New Game Plan

Welcome to Show Business

This is going to be a bit of a shorter newsletter this week—I’m a bit behind on some projects, but have some updates I’d like to share about podcasts, t-shirts, and such. So let’s get right to it!

Summer Lovin’

It wasn’t until I wrote that headline that I knew I was already going to deviate a little bit. While I wouldn’t say I’m a Grease fan, nor would I say I’m an Oliva Newtown-John fan, both the film and her impact on me as a child lasts to this day. You can’t say the words “Summer Lovin’” and not think of Grease, ONJ, and John Travolta. It’s also a movie I saw multiple times as a kid, and honestly, with the passing of ONJ, I’d love to revisit the film with adult eyes. So, while I can’t go down a list of reasons why we’ll all miss her, I can say I have much respect for her and the impact she had on a generation. Rest in Peace Oliva Newtown-John.

Now, to the point, I’ve realized over the last week or two that summers are my busiest time of the year. At the day gig, we have the budget. At home, we have the biggest window of being able to book vacations than any other time of the year. Now, we’re still getting settled into the new house, so maybe things will be different in the future, but that leaves very little time for me to concentrate on creative endeavors. What does that mean exactly? Well—

  • That means Walking with Writers will debut on September 7th and run weekly for the first month, moving to a bi-weekly schedule in October. Season 1 will run until June 28th, 2023 before taking the summer off from releases.

    • While we’ll be taking time off from releasing, I’ll get the first batch of Season 2 episodes recorded, which will likely follow the Season 1 release schedule.

    • If I can convince Mike and/or other writer friends of mine, we’ll record a limited Summer Sessions series that will be a bit looser than the normal style.

  • I always knew this would happen when I announced taking a step back, but Everything is Awesome will be returning in a limited capacity.

    • In September, I’ll be getting previously unreleased episodes released on a sporadic schedule, but never on back-to-back days.

    • Starting on October 11th, Everything is Awesome Volume 2 will begin. I need to look at what’s coming down the pike, but this will more than likely become a bi-weekly show as well, with the season finale airing on July 1st, 2023.

    • I have a friend in mind that I’d like to convince to run a 3-5 part Summer Sessions series that will be a one-shot actual play series. Yes, I have a game in mind and yes, I am putting together a budget.

  • I’d like to get Single Player Season 1 to debut on September 1st. This will also run bi-weekly with a planned season finale on February 16, 2023—though, if games run long and we break them up into two parts, this will extend the first season.

    • I have a very loose outline for a schedule beyond Season 1, which could allow for weekly episodes until September of 2023.

  • The The Muppet Show Show—my white whale. I need to go into pre-production for this NEXT week and get people on the books to record. However, the plan would be to debut this as a weekly show on October 3rd.

    • If I’m being honest, I have some ambitions for this show, so hitting that debut deadline will be tight. But, if we can hit on that deadline and deliver, it would mean this show has the potential to have legs until July of 2026. What does that mean? Well, y’all will only find out if we get Season 1 made and y’all give it a listen to justify moving forward with the very ambitious plans!

T-shirts and more

I’ve been busy working on a client’s site, so I haven’t had much time to do anything with Starbird Media’s site and/or t-shirt storefront (other than Etsy). The good news is that, other than waiting for approvals and some last-minute changes, the major work for that client’s site is done. I’ll be moving forward with that side of things and hopefully launching the official t-shirt side of things in Q4 of 2022 (almost a year after Starbird Media, LLC officially started—which is crazy to me and the fact that SBM, in less than one year, has turned into a profitable business is AWESOME to me).

And that’s thanks to customers who’ve ordered custom shirts from me over the last 10+ months. I’m actually finalizing up my biggest order to date (75-100 hoodies) this weekend and once the order moves to production, I will attempt to chronicle that over on Instagram.

Community

I’ve also been quietly working on something for the Philadelphia Podcasting community, nothing huge. But it feels like there’s been a disconnect over the last 2 years or so (wonder why?) and I’m hoping to flip that switch. I’ve actually got some lofty goals for that, but that’ll involve some people and paperwork filed with the state (what?!?). I hope to have a better update about this in my next newsletter (which, I’m hoping will be next Friday 😎).

This went on a bit longer than expected—summer is coming to an end, so go enjoy the few summer weekends we have left!

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