Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance. I'm Matthew Passi, your host and a fifteen year veteran in the podcasting space. We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and hardware that can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly for insightful interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and
strategies for podcasting success. Head to podcastingtech.com to subscribe to this show on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full potential of your podcast. You know, the last thing you think of when you think of podcasts are print. Yes. That's right. Print media, putting words to paper. But that is exactly what we are gonna be talking about today with
our guest. We are chatting with Tina Dietz. She is a CEO of two companies, so we will call her a media mogul. She runs Twin Flame Studios, which she has had for quite some time, and she has a new company, Alembic Press. You can find them at alembicpress.com, a l e m b I c p r e s s Com. And, of course, we will have links to that in the show notes so you can find it very easily. Tina, it's very nice to see you again. Thanks for joining me. It's great to see you, Matthew. It's been a long
time. I was so pleased when we got to kinda connect again. It has. I I believe we were last time we saw each other was at a pod fest, in 2020 right before the pandemic. But, you know, every time I think of you, I think of the pod fest before that when we wound up going to grab dinner and just sitting at the bar for, like, an hour and a half just chatting about our world and podcast. Part about conferences, man. I love the networking
track. So, let before we get into what you've been doing with helping podcasters turn their work into text, let's talk a little bit about your journey into podcasting. You know, when was your first podcast? How'd you get started? You know, before we started, you kinda said you were thrust into this world. So what did that look like? Yeah. I I had always wanted to do a podcast since about, '20 no, 2012. I think I was on some really early, radio shows in the digital space before podcasting kind
of blew up in 2015 or so. So I had been a guest in a bunch of shows and kept getting asked, because of my background in theater and quite honestly, the love I have of the sound of my own voice, unlike a lot of people. I said, why don't you have a show? Why don't you have a show? And so I ended up during a rebrand of my own company, and I was business coaching at the time, starting a show called The Start Something Show. And that was launched with me by,
Ben Kruger and his team, Ry Taylor. They're both still in podcasting. And I fell in love with the medium. Just fell in love with the notion of talking to people and interviewing people. It's something I started doing when I was literally two years old. I have a recording of me at two years old walking around with a tape recorder, asking their names, and, you know, why do you like Easter? Like, that was that was my first interview.
When I was wearing the same glasses in that picture, by the way. What's that? I assume you're wearing the same glasses in that picture. No. I didn't start wearing glasses until, like, two years ago when, you know, freaking eyeballs got old, man. Ah. But yeah. So it's been it's been a
long journey, and, that show did well really well. I did a couple of weekly seasons of that, and then, and that got picked up by Inc. Magazine as, and included in an article about top podcasts for entrepreneurs, which was tremendous.
And, from there, I've I've experimented with a number of different formats and shows, and then I've probably launched and produced, oh god, at least several dozen shows, but that also gave me the confidence to start the audiobook company that I have today, which is Twin Flame Studios. So tell us a little about Twin Flame Studios, what they do, and why you saw audiobooks as a pathway for podcasters to find more success with their content. It really is a very incestuous
relationship in the in the whole audio space. Right? It's like a podcast are oftentimes, you know, they're a bit of an audio gateway drug, so to speak. Right? Oh, I love that. You like that? And then, you know, you end up like, next thing you know, you're doing audiobooks and, oh my god, then you're speaking on stages and then, you know, you can't stop talking. No. It's it's a whole thing. But, I was, a business coach at the time, and I was,
doing audiobook excuse me. I took an audiobook master class because I was voice acting on the side as a paid hobby. And it was in that class, as I was learning about not just the technique but the industry, that I had this entrepreneurial seizure that said, well, wait a minute. Most of my business coaching clients are writing books. Most of my colleagues are writing books, but nobody's doing audiobooks. Why? And that sent me down a rabbit hole of
research. And at the time, this is now 2013, nobody was doing independent audiobook production for self published authors, for hybrid published authors. And I kinda hung on to the idea, and then it was during a time in my life where I found myself the sole breadwinner for my family and needed I wanted opportunities where I could have a company I could scale. And I said, well, this audiobook idea just won't go away. I know I can do it. I know
I can scale it. I know nobody else is doing it. Let's give it a try. And so I ended up piloting done for you audiobooks, with a group of people that I had, belonged to called the the Evolutionary Business Council, and it took off. It took off fast. And so they doubled down on that vision, and now we produce about a 20 audiobooks a year, mostly in the
nonfiction space. And we were first to market with, the technology and the process for authors to be able to remote record their audiobooks from home and but what fully supported by a director. Oh, that's really cool. And Yeah. I definitely wanna talk to you about that technology that you're using for doing that. But so, you know, you're doing the independent audiobook production. Like you said, a lot of these are nonfiction, but you're also bringing you're sort of bringing
podcasters into that fray. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. There's, there's a lot of nonfiction authors who are building platforms. They're practitioners. They're business owners. They're speakers. They're consultants. They're experts of some kind. And when you're building that whole platform, you have to consider you're really developing an ecosystem for people to come into. And, you know, your voice is something that is unique to you. It
becomes very recognizable to people. And not everybody's cut out or has the type of voice that you wanna listen to necessarily for an eight hour audiobook, but you might wanna tune in and listen to a half hour or forty five minute podcast, or you're gonna love seeing them on stage for a keynote. So there's sometimes it's a blend of the the actual person's voice and, you know, a narrator who
embodies key qualities. And those are the types of things that we help people figure out in and also helping them get their natural voice a little bit more tuned so that people can can really consume their voice more easily. So, I mean, that's really, you know, podcasters who have a platform, who maybe are running courses or doing a lot of consulting and coaching. Right? They have tons of material that they're able to to put together as an ebook or or just
as a book and then turn that into an audiobook. But now you you start Alembic Press, and this is slightly different. And this is basically it's it almost seems like an AI for audiobook creation or just book creation. Am I am I characterizing that right? It's not, you know, an AI process. We do use some developer tools on the back end, but it is still very much a human driven process, and it's it's, in alignment with ghostwriting. It's much more like having a book ghostwritten for you.
However, we're using your podcast content as the material for your book. And so we we actually analyze your RSS feed, and we have a whole process of pulling in material from your RSS feed. We don't even need you to give us transcripts, to kinda suck in all of your material, and then we're able to analyze and categorize and work with your material from your podcast. And then it's not just
one kind of book. We're working with our authors to talk about what your goals are, what what's gonna what's part of your vision. And then there's probably seven or eight different kinds of books that we could create from your podcast content, but we're gonna pick the one to start that works best with aligning your goals. And then it is more of a ghostwriting process that we use to develop out the the outline of the book, the bulk of the book. Of course, the author,
is working with us. The podcast host is working with us every step of the way. But we're using that podcast material as the raw goods and making sure that that author's voice stays consistent and conversational and intimate throughout the process of the book, and then it's all the way through into publishing and, into people's hands. So on the website, again, it was alembicpress.com, a l e m b I c press Com. In big letters, it says from podcast to published in ninety days. Is that true? So
I imagine this isn't for every podcast. Right? If me and my buddies just like to sit around in the garage and record a podcast and maybe drink and, you know, just think that we're hilarious, that's probably not gonna make a great book. Right? No. But those guys aren't the ones who are actually building an ecosystem where they have a specific goal for making a difference in people's lives. So well, so I'll give you a couple of examples.
One book we have in production right now that I'm very excited about is for a show called, Responder Resilience, which was developed to kinda normalize and have people understand what first responders go through and help first responders feel good about sharing their stories and also about getting help that they might need for trauma that they might be
experiencing. And so there's there's three hosts. One is retired firehouse captain and two mental health professionals who specialize in working with first responders. And out of that podcast, we are writing the first ever guide, clinical guide for mental health professionals to work with first responders. And then that is going to turn into courses for mental health professionals so they can be more effective in working with first responders.
So it's it's something that I'm very excited that does not exist in the world that we get to create, and that's so that's an example of the the types of books we're creating. Gosh. I should go through my old show, CAUSE PODS, and just, you know, send you all the podcast hosts who were doing something like that Yes, please. Who were who were podcasting for a good cause and, you know, in many cases, took it beyond just talking to a microphone, but really turned into action and
advocacy and community building and and and whatnot. So, that's that's very, very cool. Why why should podcasters be thinking about books and audiobooks? Like, is there a a correlation of having that content out there leading to an increase in downloads, engagement, opportunity? Like, what is the real benefit of Yeah. Trying a
service like this? Well, most podcasters who are in this kind of a space who have an abundance of content and an abundance of expertise, When you are building out that ecosystem that I was talking about, a book is often, if not always, part of that space where, you know, you wanna go from, working with people one on one or working with people in small groups to being able to be on larger stages and making that transition from being a practitioner to being
somebody who is a thought leader or an industry leader in that in that space. So there's a transition there, and that transition generally involves having your name on an authored book that allows you then to have this elevated level of credibility and authority because that's something people can go back to. I mean, we love listening I love listening to podcasts, and they're hard to go back to
to get insights out of. So when we take the and distill the podcast content into a book format, it gives another way for people to develop a relationship with the host and something they can go back to over and over again. And those are very specifically the types of books that we're creating that someone can keep in their bag, on their desk, with them all the time, and they can go back to and open and get an insight, get support
in that topic, very quickly. And so these aren't, you know, going to be what I call a doorstop book, which is, you know, they're gonna not gonna be four or 500 pages long and be the manifesto of the universe. These are books that are going to be beautiful, 30,000 words. People can get through them. They're actually gonna use them and develop that further relationship. So there's the income stream, certainly. There's the
credibility. There's the ability that opens doors for further speaking, and other, influential places to go in your industry. And it's also a way to kinda leverage if you have a guest based podcast to create further community amongst your guests and use that as part of your launch plan and as part of actually your book content. Very, very cool. So, actually, at one point you start to
say stations. And I imagine that having the word author somewhere in your title or having the word author in your email pitches when you're trying to get on to various radio shows or television shows or or make guest appearances definitely helps and definitely adds a little bit more credibility.
Right? I would say so. I mean, it's it's nice to be able to say things like, so, you know, I my my bio reads with all kinds of acronyms, CBS, CNN, you know, like, ABC, you know, all of those kinds of things. But it's also, you know, I've hosted, you know, three or four podcasts, you know, those kinds of thing, international speaker. Now I'm actually speaking as somebody who has written chapters for books, but not an entire book, which is a little bit, you know, The Shoemaker's
Children Have No Shoes. I have two books that are actually coming out later this year using the same process that we're using with our authors at Olympic Press, you know, kind of that gotta eat your own dog food, man. But at the same time, there have been many stages that have been closed to me because they're like, well, we chose this person because
they have everything you have and they have a book. And so there's a lot of it's honestly, there's a lot of kind of boxes to tick when you're when you're looking at these situations that either you can be somebody who runs a multimillion dollar company, and then maybe you don't need a book at that point, or if you are somebody who is building their ecosystem from scratch, turning your content into a book can be a really great way to kind of put you over
the edge to have, more doors open for you in what you're doing. And, again, opening income streams as well. Excellent. As a reminder, we are chatting with Tina Dietz. She is the CEO of Twin Flame Studios as well as AlembicPress.com. We all have links to both of those properties there in the show notes. Tina, I could probably talk to you all day about this stuff because it's something that is so important to many podcasters is that brand building and getting yourself out there and authority and
diversifying your assets. But we have questions I would like to ask everybody in the show, and I have a feeling I'm gonna get some pretty good answers from you there since you've been, part of the space for a while. So the first thing I'm asking everybody is, is there a a place in podcasting in particular where you would like to see some big improvements, whether it's from, you know, the production or distribution side? Or is it, you know or it could be from
the listening and discoverability side. Right? Like, what what is something about podcast? And we're like, god. I wish it would do this. Yeah. We have been talking about for more than a decade now, oh, we need the Netflix of podcasting. And it's still an elusive thing that we really haven't found where there is, the engines being more democratic and about making suggestions to people about the type of listening that they're doing, having people's titles of their podcast be more, findable,
for for newer things. It's a it it's definitely a challenge in in that realm. So I would love to see that happen, and I think we're only gonna see that happen when we bring listenership to the forefront and allow people to have more robust discussions on the listening platforms. And I think we're starting to see that on Substack. There is a little bit of functionality for that on on Spotify, but I think it really needs to be expanded so that we can gather
people further into communities. Yeah. You know, I think when people hear the Netflix of podcasting, their first assumption is I'm not paying for podcasting, but it's really it's not about that. It's just that that discoverability engine. It's that suggestion engine that, you know, here's what's popular right now. And, you know, we have that, but they're they seem to be reserved for the top tier. And like you said, it's not very democratic. It's it's it it favors the 1% and not the rest of us.
So I I I tend to agree that we could use more ways for people to find content that is related to them or related to what they're looking for, that that truthfully, it's it's hard to pick out that that needle in a haystack. It is definitely challenging, and it's, there's no way for independent podcasters to kind of pitch really larger organizations to showcase, like, I've got a I've got a great content for a show. I'm a really good
host. I have great production value. Now, you know, almost like, Shark Tank, but for for podcasting. Right? And so that you could actually maybe get picked up and have some additional exposure through a network like Wondery or, you know, one of the other big, you know so, you know, getting getting green lit or getting being able to pitch those, podcast houses is not something that I've seen that I think would be a
really interesting development for the industry. Yeah. It seems like there was a little bit of that a few years ago when it it quickly dissolved and maybe now there's more money in podcasting. We'll see it again. So my next question is always, is there something that you is there, like, tech on your wish list? Whether it's something you have that, you know, something that you want that you just haven't gotten your hands on or something that doesn't exist yet that you'd love to have
created. And I'm gonna pair this with a question I said I was gonna ask earlier. You talk about remote recording your hosts and voice talent. What are you using for that? Well, I don't talk about our tech stack because that's something that we've we've really worked on over the years and it is hard one. But, it's in terms of things that I would love to see well, first of all, I just became aware of your podcast
beacon, which I'm really excited about. And I think that's going to be a really nice way for people to be able to share their podcast as well as maybe their websites or their business a lot more easily. So, and and, genuinely, I'm I'm excited about that product. But in terms of something that I would like to see, it's actually more, you know, not really work related because in order to be freed up to do the work that we're creatively called to do,
we actually need more of the grunt work taken off of us. So, you know, I'm I'm I want that house cleaning bot, man. I want that that thing that's gonna handle my, groceries and monitor things and keep my house clean and, take in the grunt work off and fold my damn laundry. I mean, currently, that's my husband, but to be fair. But, otherwise, I think that's You're looking for Rosie the robot. Right? Yeah. As human beings, it's the grunt work that keeps us from doing the work we actually wanna do.
It's funny. I heard a quote recently that said something like, I don't want AI to be making my art so I have more time to do laundry. I want AI to do my laundry so I have more time for making art. Oh, %. So many snap. You're really looking for that Rosie the robot from the Jetsons. Right? Just someone who takes care of everything in the house for you. A hundred percent. Yeah. Love it. And, last thing, are there any podcasts that you're listening to today that are just absolute favorites?
Like, new episode comes out, you're gonna stop what you're doing, check it out, or you're just you're not gonna let an episode get by you, without listening to it. I found a show that I absolutely adore, called Money with Katie. And she is a millennial. She gets about 10,000,000 downloads an episode. I kid you not. Yeah. It's incredible. It's produced by Morning Joe. But the reason that I love her show so much is she brings all of her personality to it, and it is so
incredibly well researched and thought through. And then paired with her newsletter, it it's a great example of that ecosystem that I'm talking about developing. So if you want a master class and, like, wow, what does that look like in a full form? I would definitely check out Money with Katie. It's, and just beautiful tools, really well thought out, and a big heart behind all of
it. It's, it's it's a it's a bit of a master class. And I actually found her because I was looking up information for a comedy bid I was doing for a stand up show. So go figure. Wow. That is somebody who's working on podcast discoverability better, take notes about how this all came about for you. I what the hell? I mean, I was doing a bit on Tradwives for god's sake. You know? Well, we'll have a link to, Money with Katie as well as TwinFlameStudios.com, Alembic Press
Com. And that is because we've had the joy of chatting with Tina Dietz, the CEO of Olympic Press, Twin Flame Studios, and an all around great person. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak, I would certainly encourage it. And if you've been thinking about ways to further advance how your podcast content can work for you and help your community, definitely check out these sites and and think about turning your stuff into a book. Tina, it's so great to see you. Thank
you for joining me today. Oh, my pleasure, Matthew. It's always great to talk with you. Thanks for joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the hardware and software that help power our guest content and podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave
a rating and review while you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting Tech.