Will Bachman 00:01
Hello, and welcome to Unleashed the show that explores how to thrive as an independent professional. I’m your host Will Bachman and I’m here today with a guest that I’m very excited to finally have on the show. I’ve been wanting to get him on the show for about a year. My son Samuel Bachman Samuel, welcome to the show.

Samuel Bachman 00:20
Hi.

Will Bachman 00:21
So, Samuel, let’s start with your podcast. Give us the name of your podcast. How many episodes have you published so far with your co host, Diego, the

Samuel Bachman 00:32
podcast is the Half Blood report. And I think we’ve published 75 as of this recording,

Will Bachman 00:41
and remind us what grade are you in right now?

Samuel Bachman 00:44
I am in 10th grade 10th grade,

Will Bachman 00:45
where do you go to school?

Samuel Bachman 00:47
I got Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts in story of Queens.

Will Bachman 00:53
And you’re in the film program?

Samuel Bachman 00:55
Yes, I am in the film department. I’m a film major

Will Bachman 00:58
film major. Okay. So let’s talk about the podcast. You and your co host Diego started it in 2019. Right. Tell us the story of how and why you decided to start the podcast or maybe even start with what is the podcast about people who may not know what that blood report is about?

Samuel Bachman 01:15
Okay, well, I think I can start with like, like my idea. So I’m a big fan of Rick Riordan who if you don’t know, he’s this best selling author of multiple fantasy, middle grade books series, that which usually take mythologies, various mythologies, and put them in the modern day. And he’s most famous for his Percy Jackson series, which it’s about a middle schooler who finds out that he is a descendant is the son of the Greek guy beside him. And he has to, you know, stop Kronos from taking over from the gods. So I grew up reading regressions, books, and I loved them. And I think it was 2017, maybe 2018 when Rick Warren started an imprint, called Rick Rubin presents. And so what he did with his imprint is he basically had because for many years, people have been asking him to write about various mythology, such as Hindu mythology, or maybe the Mayan Aztec mythologies. But you know, him being a white guy, he didn’t really feel comfortable writing about those mythology, especially because they weren’t stories he had grown up with, as he had grown up with the other mythologies he had written about. So what he ended up doing was starting this imprint where he had authors write stories from their own mythology, so they could kind of tell stories that were from their cultures and inspired by mythologies, from their part of the world. And so he, he started this imprint, and I read the first two books in that imprint when they came out. And I went to like an event where like, they’re ponies on the books. And then I kind of stopped reading for a bit, I was kind of busy with school. And then my younger sister Vettel, she got diagnosed with dyslexia. And one of the big things about Percy Jackson is he’s a dyslexic and explanation for that in the books is that he’s a dyslexic because he’s actually hardwired for ancient Greek being the son of a of Greek god. And so, you know, this, this book that’s, like really accepting of those core sort of different ways of learning. And so I figured, why not read this book to my sister who just got diagnosed with dyslexia. And so I did that, and she really enjoyed the series. I loved reading it to her. And then that kind of got me back into my gararion. So I looked at his website, and I was like, oh, my goodness, they’re, like, so many regarding presents books that like, have come out that I haven’t read. And it was like, really like three. But I also got confused, because they were other books on the website that like have been announced, but hadn’t come out yet. And so I got really confused. I was like, geez, I wish there was a way I could have, like known about all this stuff. And like, not been confused, just checking his website, a couple months, like, a couple months gap. And so what I ended up doing was like, What if that was a podcast, and so I called my friend Diego, who was also a big fan of the books. And he was into the idea. So we started the haplo report, which is its goal is to every week, bring all the news of the fandom so you know, anytime there’s a new book announcement in the imprint anytime the books come out. Anytime there are promotional articles released or there’s a cover, release, we will cover all that stuff each week. And we also we also do interviews with a lot of the authors when the books come out. And so that’s really fun.

Will Bachman 04:44
Tell us about some of the authors that you have interviewed.

Samuel Bachman 04:49
Yeah, yeah. So the first time the the kind of one of the first books coming out as we started the podcast, was just in strong destroys the world. are no no. That’s the second book. It was just in shrunk, punches a hole in the sky. And that was this book by this great offer Kwame Volya. And so I was like, Hey, we’re going to do the actual live in person book launch. This was back when those were thing. And so that was like October 2019. And so I was like, yo, if we’re going to this event, I’m going to email the event organizers, and see if maybe we could record an interview with the author before the event. And neither of us really thought it would go anywhere. We were just, you know, putting yourself out there seeing if something would happen. And then they said, Yes. And so we’re like, That’s crazy. And so we like prepared a list of questions like, okay, maybe we’ll get like a five minute interview. And we can put that in front of our review of the book. And then we got a 20 minute interview, which was able to be its own episode. And we’re like, wow, that’s crazy.

Will Bachman 05:55
Because you guys were in ninth grade in eighth grade at that point.

Samuel Bachman 05:57
Yeah. Yeah. We and we never expected like, you know, an author published on this very prominent imprint would give us the time of day. So and, and the craziest thing about it was, since all the authors on the imprint, they have like a community and they really like to support each other. There was another author under the imprint who lives in New York City, and was at the event to support his fell offer. And so then Diego and I were able to go out to him and say, Hey, would you like to be on this podcast? We’re kind of doing at the moment? And he said, Yes. And so it was Carlos Hernandez. Yes, that was Carlos Hernandez, who’s a very funny, amazing author, who’s written a duology, a sci fi duology, under the imprint with kind of influence of Cuban culture. And the next thing we knew, we were just reaching out to authors whenever their books are coming out onto the imprint, and getting interviews. And then we’re also the Broadway musical, the Lightning Thief, which is based off requirements first book, or our first middle grade book that was going on at the time. So we reached out to them and we’re like, Can we get an interview of a cast member? Everything maybe we could get like, you know, one of the minor roles, talk to someone don’t do that. But they let us talk to the understudy of the main role, Percy Jackson. And so then again, we we recorded that interview. And the next thing we do when we do like an interview every month, and then we’re like, well, we’re doing an interview every month was a re sled an episode every week, because we could kind of having having gaps in our releases. So then, on accident, we knew like this kind of idea I could kind of had in July was a podcast releasing episodes every week.

Will Bachman 07:42
And what can you get list out all the authors that you’ve interviewed so far that you can recall? Yeah, yeah. So

Samuel Bachman 07:49
those Kwame Amalia, Carlos Hernandez, those are the first two let me talk to Rebecca Roan horse, who is a black and also Navajo author who wrote a book with about Navajo mythology. And she’s also done a bunch of cool stuff. She’s a sci fi author. She’s written like a Star Wars book. And then we talked to, I think, next that we actually talked to an author, but the main editorial director of the imprint, and she is the editor of every book under that imprint, and also the editor of all of her grandmother’s books. So that was amazing to get to talk to her. And she was just a blast. And we kind of had this relationship so we could keep going. And we also talked to the cover artist of Oliver gardens, books, and also the cover Artist of the trust and strong books as I talked about. And then I think their next author interview was Roshan in chalk she she was the first author under the imprint. And just recently we talked to her a second time for book four of the series. On the first time, we talked to her for Book Three of the series.

Will Bachman 09:00
That’s the unusual series

Samuel Bachman 09:02
are Russia or Russia. Yeah. That’s the the first series of their imprint, the Hindu mythology inspired series, which was, which is a really amazing, funny series. And then I think we talked to I’m trying to think of all the authors we’ve gotten to speak with, I think after that we talked with Carlos Hernandez again, because it’s the second book in the duology had released and we talked to JC serve volunteers are Jennifer’s volunteers, who is the author of the second book in the series. We talked to her when the when the third book in that series came out. She was also a blast to talk to, and then we got to talk to actually the next thing we did was, we got to talk to Ricard and about his book on our podcast, which wasn’t his final book in his kind of not Percy Jackson series, but kind of the continuum. That series, you got to talk to him about the final book in that world. And that was really awesome to do, I’m glad we got the chance to do that. And it’s actually crazy because before we did the interview, read wired and calm, which is kind of the website that kind of publishes all these announcements and, and they do like most of the promotion for the books, they, they reached out to us and asked if we wanted to do a video with requirements, wrote the release of the book. And so we did we actually, we pitched them some ideas for like, funny video ideas, and then they, they had their own kind of ideas. And so together, we produce three, three short videos that are all on YouTube to release the book. And then we’re also able to say, Rick, would you like to come on our podcast, which he did. So that was all really fantastic, and nothing that we would, we might like, I thought, you know, starting recording podcasts, somewhere down the line, I’m probably going to get to talk to Rick Ryan. And that probably happens if you do it eventually on like, like, five, six years that that has to happen. But I never would have expected that they would have reached out to us and they would have happened in just over a year. So

Will Bachman 11:13
and I think some adult listeners may not be familiar with Rick wired. And if they haven’t, you know, don’t have young adult kids. But if you look it up, he is one of the top 10 or 12 Best Selling authors in the world in terms of total grossing sales. So it’s like having Stephen King on your podcast as a sophomore in high school. pretty impressed. Yes,

Samuel Bachman 11:36
yeah.

Will Bachman 11:37
So tell me a little bit of what you’ve learned so far about running a podcast from setting up just the two of you, because the two of you really set it up by yourselves. You’ve set up a website, we also should get into your Twitter and your Instagram account. What have you learned so far about how to make you know how to make a podcast?

Samuel Bachman 11:57
Well, one thing I learned was with social media was we would we would do like kind of jokey posts on social media. Or sometimes we post memes on social media, which we still occasionally do. One of the things I realized was with our especially our Twitter is like, if we just did on Twitter, what we preached into of our podcast, then that only not actually gets people to follow you on Twitter, but to actually like, like believe in the podcast, be willing to check it out? I think. So let me just explain that. So like what I mean by doing what we preach about our podcast, so if we say our podcast is the update, everything you need to know about regarding news, so we do is anytime someone posts, anything that like might be considered newsworthy, or something that we would be like, interested in talking about on the podcast, we can just retweet it. And so then so then people you know, if they check out our Twitter account, they see that were tweeting, like constantly about regarding presents news. And so that’s not going to be interesting to you know, someone who doesn’t really care about record and they don’t want to get their news, their Twitter feed clogged with regard to news. But we’re not we’re not looking for, you know, someone who’s not that interested in regretting. That’s not who we want listening to our podcast. So we are not not that we’re not interested. But, but it’s not, you know, our target audience, I would say. And so, we’re regarding hardcore regarding fans are fans of the imprint folks, if they see our Twitter feed, and they’re like, I would have to follow, you know, 10 different people to get this, this feed that I’m getting from this one person. Because, you know, and also, if you’re following those 10 different people, you might be getting stuff that you don’t want in your feed. But by retweeting, you know the important stuff that gets people more interested in what you’re doing. And also, then once a week, we tweet about our own episode, which we release. And so that gets people willing to check out the interview. Because if everything we’re tweeting about is newsworthy, then our episodes probably also are.

Will Bachman 14:05
So it’s a very targeted disciplined approach, as opposed to just general commentary or sharing political news or, you know, things that kids in general might be just in it just sticking to Rick Ryan, and you’ve grown to how many followers now on Twitter, you have a pretty good following.

Samuel Bachman 14:21
Yeah, it’s like 1100 Plus, I think we’re nearing 1200. And then on Instagram, I think we have 2000 or 3000 followers. So you know, not not on the high end of the spectrum by any means of like, other podcast or or you know, celebrities or anything, but I think I’m pressive for for what we doing and the niche that we have

Will Bachman 14:48
now it’s pretty respectable. And what is let’s let’s share those right now. We’ll put them in the show notes as well. But what is your Twitter and your Instagram handles? sorenstam

Samuel Bachman 14:57
is the Half Blood report and our Twitter is just at half report,

Will Bachman 15:02
half report. Okay? What have you learned about growing as an Instagram following?

Samuel Bachman 15:11
I don’t do as much on the Instagram, as my co host does do. I’m more of the Twitter person as you can probably tell. But my my co hosts, when we want to talk about we do the same thing where we add like the news to our story. Another helpful thing is posting audio grams. So if you don’t an audio grammars, you’ve probably even seen them before, it’s a little clip of a podcast, with like a little audio wave that’s moving as the audio is playing. And then often there’ll be like annotation to the text that’s like on the screen, or, and then like our logo, and then it says, like, check out the podcast,

Will Bachman 15:48
which What do you make this with?

Samuel Bachman 15:51
So we use, I think, I forgot to, I think, was actually just like, get audiogram calm that we’re using. And that was all right. But there wasn’t as many things we could do. So we actually switched to headliner. And have the monitors better because like, there’s not a limit there, there is a limit. But there’s, there’s less of a limit as well, we could have the mountain of audio games you could create as there was with get audiogram, calm. And also with headliner, they actually let you like, have this editing studio where you can like move stuff around. Which which, you know, it’s not, you know, most perfect software in the world. But it’s, it’s definitely great for creating audiograms. And that’s what I would recommend for anyone who’s looking to make those.

Will Bachman 16:33
How do you prepare for author interviews? So that’s only usually typically once a month, and then you have other three episodes? That Are you in Diego, how do you prepare for the author interviews, the two of you.

Samuel Bachman 16:47
So first read the book. And then so that’s that’s often helpful. And I would say, that really helps you get in the mind of someone who wants to hear about this book, because the people who are listening to the interviews are one of two people, they even want to find out if they want to buy the book, or they or someone who loved the book and wants to hear the author talk. And so you kind of want to make the interview perfect for both those two people. So one, so we kind of create a list of questions. And kind of, we don’t like to directly separate them and kind of separate them for ourselves like, what is the questions kind of for the first person where those questions for that second person is already read the book. And so sometimes we’ll even like have spoiler parts of the lecture. And we’ll say like, this is the spoiler time, you can like skip ahead if you don’t want to hear spoilers. But what what we were able to do is like, ask questions. And also, I don’t think this isn’t just for author interviews. This is really for anytime you’re interviewing someone who’s doing lots of interviews to promote something they have, they have a list of answers to a list of questions in their head. And so this I mean, you can do this with any celebrity, if you if you look at the Select like celebrities, newest movie, and then you watch every time they’re on a late night show, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, Conan, whatever, right? And you’ll see that, you know, Jimmy Kimmel might ask them a question about food. And Jimmy Fallon might ask them a question like, what movies they’ve been watching recently, but they’re both going to have a core set of questions about promoting the movie. And then that celebrity is probably going to give a very, very similar answer to both those questions. And so one thing I realized is, while that question might be good, you don’t want to have too many of those. Because if you have too many questions that the author’s already answered, what is the author getting out of speaking to you? And what are people listening, getting out of listening to you? So that’s why you want to also have a good amount of questions that not necessarily hadn’t been asked by the author before, but that the author hasn’t prepared for it hasn’t answered 10 times already

Will Bachman 19:02
a little bit more offbeat? A little bit more unique. Personalized. Yeah, like lovin an example of a sort of a typical question like, oh, why did you write this book? Or like, like, what are some? What are some of those generic questions that you try to avoid?

Samuel Bachman 19:18
oh, that’s good. So I guess I’m trying to trying to think of a good clear example like Yeah, why would you Why did you write this book is good, is a good example. Why do you think this book is important? Why, you know, what do you What’s the most like prevalent theme in the book? Questions like that? I think are probably good examples of questions to avoid. And and also like, picking out details is also really good to talk about so that’s, that’s also helpful when you’ve read the book you can kind of close in on like one scene and ask like, what were you thinking when you’re doing this thing? Because Because the author’s always thinking something when they’re writing a scene, right. And so if you get to hear that, that’s good, especially because when you’re picking a specific scene, the author probably hasn’t talked about that specific scene with every person they’re talking to. So that’s also a really way to get like a niche question.

Will Bachman 20:17
Can you share any examples of like, insights or interesting surprising things that authors have told you in those interviews that were maybe, you know, from those kind of offbeat questions, or?

Samuel Bachman 20:32
Yeah, like, like, one time, we asked an author like, um, like, how they were able to, like there was there was a specific scene at the end of the book that was that did you know that what wasn’t good for the main character was, it was a bit of a cliffhanger ending, or something bad happened to them. And the offer told us about, like, how that was really, like, sad to write for them. And then they, you know, they were crying and talking to other people about how it was, like, so bad. And the other people were like, that doesn’t seem like a big issue. You know, you just you just wrote a sad scene in a book. And that was kind of a funny answer. I guess another time, we’ve got something about that. An offer told us about a autographing competition they had with regard and they were doing a promotional event with Rick Ryan. And then they, they didn’t tell regarding this, but they decided they were going to try to sign more books than he could. And they lost because Ricard has been doing book signings for a very long time. And then that actually, that was such a funny, unique answer that actually read writer calm. This was like, very earlier night, couple months of podcasting. They they actually had like a fun facts about like, regarding an article for national authors day that like they they hyperlink to our podcast, because it was such a unique, fun faculty answer to a question.

Will Bachman 22:06
What have you learned about of interacting professionally with the, quote, unquote, adult world from, you know, just organizing and setting up all these interviews when I was your age? I mean, other than teachers, I don’t really I didn’t really interact with, you know, the adult world, but you’ve been reaching out to authors, emailing them coordinating times for meetings, you know, sending follow up notes, and so forth. What, what do you feel you’ve learned from that whole process in terms of I mean, imagine you’ve probably gotten better at it, and a little bit more comfortable with it.

Samuel Bachman 22:40
So one thing, one thing I thought at the beginning, and I don’t know how saying this to any adults listening, who don’t know how helpful this will be, but, but I think it’ll be helpful to any kids who are listening or any, any kids, you want to tell this information, too. I think when I when I started out, I was worried that being a kid would be a detriment to me, no one wants to talk to a kid about something. But then I realized that I think there is a percentage of the time that’s true, there’s probably sometimes but I would say, at least 80% of the time, talking to adults, professionally as a kid is a plus. Because adults, you know, aren’t often talking to kids pitching them ideas or asking for interviews. And so that’s, that’s unique that sticks in their brain. And that’s usually something they want to say yes to. Because it’s just a unique experience that they don’t know when they’re going to get to do that for the next time. You know, get interviewed by a teenager on a on a popular podcast, that that doesn’t happen a lot. And so I think that’s, that’s a very interesting thing. That I think most kids, they they getting anxious about, you know, oh, I’m a kid, and I’ve been trying to talk to this adult, like they’re an adult. And, you know, I think that’s a good thing, I think. Not all the time. But I think there is a good amount of time when people say, Oh, your kid, and you’re doing something that I wasn’t doing when I was a kid. And I think that’s cool. Um, and I would say just, just don’t let your like don’t get upset when you experience that other percent of the time, when people were like, I don’t want to talk to a kid because they’re a kid. Because I think that’s not the part to focus on. And I would say so that’s, that’s my main tip for any kid who’s trying to do something professionally. But I would say just in general, you know, being polite, being being respectful and I don’t know just just realizing that there’s, there’s always a trade off like people. And anytime you you’re asking something, you’re also should be offering something. So I think that’s like, anytime we’re asking an author to come on the podcast. We’re also promoting something. So if like if an author doesn’t have a book coming out recently, but we want to talk to them that’s different, because we’re not really promoting a book that they want to promote immediately. Like when we wanted to talk to regarding his cover artists, he’s a great guy, he probably would have talked to us too, regardless. But I think it’s really good that he also had a book that he had written, which I think is really amazing. It’s, I think it’s called how we got to the moon, where he actually talks to people who, who had helped get the get to the moon, with the Apollo trips, and he had talked to people would actually work them out. And he has this great illustrated book that has lots of information that is interesting about it, like written out, but then these amazing art drawings. So he had that book releasing later that year. And so if you didn’t have that book, releasing Later that year, we wouldn’t have been giving as much as we would have been asking for. But I think that there was a trade off, that increases the chance that they’re gonna say, Yes, so I think in the adult world, it’s really important having to trade off with any interaction.

Will Bachman 26:03
Now, in addition to I reflect on kind of what I observe you learning in terms of skills from doing this podcast, and sometimes I wonder, you know, if it’s more than you’re learning in some of your classes in school, because in addition to, you know, the administrative skills of reaching out to writers and getting them and getting them on your show, you’re also doing the editing, you’re learning to use social media, you’ve set up a website, right? You have also done a few things with the website, like you have a merchandise store. And I know you guys set up an Amazon referral, Amazon affiliate links, right. So tell me about some of the, you know, from your point of view, that kind of the the auxiliary set of skills that you feel you’ve picked up from from doing this show?

Samuel Bachman 26:53
I mean, yeah, I mean, I know how to edit a podcast now. I didn’t really know how to do that before. I also I mean, again, I’m a film major. So like, I learned, editing and stuff that like can help my film projects. You know, someone like him before he runs home projects. I learned how to do stuff that I can help with my podcast so that that really goes to ye soon is really helpful. I I’ve learned you know how to work with Wix, I still want to learn how to like do Squarespace, but I’m having Wix is just a useful skill that I now know how to do. That’s your website builder. Yes. Which is funny, it’s kind of a step down. Because I in seventh grade in computer science, we had like an HTML course. And now I’m using Wix. So I know. When I think a little funny, I don’t want to relearn HTML and stuff. I guess. I yeah, learning how to promote merge, learning how to promote pot, just learning how to use social media in an effective way, I think was, was really interesting and helpful. That’s something I plan to use in the future. And I’m trying to think of, I’ve learned a lot from this podcast, there’s not really one thing I would single down to, but there’s there’s lots of fun, I think anytime you’re doing something like mostly by yourself, I do have my co host Gao who’s extremely helpful, he does a lot. But I think just anytime you know, you’re doing something almost almost 50% of the work, or you know more more than 50% of the work. Or if you’re doing something that’s 100% of the work, you’re going to pick up various skills along the way that you wouldn’t have learned. So it’s great to collaborate people. And it’s great to work with other people. And I think you should always involve other people in what you’re doing. But I think anytime that you’re doing this kind of hands on project, there’s there’s a lot of amazing skills, you can learn that you might never know when you’re going to need them in the future.

Will Bachman 28:37
You mentioned collaboration. Another thing that you’ve done, and you and Diego have done is set up collaborations with other podcasts. Right. Talk about that a little bit. I think you’ve done a fundraiser, I think you’ve done several shows where you collaborated.

Samuel Bachman 28:52
Yeah, we did a live stream, a trivia live stream where we raise money for independent bookstores, which was really fun. And I tried to think of what else we’ve done. Yeah, we’ve gone on over podcast, we’ve have had other podcast join us on our podcast, to talk about various things relating to regard and as books. Obviously, one of the best things when you’re doing a collaboration, you want to find someone who is going to have some interest to the people listening. So you know, I’m, I’m glad to be here because on your podcast, because I think I have something to add and contribute about being you know, independent professional, but I think it would be less helpful for you to join us on our podcast about regularity. And so so that’s always important. We have over Percy Jackson podcasters Come on our podcast, you know, as opposed to, you know, again, for example, independent professional podcasts, right? So so that’s always a fun thing to do. And that’s also increases. Again, like I think over podcasts. I haven’t exploded again, like you reach out over podcasts on your level. Sometimes it’s Have it higher than you, sometimes they’re a bit lower to you and like downloads and popularity. But I think like, again, like reaching out, you are not so not to say that you shouldn’t reach out to podcasts that you know, have 10s of 1000s more downloads than you. Because you should always try. And again, not to say that, you know, a podcast of 10s of 1000 downloads to reach out to podcasts with five downloads, because they find that podcast and the host interesting, they also could do that. I’m just saying reach out to people on the same level as you is also is a bigger guarantee of them saying yes to come on to the podcast or having them guarantee Yes, coming on of you coming on podcast, because then you’re kind of really having your audience’s join. And then it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s better for the both of you. And I think overall, just having it makes the whole situation more sort of calm and collected. And I there hasn’t ever really been every difficulty in doing collaborations. We those are like we usually record interviews ahead of time, but our collaborations are, more or less minute, we’ll be like letting them like a week or two weeks, sometimes we’ll plan like the week of them for podcasts, because they’re so easy to do. And I think over podcasters that kind of understand the game, they know how to record at it just like you do. So that kind of connection that while you’re probably not gonna be talking about recording and editing on your Percy Jackson collaboration. But it’s it’s a, it’s an easier way to connect. On that fundamental level, you have something in common, more than just what you’d like to talk about

Will Bachman 31:36
that shared experience. So you’re building relationships with other people in the same field? What would you What advice would you give if, you know, another teen was thinking about setting up a podcast? Maybe on some other author or some type of book or you know, on fantasy or science fiction or? Or some, you know, or some other topics, some other hobby of theirs? What What advice would you give, you know, based on what you’ve learned doing your show,

Samuel Bachman 32:03
um, the number one thing is to stay consistent, I don’t think we would have gotten to the point that we have. If we haven’t been releasing an episode, as consistent as we have, I’m not not gonna say we’re the most consistent podcast in the world. But we had like a, like a, I think we had like a 50 episodes streak where we didn’t miss like an episode,

Will Bachman 32:23
every single week, every single week, that’s pretty solid, um, despite the pandemic,

Samuel Bachman 32:28
yeah. And so stuff like that, that’s very helpful. Just staying consistent. That’ll, when you’re consistent, and people can tell you’re consistent. When you reach out to someone that that makes means that they know, like, they know they can trust you they know that like joining your podcast will be a good deal. And that doesn’t mean like you can, you can always, you know, release two episodes, wait a couple months, and then reach out to someone say, hey, you want to be on my third episode of my podcast. And people might take that risk on you. And if they do, that’s, that’s awesome. But I think making sure you’re consistent. And you know, even even if you don’t want to be a weekly podcast, at least letting everyone know, you know, I’m gonna be every other week podcast. And that’s my deal, then that people people know that’s you, like you can be consistent and do what would you kind of podcast promises, then if you’re able to do that, then people will, will will like you people will want to listen to you. Because no one wants to listen to a podcast, get really into it. And then they start releasing episodes, that’s upsetting. So I think having that kind of weight a way to prove prove yourself or promise something, just, you know, by the time you get to like, by the time you get to your like, sixth episode, and you’re releasing them consistently. That’s already like a little bit of proof that you can do something and then then you can start reaching out to people and keeping yourself consistent for all that that’s a that’s a great way to keep doing it.

Will Bachman 33:58
How do you and Diego prepare for your episodes that are not interviews?

Samuel Bachman 34:04
That’s a good question. Um, the first things we always do is we find out our main thing and that was it because every week we, every week we do we do our demigod news, which is where we talk about, as I’ve mentioned, like the main focus of our podcast, what we what’s what’s new with her garden, what books have been announced, what’s the what covered have been released. But then the second thing we do is usually one of two things. Usually it’s a, we review a book that just came out, or we make predictions on a book that’s upcoming. And so we pick whichever one we’re doing, and usually it’s predictions because only like six books come out a year. And so we choose, we’re doing predictions on that and then we’re like, Okay, what, what, how much research do we need to do and what do we need to research on? So I sometimes it’s like the third book in this series we already know mythos of the world we already have studied the mythology. Maybe we just need to like, skim through the book and like see what what sim for the previous box and see like, what what plot lines are we going to need to make predictions on for the third book? What continuations sometimes on novelties like the first one in the series. And it’s not mythology Nero’s have ever heard about right? Like we in No, I think last month we did an episode on Hmong mythology because there’s a book coming out based on my with ology. I didn’t know what Hmong mythology was before. Before we started working on that podcast, so I was like, Okay, so here’s the things like, here’s the things in the description of the book, right? So we know that book is probably gonna deal with souls and it’s going to deal with, you know, there’s gonna be some dragons and there’ll be some talking cat. So we all do the research on like souls and shamans and Diego, you can do the research on dragons and talking cats. And so we find out where, where those where those ideas are in the mythology and Hmong mythology. And we’re we we, we that we kind of have to reverse engineer how someone would modernize that for a rewriter presents book. Then, kind of the bumper thing we have to do is we have to collect the demigod news, we have to see, okay, what are the important topics to talk about? Okay. Oh, that six things is that too many? What’s the least important thing here? Right? Why do we cut? Or maybe it’s like, this is only like two things? How do we get it up to like three or four? Important like, news topics to discuss. And so then once we have all that we have this show notes document that we have. And then we have recorded me run through it.

Will Bachman 36:47
So you have demigod news, you have predictions? You You have a typical show opener, right? So give us the your your typical show opener. Oh, yeah. So

Samuel Bachman 36:57
Diego will be like, welcome to the athlete report. Also, what we do on the podcast, I actually, I’ve said this line, like 20 more times, and I still don’t know what my hearts but I’ll be like, we discussed like all things right in, like all debt were discussed. Then we got news, like interviews and all everything’s routed something like that, then normally, usually I’m, I’m juggle your coast, and I’ll be like, I’m Samuel driver host, or something like that, and then get that out. And then one of us will be like, and later on the podcast, we’re going to be making predictions on this book, or, you know, we’ll say later on the podcast, we’re going to be reviewing this book. And then and then we will say, but first, like, let’s do the demigod news. We do the Pentagon news, we talk about the news. And then we’ll we’ll say like, Nick, let’s move on to our next section. And then we’ll introduce the section. So it’s a review or an Oracle section where we make predictions on the future book. And then we introduced the book. So we have like, What book? Are we talking about? Like? What’s up with that? Who wrote it? What mythology is that based on? And then what we do for for predictions, books that are sequels. And for books for Ryan Roos, when the books already come out, what we do is we’ll be like, this is our spoiler free section. So we’ll make predictions on the first book, or so. I mean, so we’ll make predictions on like a sequel, without having without like, mentioning what’s been brought up in the previous books, which can be a little hard to do. And then we’ll be like, or, or for our our review section will be like, just what this is what we thought about the book, our general thoughts like will like, we liked like, I think in the most recent reorder review, one of the things we said was like we both thought the beginning and end were really really strong. But we thought the middle what what good was a little bit slow. That’s one of the things we said like that’s a spoiler for your section. And so then we’ll be like, Okay, now we’re going into spoilers. And so we’ll, we’ll make predictions on a sequel and a series was like acknowledging the previous books, our real quick review the book and say, oh, my goodness, what did you think of? You know, that part of the book or like that specific scene, let’s dive into our thoughts on like that, that little dilemma. The characters Hi.

Will Bachman 39:26
Changing gears just for a second. Tell us how did you decide to go to Frank Sinatra School of the Arts?

Samuel Bachman 39:33
Oh, yeah. Okay, so I took the icgc ci, and I got into the Bronx science Specialist High School. And then I also my daughter score, but it was Frank Sinatra school, the arts, the film department. And so I really like film, or like the medium and I want to work in film, when I grew up, so that was like, and then the alternative was Bronx science, which is You know, has film clubs and stuff, but it’s not nowhere near as developed as focused as what I was going to be able to get at Frank Sinatra. And then I thought, you know, it’s also like, it’s a very rigorous school with a lot more kids, so I don’t like I’m probably not gonna have as good relationship with the teachers. And I’m also going to be being asked to do much more work. So I was like, I would rather have a school like, even if I’m gonna be doing a lots of work at Frank Sinatra, not to say there isn’t a lot of work there. Because there is, I would rather you know, be an admin, like be one of the teachers like one of their 60 students than be one of the teachers, 1000 students. So,

Will Bachman 40:41
yeah. So for listeners who are interested in the Half Blood report, where would you like to point them online? And we can include these links in the show notes?

Samuel Bachman 40:52
Well, yeah, so you can I mean, you can just look up the half flow report on any like podcasting app will show up, wherever, wherever you’re listening to this. And then we also have a website, the half flow report comm where you can find most of our stuff, if you click on the episodes tab, our website next to like where it says home, you’ll be able to, to listen to our actual episodes right there. From in tune, scroll down and see a lot of sets. And then of course, we have our Instagram at the halftime report and our Twitter at half report. I don’t know if there’s anything else, I guess we have our merge, but you can also just find out at our website.

Will Bachman 41:33
And listeners can also connect with you on LinkedIn.

Samuel Bachman 41:36
We I do have a LinkedIn. I don’t check it enough as I as much as I should. But if you want to connect with me on there, that would be awesome.

Will Bachman 41:44
Fantastic. So we will include those links in the show notes. Samuel, thank you so much for joining today.

Samuel Bachman 41:50
Thank you so much for having me.