ApexThis.Podcast

In This Episode

Is it too late to follow a dream?

Links

* Ikigai* How to find and do work that you love* Secret to a long and happy life

Show Credits

Main show hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

BlogScript

The path before you is bountiful. It’s exotic and ever changing. As you travel this path and its winding roads, in your hands is a walking stick. Fashioned from a branch at the fork in the road. You use this stick. This broken branch. You use it to lift boulders, dig trenches, and to keep you upright in times of need.

Then there is a moment, a moment in which you find you need more. You notice the stick. This branch, that you had longed believe to be another limb, can be reinforced. It can be stronger. Then you wonder… how long have I had this? How long has this held me up?

As you gaze upon this branch, you look up to find yourself back at the fork in the road. Back at the tree from which the branch fell. The new path looks curious but before you continue, you rest. You drink the shade the tree provides and steady yourself for the paths ahead.

You ask yourself—Is it too late to pursue a path that is so different from that I have traveled?

Is it too late to pursue a dream?

Dreams

Are we too old for them?

If you are like me, then you may have found yourself mired in the thoughts and opinions of others to choose something…practical.

And you bend.

Years of pressure enforces its will upon you and you go down a path that is still exciting, but not the one you love.

Some of us are lucky and they continue down their path of interests. Honing their skills. Steadily improving.

Others find their lost passion but are stuck in discerning if it’s too late.

The unfortunate few, never find it.

And thus, I belong to the group that wondered if its too late to follow a dream.

And you might wonder, how do you find this elusive dream?

It may come slowly. It may be something that has always been with you but you’ve abandoned it to pursue another path. For me, it was writing and design. That was the thing I enjoyed but left to follow tech. Although, I enjoy tech, it was never a passion. Still, the thing I relied on for many tech related projects, when given the chance, was writing and design. As I didn’t pursue either to study the technical foundation, I was still “OK” at them, if you ask me.

It wouldn’t be until nearly two decades later that I recognize what I liked most about my work. What I liked most about the projects I worked on. They all came to writing, and design.

I then wondered if it would be too late to pursue a career using both? To pursue a passion of both?

While I undergo training for the day career to learn and study the technical foundations of Graphic and UX Design as well as ...

In This Episode

This is the July 2020 monthly report.

Show Credits

Main show hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

BlogScript

Welcome to ApexThis.Podcast. A chronicle of my journey to start a publishing side business. This will be a behind the scenes look at what I’m doing to make that happen. I’ll share tips and best practices that I learn along the way. Tips that you can use to start your very own indie publishing journey and share your voice with the world.

Coming up…the July Update

July is over. Camp NaNo is over, and Q3 2020 is underway. Let’s get to business.

Hours Worked

Time Logged – 54hrs

What Happened?

Finance

Two items happened:

* Split the Admins of Atlassian and ApexThis hosting fees for reporting for ApexThis.* Purchased Publish & Thrive training from Hearth Breathings. Focused on self-publishing.

Time Breakdown

Here is a breakdown of my monthly time, we will then dive into them and how they correlate to the monthly goals.

Social Media – 30m

Creating Instagram cards.

Admin – 2h 10m

email finances taxes planning

YouTube – 19h 30m

I recorded and produced various videos such as July Planning, Planner Unboxing and the Q3 planning video. I had an original budget of 6hrs and went way above budget.

Podcast – 10h 28m

I had a budget of 12hrs and came in under that. In this I published two podcast episodes

Project Dollar – 21h 39m

For Camp NaNoWriMo I wrote Project Dollar. This project had a target goal for July of 26k words but I was only able to produce 14k words. This project needs a plot restructure and major editing. Or rewrite.

Monthly Focus

There were two primary focus for the month:

* Project Dollar for Camp NaNo* Mixtape Revision

I did not reach the intended targets for these. I only wrote 14k of the 26k words I targeted for project dollar. And I was so consumed with the bumps in the road for project dollar that all my writing days was spent on it and I did not use any of that time for revising mixtape.

For the secondary focus I noted to do:

* 2 podcast episodes* 1 youtube video

This was successful as I released two podcast episodes and two youtube videos.

What’s Next?

Project Revisions:

* Mixtape* Project Dollar (spell check only for alpha reader)* Waited

These are the first revisions for light weight items. The next revisions will then dive into reconsidering sentence and word choice and structure. Extensive rewrites will occur as well.

In Closing

Very successful month overall. Even though I did not hit the word count for Project Dollar, the best piece was that I wrote on every day I scheduled. Returning to such a large project, larger than anything else has prompted me to go back to the basics and revisit short stories and dive back into learning story craft.

In This Episode

Mark cover’s the focus for Q3, projects and more.

Show Credits

Main show hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

BlogScript

Welcome to ApexThis.Podcast. A chronicle of my journey to start a publishing side business. This will be a behind the scenes look at what I’m doing to make that happen. I’ll share tips and best practices that I learn along the way. Tips that you can use to start your very own indie publishing journey and share your voice with the world.

Coming up…An update on ApexThis and the future.

The end of June was a busy one as I needed to plan Q3 of 2020. And as such, I wanted to share what Q3 looks like as I start back to what ApexThis was supposed to be 3 years ago.

The Process

A quick reminder of my process—I plan yearly by outlining what I want my focus to be and what I would like to have produced by the years end. I then take this and break it out into milestones or quarters. The quarters are broken down to monthly items, and then the monthly into weekly. In all of this, I use themed days where I bulk the work I need to do. This helps when I am planning the month and or week with the tasks I need to complete.

What’s In Q3

Here is a break down of what I want to focus on for Q3. We will run through the defined focus for each month in Q3. Follow up on these items will be done in monthly update episodes. Please note that these will only be ApexThis projects and not other endeavors I am involved in. So, let’s get started.

July

For July, I estimated an available 92 hours to work on side projects. This time was then broken down for the items I chose to focus on, excluding minor things that pop up.

Primary Focus

* Project Dollar – 26k Words | 34h* Mixtape Manuscript | 5h

Project Dollar is a small book that I am working on. If you’re a long time listener then you may have heard about this project countless times.

Mixtape is a poetry collection. I am in the process of a second revision to finalize the manuscript before we get into formatting, etc.

Secondary Focus

* ApexThis Podcast – Two episodes | 12h* YouTube video – 1 video | 6h

I may be biting off more than I can chew but I hope to produce two podcast episodes per month; one monthly update, and one focused on particular topic.

I also want to produce one YouTube video but this highly varies and would likely be repurposed content of this podcast. Though, I can say that I’ve recorded a few videos on planning for Camp Nano, my business A5 planner and entering my Q3 data into my digital tools.

Aug

For Aug, I estimated an available 106 hours for side projects. Here is the Breakdown:

Primary Focus

* Mixtape Formatting* Revise “Waited”

I am hoping that if I can finish edit in July or early August, that I can spend time formatting Mixtape in preparation of publishing this.

“Waited” is a short story I wrote in June as a break from leaving Austin Podcasters and to get me back into the process of writing creatively. Since, I’ve toyed with the idea of actually publishing this under ApexThis. As such, I’ve moved this personal project onto the ApexThis roster for further development and tha...

I got a new planner. It’s Purdy!

In This Episode

An update on ApexThis and the future.

Show Credits

ApexThis podcast is hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

Blogscript

Welcome to ApexThis.Podcast. A chronicle of my journey to start a publishing side business. This will be a behind the scenes look at what I’m doing to make that happen. I’ll share tips and best practices that I learn along the way. Tips that you can use to start your very own indie publishing journey and share your voice with the world.

Coming up…An update on ApexThis and the future.

<Episode 3 Intro Clip>

Those words were spoken into my recorder in Dec 2016, and released to the world Jan 2017. A little over 3 years later, I am here to announce that I have stepped away from the Meetup I started. And here is why…

The Why

As you can tell, we are in a global pandemic, and still suffering it here in the US, there are important protests happening demanding change, millions have been laid off from work, and many may be put out of their homes due to the overwhelming lack of support for workers and small businesses. BUT, we are not a political podcast. The point is, this has called to my attention and brought forth some thoughts I’ve been surpressing. If you’ve been listening to this sparsely updated podcast, you can derive a theme, a lack of focus. And you would be right. Despite my want to focus on ApexThis and my writing, I’ve never been able to truly do so and that is because I started too much, too soon. When I decided to focus on writing, I decided to ALSO start a Meetup and when the Meetup grew with real live people, I gave focus to that. Eventually, podcast episodes would fall out, videos, and writing would die off and I would focus on planning meetups, talks, 1/1’s, etc. More and more it was removing me from my focus. A focus that was lost when I started the Meetup.With Covid, my anxiety increased, and I started to really rethink my projects and what I wanted out of life.

Focus Realignment

2019 saw a big change in how I worked given that I was coming out of a burnout. I prioritized more self-care days and shrank my “work hours” so that I wasn’t running 100% everyday. The workload didn’t go away and instead increased.

I re-read Atomic Habits by James Clear, I read Getting Things Done, by David Allen as well as many other productivity books and I changed from focusing on goals, to focusing on process. While I had a goal to write and many writing projects, my process in writing was non-existent. I asked myself “If I were to write more, what would I need to leave behind?”

With that question in mind, I came across a blog from Julian Shapiro, founder of Demand Curve and writer. He has several guides and blog pieces that he wrote and one was entitled “What to work on.” In this, he broke down his analysis of finding out what interests or excites him and what he values from his projects. In his writing this line stood out to me:

Determine which path you’d be more regretful not having pursued by the time you’re 80 and are reflecting on your life choices.

And so I asked myself a few questions:

What would I regret not pursuing when I am 80? Writing & Publishing.

What am I doing to not have this regret? Nothing.

If I were to focus on writing & publishing, would I have time for anything else? No.

Join me in this impromptu recording as I figure out what I need to participate for the first time in a NanoWriMo event. And when I say impromptu, I mean “we’re doing it live!”

Camp NanoWriMo is a smaller version of the annual NanoWriMo that happens in November where your goal is to write 50k words by the end of the month. Camp Nano occurs in April and July where you set your own goals. For July, I will be resuming an active project but first need to find my target word count and break down how much I need to write to hit that goal for Camp NanoWriMo.

The Project & Goals

Back from the video? No? It’s a bit long, I admit. Something to throw on in the background. So, here are the details for ya:

Project = Project DollarDays = Mon, Thu, SunTime = 8hrs per weekTarget Word = ~43kCurrent Word = ~17Word Goal = ~26kWords per week = ~6kWords per hour = ~1k

This will be the most audacious writing project I’ve ever taken. I’ve never written 26k words in a single month, let alone a whole year!As I stated in the video, if I miss word counts, that’s OK. The most important thing is the process and that is me writing!Wish me luck!

Video References

* What is Camp NanoWriMo – https://nanowrimo.org/what-is-camp-nanowrimo* My Writing Log Template – https://askmark.io/my-notion-writing-log-template/* The Productivity Lab – https://tpl.show

Fresh out of the design studio, here is our new logo and branding for ApexThis:

Old Logo

New Logo

Why

To start, the goal was to create a brand identity that can be adjusted over time. In 2020, I am pushing through with executing on projects I’ve been wanting to get done and out the door. That means publishing. I felt it important to at least have an actual logo in place before I start publishing books.Furthermore, I added a task to update the logo and branding in Jan 2018. This would now make it 5 years since the initial design. It was due for a refresh.

Logo

We (I) sent our design intern (me) to do some training and we are happy to say that he (me) is now our Principal Designer and was able to keep the branding update in-house instead of hiring externally. The logo took a while to explore and came down to a triple bar-style during a lettering class I took. Thinking about what ApexThis was and what the future looked like, publishing was at the forefront. Audio & Paper. I incorporated a digital waveform and a stack of books. The middle bar I opted to add the accent color to really make it stand out that it is a book while also softening the corners. I thought it was a good representation of my focus to publish print books and ebooks, as well as audiobooks and podcasts but hopefully not making it too on the nose.

Logo Variations

Identity

The original logo used a similar color scheme, grey with turquoise. The type was Verdana and it was created in Photoshop which was completely the wrong tool to use. With the new logo, we have opted for Franklin Gothic URW for the primary type using Demi and Book for the weights. As the secondary type, I have selected Open Sans. The secondary type does morph to a primary in the event I use tools where Franklin Gothic is not available.

Typography

The colors have shifted a bit by using a darker grey, a deeper red, and turquoise. A neutral color was added to make it more flexible with the accent colors of turquoise and red:

Color Palette

Social Media

For use with social media, I pull the colors, type, and style, to create templates that I can use for specific purposes. This also pulls in a piece of the identity from the logo and that is a paper style. The templates colors do have a bit of grit and texture to make it resemble paper, soft shadows to show depth and layers with multiple colors or sheets that “slide” back to reveal an image or text leaving a preview of another page on the edge.Not every post will use these templates, but, it’s an identity system I am creating for use to make the brand recognizable. Here are a few social media examples:

Podcast Art

Along with the branding was new podcast art that followed the same identity system. First, here is the old podcast art:

Old Podcast Art

Now, the new podcast art using a paper cut-out style:

New Podcast Art

It was really fun creating the podcast art and it allowed me to learn new techniques in Illustrator. For starters, I love paper art. And I wanted to continue this “paper” design from the social media templates to the podcast cover art. The art features a cutout design, with texture over the colors, and soft shadows to show depth. I also wanted the brand colors to reside under the cutout with ...

In This Episode

Project Dollar. Ever elusive, often spoken of, but yet to be published. I have to admit – this project has been in development hell. Coming up, a long-needed update on Project Dollar.

Show Credits

ApexThis podcast is hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

Transcript

About Project Dollar

ApexThis is an indie publishing house self-generating its own projects. Or for short–my publishing imprint. Project Dollar is to be the first official project for ApexThis while technically not being that first project. Project Dollar will be a speculative memoir. What this means is that it will focus on personal finance and budgeting based on my experience and relationship with money with fantastical elements. Now, why has it been in development hell?

Make It A Podcast

At one point in time, Project Dollar was a blog. And from that blog, I gave small speeches about personal finance and budgeting relaying my experiences, and tactics I used to crawl out of debt. Through the act of creating my first podcast, I figured that this would be a great way to transform the blog content I had written. I decided to make it a podcast.With the decision made, I took all my blog posts, looked them over and marked the ones that would be great episodes and others that needed to be updated. As I delved further into the finance community and pondering attending Fincon, I began having doubts about my approach. I wondered if I really wanted to do a podcast about budgeting. The things I was blogging and giving speeches about were a particular moment in my life and how I overcame it. Podcasting seemed ongoing and the more I thought of it as continuous, the more unappealing the idea became.

How About An E-Book?

Wavering on the idea of Project Dollar being a podcast, I began to favor writing an ebook instead. This was an easy decision as it was something I was wanting to do at some point. I also thought that this would not be difficult and may have even portrayed this in past episodes. With existing content, and having performed a preliminary review, I thought that writing this as an ebook would be a walk in the park. I truly thought I knew what I was doing.I took the existing blog posts, outlined the ebook with them, and began to expound upon the blog posts. This part, at least, was a bit easier for me. I’ve been heavily writing non-fiction and technical writing documents and this ebook was not creative writing therefore, it was safe.Poor planning became apparent as I began to find gaps in the content that I was writing. In addition, some of the blog posts needed to be rewritten entirely. As I organized each post into chapters, the more problems I found.

Maybe It Really Should Be A Podcast

At times, I’ve definitely lamented on my thoughts of doing a podcast or book for Project Dollar. After deciding for it to be an ebook and restructuring the content, it seemed like it could actually work as a limited series podcast, based on the ebook. And because I enjoyed audio so much, I wanted to do a bit more.Here is where vignettes were added. The ebook and podcast would cover your basic A-Z type of information and I wanted my ebook to be a little different. Especially if I wanted some version of this as audio. Vignettes would play that part in adding short narrative clips in between episodes. These narrative clips would set up the theme for the episode with characters and other story elements. The more I played with this idea, the more I liked it.

theme is what your story is illuminating about real life.

In This Episode

Who inspires me? In this episode, I share those who inspire me in some form or fashion as I take this side hustle journey.

Timestamps

Intro Title & Music

0:00.000

Introduction

0:44.349

The Futur

1:20.856

Flux

2:35.217

Resourceful Designer

3:19.599

Fizzle Show

4:03.366

Heart Breathings

4:48.590

Scott McKenna

5:47.168

Underconsideration

7:27.348

Closing Remarks

9:09.725

Outro

10:11.364

Show Credits

ApexThis podcast is hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

Transcript

Inspiration. The mental stimulation that prompts you to act. That incites you to create. That goads you into your own momentary revelation. We all have it whether it be people in or out of your field, a memory, or an image.My inspiration comes from a variety of sources that I have used to guide me within the business world for creatives and to guide me towards my own endeavors. Without further ado – here are some folks that inspire me – and a word of warning, it heavily features designers, if not, all designers:

The Futur

An education platform for creatives in the graphic design, and typography led by Chris Do. I found this YouTube channel based on my own personal research in graphic design tips and they had a great set of videos about the use of type, color, etc. They would review designs from those in the community and break down their own poster designs. Then I discovered another side to their videos. Business advice.Chris would host panels where he would talk to creatives on how to price their services, and how to negotiate with customers. The best are the role-playing videos where Chris is either the client or designer showing how creatives can better support their arguments and or lack of argument, for their pricing.Even if you are not into graphic design, I still believe the business aspect of the videos are great in helping you wrap your mind around pricing your work, and or pitching yourself to potential clients.

Flux

Another independent creative that I follow is Ran Segall. He shares daily videos covering many topics such as How to estimate time for your projects or time management.

He is one of the creatives that I follow directly as I like to see how independents run their business, what tips they share, and what ups and downs they have. For Ran, he doesn’t just share the good, but he shares the bad as well which is all the more important to learn from.

Resourceful Designer

There is a podcast on this list! This podcast is hosted by Mark Des Cotes. I briefly met Mark at Podcast Movement in 2018. At the time I was heavily focused on graphic design due to other projects and this embarked on me adding Mark to my list of podcasts. Like, Ran, you get a behind the scenes of his day-to-day as a designer running his own business. You hear about his struggles as well as tips that other design...

In This Episode

This is the February 2019 monthly report.

Links

* Austin Podcasters* Cashflow Diaries* Microcosm Publishing* Smart Passive Income* Toggle Time Tracker* Trello* Google Keep

Show Credits

Main show hosted, produced, mixed, edited & music by Mark.

Blog

Why Publish A Business Report?

Publishing my business report allows me to reflect back on the month to see what I did or didn’t do so well. Lastly, I have read blog income reports such as SmartPassiveIncome and I like to see what they have tried. It is a form of motivation for me and I hope that this can be one for someone else. Be sure to check out CashFlowDiaries for bloggers that share their blog income reports. Or one that I’ve recently found from publisher Microcosm Publishing.

February 2019 Business Report

Disclaimer: Any income reported will only be reported as “cash” in hand. If it did not deposit into my account, or if I didn’t cash a check, then it does not count as income. Additionally, income will only be reported for ApexThis business and not for personal income. I may discuss side hustles for additional side income, but only income in which I represent ApexThis will be counted. 

**Numbers in parenthesis are negative values.

Revenue/Contribution Report

* Contribution – $4500.00

Expense Report

* RawVoice (Blubrry) – ($6)* Google Domains – ($12)* Google Apps – ($11)* Adobe Suite – ($57)* Xero – ($9)* Shopify – ($333)* Genuine Joes – ($33)

Overall

* Owner Contributions – $4500* Gross Income – $0 😭* Total Expense – ($428)* Total Net – ($4072)

Hours Worked

Time Logged – 19hrs

What Happened?

Finances

Normal stuff – I added new funding for the year to pay for subscriptions, product sample costs, and maybe enough for the Podcast Movement conference. Though I will be adding another conference to the list this year that is back in my hometown but in comparison to last year, I may have budgeted just enough to cover the year. Let’s see how it goes.

Time Breakdown

If you’ve read my post It’s Ok To Breathe then you would know that I took a little time off for me. Since, it’s been a slow start to get back into the side hustle habit. That includes tracking time 😉

Blog – 1h 46m

As an announcement of sorts, I wrote a blog piece called It’s Ok To Breathe and published it on Medium as well.