself. First and foremost, consistency.
Just like an overall foundational stick to
a writing schedule consistency.
I've done that in spurts throughout my writing quote unquote
career. Obviously I've yielded much more results when I have stuck
to a schedule. A lot of it since has been just
(27:04):
more sporadic. Whenever I can find time, you know, juggling family
and kids and work and you know, just life in
general. When you leave it up to just like write whenever it is that
you think you have some free time, you want to, you wind up not doing
it. So definitely want to firm up and stick to a consistent schedule. That's
goal number one. Goal number two would be recording the
(27:25):
audiobook for Melted Cold, a short story series. Goal number
three would be finishing the first draft of
Fractale 2 2. That's a working title by the way,
as well as submitting both Fractal one and Fractal two for
editing. Because what I want to do is re release the first book in the
series after getting it professionally edited the way I did with my
(27:48):
short story series Melted Cold and re put it
out when I re put out a fractal too.
So that's kind of like a dual goal there within that fractal series.
And last but not least, revisit and finish writing and
publishing Make Way for your. En Espanol
Make Way for your is the first book that I ever wrote. It's a
(28:11):
nonfiction. I call it the Poor Man's War of
Art by Steven Pressfield. And I've written probably around
30 or 40%. I've translated myself into Spanish
and I would like to finish that off to put that out. Something
that I started doing, I dropped. I started doing close to
like right after publishing it honestly and
(28:34):
just like dropped it. Never, never picked it back up or that's a lie. I
picked it up here and there, translated a passage or
two. Just haven't followed through with finishing it.
So that is. That would be the fourth and
final goal I'm setting for myself from a writing perspective
for 2025.
(28:56):
So in 2024, now speaking to podcast
goals, my podcast goals for 2024,
I set an overall arching goal to
increase my listenership by 50%. And that was
definitely not achieved. It actually
dropped year over year specific downloads just from
(29:17):
podcatchers itself by
64%. That deserves another. And
overall, a year over year drop, factoring in just
complete views like with shorts and, and clip videos and stuff like
that, which I did successfully track this year, which was a sub goal,
which I'll get to that dropped as well by about
(29:38):
57%. So yeah, a lot of womp, womp, womp, womps there.
So that's how he failed on that goal, which again I attributed
to just trying to be objective to, you know,
not being as consistent as I have been in, you know, the last nine
years prior with re. With releasing episodes every other
Thursday on the dot. I started slipping with that towards
(30:01):
like the latter half of last year. And there were a lot more
RE release episodes this past year as well just because,
you know, time constraints with being able to record and edit so on and so
forth. So I'm not terribly surprised by the drop
in in listenership There now. I also wanted
to set a goal for myself last year to track year
(30:22):
over year, not just the downloads, which is what I was doing for many
years, but also the YouTube videos as well as the
shorts and having a total across the board, year over year,
grand total, which I did do successfully, so kind of
achieved that sub goal. I also set a goal for myself
of being more creative with posts and more consistent with
(30:44):
posting podcast clips and posts on Instagram,
Twitter, et cetera. And I wanted to
also start posting on LinkedIn and TikTok just to like
expand the base there a bit. And I successfully did
so. So I started leveraging this tool called
Author Social Assistant, which was great for.
(31:07):
And I recommend, I. I think I actually have a. An affiliate link
in my support page that you guys can check out for, you know, fellow writers
or creatives out there that may be interested. It gives you
like posts like little like mini
reels and, and just like memes and the opportunity to like add
your book to some stock imaging that looks really good and
(31:29):
professional and it gives you like a sample blurb to add as
well, literally for like each day of,
of a month. And you can add your branding to it. So I have like
the Spontane Today logo on them and you could choose to remove it for ones
that you want to remove it from. You can, you know, customize the, the text
obviously and, and edit it how you want. Just like a great starting
(31:50):
template. And I've been using that and it's, you know, really increase.
Helped increase like engagement on like IG and Twitter and stuff like
that for those specific posts. And I've
honed in on specific and consistent clip
formats for the podcast just visually in the way it looks. And
that's all been going well. I've been pretty consistent with that. So I'll
(32:12):
definitely consider that in an achieved goal minus the tick tock thing,
which by the way, bam banned me. I have no idea
why I just like joined. Just, just start adding like podcast clips and stuff like
that and try to reach out and it's like, you know, black box, you know,
never get anything back. I also set a goal for myself in 2024 to start
customizing clips for the platform that they're
(32:35):
going on, which that I haven't done and
kind of like don't consider that a goal that I'm gonna be attempting
or implementing moving forward. Because
the, for example, a. What's it called, like the nine by
16, you know, like the story style clips
that when I implement them on like YouTube or
(32:57):
LinkedIn and Twitter get like not exactly like
widescreen for example on YouTube, but it does like some
visual formatting where it gives it like a widescreen
background based on like the standard
square or or vertical post that you put on. And that's
working fine for me I believe just like the cost benefit of the time it
(33:18):
would take to do like separate individuals, it just
isn't there. I also gave myself a goal, a possible
goal of increasing the output of the podcast to weekly from bi weekly
that I said then was not feasible and definitely still is not feasible
moving forward. And I also had a goal in 2024. The
last goal I set for myself for the podcast to do at least
(33:41):
three plus interviews, separate interview episodes
for the podcast which I also did not achieve. I just did the one
that I referenced earlier with my wife Zoila speaking about her
battles with the breast cancer. So that is also another not achieved
goal. Moving forward and to establish the goals for
2025 I want to again similar to the writing, return
(34:03):
to a consistent every other Thursday release
which would imply a return
to a consistent every other week strict
recording time for the pod so then I can hit those Thursday
releases. I also want to drastically reduce the re release of episodes. I'm not
going to say I'm not going to rerelease any episodes because you know life will
(34:24):
be life but definitely don't want to rely on any just due to like laziness
or like anything like that. In terms of listenership
I want to increase it obviously a million
fold but given the trajectory of the past two years
of slipping listenership I think if I focus on
continue focusing on the quality which I normally do for anything I put out
(34:47):
but hone in on the consistency and continue on the
like exposure and like posting of episodes which I also really like
slacked on. Not good like the self promotion side specific to the
podcast. But the goal is
once honing in on that stuff to increase listenership by at least
25% year over year. And the last goal for 2025
(35:09):
related to the podcast is to continue and stay consistent with the social
posts how I have been doing on the writing side. But to establish that
consistency again with the
shorts posts on YouTube which really slipped this
year and just more video clips as well
or video style clips of the podcast episodes as
(35:30):
well. And that
folks was episode 277 of the
Spun Today podcast. The 2024 Spun Today wrap up show.
Let me know your thoughts. Let me know if you have any. Tips, advice,
things that I can implement on my end that you would like
to hear as a listener or if you're a fellow podcaster or writer, things that
(35:53):
you think may help me implement the goals that and achieve the
goals rather that I want to achieve
by the time I do the next Sponsor the
Wrap up show with that folks. Keep your head up looking
up to a Prosperous and
Healthy 2025. Wishing you and yours the
(36:14):
same. I'll check you guys out next time. Peace.
What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today
Podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a few
ways you can. Help support the show. You can support the Spun Today
podcast financially by going to spun.com
(36:35):
support. There you will find a couple different ways that you can do just that,
some of which will actually not even cost you a dime, such
as using my Amazon affiliate link. When you go to
spunthoday.com support, you'll see my affiliate
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(36:57):
extra, but Amazon will pay me for driving. Traffic to their
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support. You'll also find my Patreon link. This is where
creators such as myself can be paid directly by patrons
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(37:19):
schedule recurring donations if you so choose. There are also different tiers
of support and depending on which you decide to go with, you'll also receive some
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(37:40):
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And last but certainly not least, you have the good old fashioned PayPal
donation button. Any which way that you choose to. Support is greatly
appreciated. It all helps me do more of what I love, which is writing and
(38:02):
podcasting. Again, go to Sponsored a comm forward
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podcast by rating and reviewing the show. Wherever it is
that you're listening to. This episode, I'd really appreciate it because it really does
help. Also, follow me on all socials.
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(38:24):
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(38:46):
that stale wardrobe of yours is by going to spun .com
support and clicking on the banner for Stitch
Fix. Once you do, you'll enjoy a $25 discount to
your first purchase. And the way Stitch Fix works is pretty cool. I use it
and I've never been disappointed. You'll set up a profile, you'll put in all the
sizes for your clothes as well as all the different brands
(39:08):
and types of clothes that you like to wear. It's really simple and intuitive to
set up. They'll show you pictures and pretty much give you a thumbs up or
thumbs down option on if you would wear something or not. And you get to
select all the brands that you already are used to wearing. With this
information, there are thousands of passionate trend setting
stylists will curate a. Stitch Fix box for you. They'll
(39:31):
send you five items that you get to preview before they mail it to you
and you'll get to select based on the image if you like it or not.
If not, they'll replace it with something else and if so, they'll mail it. To
you absolutely for free. You can try everything on and you have a few days
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(39:52):
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forward/support and click on my affiliate link banner for
Stitch Fix and enjoy your $25 credit. Do you want
to start your own podcast? Have a great show idea that you want to get
out into the masses but don't know quite how to get it from your head
(40:14):
out into the world? Well, here's how. Use the
podcast host Libsyn. That's who I use to bring the Spun
Today podcast to you. And now you can use them the same way.
Using the promo code Spun S P U N. You can
open up your Libsyn account and get two months of
free podcast hosting. Here's how it works.
(40:36):
Once you record your show, you upload. It to your Libsyn account where you.
Can fill in your episode notes, upload your podcast art
and schedule when you want your episodes to release.
Once you do that, Libsyn will take care of the rest. They'll distribute your
show to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and
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(40:57):
instantaneously and seamlessly. Again, go to
Libsyn.com and use the promo code spun S P U n. To
get two months free. Or use the affiliate link that's in
the episode notes. Again, that's Libsyn.com
promo code SPUN. Take that great podcast idea from
out of your head and put it out into the world. And
(41:20):
as always, folks, substitute the mysticism with hard work and start
taking steps in the general direction of your dreams. Thanks
for listening.
(41:42):
I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy.
I love you, Grayson. I love you, Daddy.
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