A Conversation With FanBolt's Emma Loggins

we're friends with the same people circles. We've never really interacted directly that much until now, and I'm questioning why, because Emma, you run an amazing blog that's science fiction fantasy fan base fan Bolt. I want you to tell me. I have so many questions for you about about running a blog. I mean, blogs are something that we're all familiar with. We know what they are, we know how

long they've been around. But they're so many challenges to creating a good one, more challenges to finding your audience, being able to nurture that audience grow a community. So to start off, why don't you first tell us, kind of in your words, what fan bolt is all about? Okay, Um, Well, fan Bolt is a kind of block of the line between blog and news site because it is it's a site by the fans for the fans. So all the

content is very editorial in nature. UM focuses mainly on genre programming in genre film, so a lot of sci fi or UM type properties that we review. We have a little bit of gaming on there as well, and a little bit of just kind of general geek culture. We're getting ready to do this whole like big geek travel thing, so when you go to other countries and you want to see UM sets that were used in Lord of the Rings or UM, you know, Game of Thrones, like where you would go, so kind of like a

geek travel guide. UM. So it's all about geek culture and UM the fan community behind that, and we've had a number is on the site that have been there since we launched in two thousand and two and we still you know, they still posted the site and we still talk, you know, almost daily. So the fan community aspect of that has been really the driving force behind it. That's amazing. So first of all, I've got a tip

for you. Okay, So on the island of Malta, they still have the village from the film Popeye that Robin Williams started asked Popeye, they filmed it there. It is still there. Yeah, so I know it's still as genre some of the other movies, but if you want to see Sweet Haven, it exists on Malta. So uh, I want to ask you about what inspired you to get involved in this in the first place. What led to the development of fan bolt Well, I was a total outcast nerd in Meddle school and um, granted it didn't

start fan Bolts until I was a senior in high school. Um, but that kind of got me involved in really just like so much gey culture. And then once you know, we had the Internet and we hadn't in our house and I had I had, you know, it wasn't dealing

with dial up and getting knocked off line every four seconds. Um. I started playing around with designing websites in the late nineties and then I was just I was super I was super passionate about the shows that I was watching, and I didn't really feel like there was a good place online to really come together. And you know, because as pre social media, so where do you go to talk about the shows that you love and the theories that you have and you know, um, what you think

is gonna happen? Spoilers photos from set like all that kind of fun insider stuff. UM, but I was also living in Georgia didn't know how to get any of that myself anyways. UM, But I started the site and started the fan community, and uh, you know, we would have people that would just like flood onto the side after an episode would air, and we even would have people coming in from productions that would kind of stay

anonymous and like give us little tips. UM. So we had a lot of really cool insider stuff on there in the beginning to UM, which really fostered the community and my whole I guess, my whole kind of strategy with it initially was it was a message board community, and then I built these other kind of satellite sites around it for the different TV shows which had a strong fan base. That way, when one show ended, I didn't just totally lose that entire fan base that I

had spent four years building. UM. So that worked out really well from an SEO component to being able to UM. There was a number of shows that we actually ranked above the official site for and so we would get you know, eight thousand people on after an episode and back in you know, two thousand to two thousand three. That's a pretty big. I thought it was a big deal. I don't know if those numbers would be that big of a deal now by any stretch, but it was

something really cool. I had no idea what I was doing, and it just opened up so many doors and so many opportunities. And I guess the real kind of big breakthrough of it. Um Josh Schwartz, the Crater of the o C found my site in two thousand and five and um and of course O C, which aired on Fox, was produced by Warner Brothers, and he told Warner Brothers he wanted me to run their official site for the series,

and so I did that. I was their blogger with them for three years until the series ended, and I really just tried to make the most out of every contacts and connection that I got through that. And then I realized, oh, I can, like I can actually do this. You know, this is not just a hobby, Like I can,

I can make a business out of us. Now you mentioned that you were able to turn this into a business, which is really interesting as phenomenal, So congratulations on that, because you know, I mean, the blog of sphere is huge. A lot of people run blogs as a hobby. They do it as a passion project. So tell me about the steps you took moving something that was already obviously something you really cared about, but something that you could actually make into a business, a legitimate way to earn

a living. It took a long time. Um. When people always asked me about how how I've made money off of the site and how I've kind of structured things, I always tell people like, if you're not really passionate about something, then don't do it, because it's gonna take a long time before you make money off of it, and it's gonna feel like work, and you may end up hating something that you know, in the beginning you loved. So you have to be really really passionate about it.

And making money I don't think can be something that you even consider in the beginning. Um, it needs to just be a labor of love and a passion project.

And then when when all the kind of little pieces start to fall into place, you start seeing that you're building traction um and and you know you have great content and you're you're getting great traffic, and then start off with the baby steps and monetizing with like Google AdSense, and then working your way up from there to work with larger advertisers and larger sponsorships, and really it's just, um, it's like one day at a time, one day at

a time. It's pretty cool. You know. It's a very similar story for podcasting, right again, people asking me all the time about how do I make a podcast and use that to make a living? And I said, you've gotta understand, and it's a very small field of people who are actually making enough money to make a living from podcasting. And it's exactly what you're saying. You've got to be very passionate about the subject. So if you want a podcast, ask yourself why do you want to podcast?

Do you want to do it because you have something to say about a specific subject, or do you want to do it because you think it's just a cool way to make a living. If it's the second, it's probably not anywhere. So over the years, you've covered tons of stuff. I want to hear some of your favorite stories about just experiences you've had, either with the fan community or on the creative side, like with some of the I know you've gone and talked with some great directors, actors,

all sorts of people writers in that sphere. Tell me about some of the experiences you've had, kind of given an idea of of the highlights that you consider an history. Um. So, my first in person interview I ever did was actually, Um, I flew down to Miami and I think this was like the second season of Burn Notice, and I was a huge Bruce Campbell fan, huge huge Bruce Campbell fan, and but I had never I didn't know anyone that knew him or had ever interviewed him, or I had

no idea what he was going to be like. And um, we were sitting it was me and I think four other press people. We were sitting at this table on set, and he comes in pouring his Tommy Bahama shirt and like riding on this bicycle around our table and just had like a little horn on it and was just like hawking it and like just staring us down. I was like, oh God, this is gonna be awkward. Sames awkward. Um, But it was really great experience, and he was a

He was such a great guy. So was my initial kind of experience that I had that I still kind of nerved out over because I love him. Um. But you know another one that is one of my Absolute Favorites actually happened here in Austin last June. I was out here for a t X Festival Austin Television Experience and they had the cast of Girl Meets World out here, which I don't really watch that show, but I grew up on Boy Meets World, and I so I was.

I was completely geeking out over the idea of meeting Corey Savage and our excuse me, Ben Savage, who played Corey Matthews and his brother Fred was out here too and for his show Um Grinder on Box but of course I grew up in Wonder Years too. UM, so I got the opportunity to interview Um Michael Jacobs, the series creator for for Boy Mee's World and Girl Meets World, along with Ben Savage, and I got to spend like

thirty minutes with them. And then from there, Um we had gone back downstairs to the bar at the Hotel Um from our press room and he introduces me to his brother Fred as his friend Emma, and I was just like, this is like the most surreal moment of my life. And Savage just introduced me as his friend to Fred Savage like it was just such a great a great moment, and then Fred was like commenting on

my Instagram and I'm like, what world am I in? Like, I don't then I don't even know the director of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, not to mention Wonder Years and everything else. Yeah, that's fantastic. It was. It was

just such a great experience. And there's been so many, um with the different conventions I've worked with, and the different kind of you know, after parties and even the events that aren't necessarily press related, but getting to actually know these people that you know, you watch on the screen and you get to you know, just love love their talents and love the characters that they betrayed, but then also getting to know them as people and not

you know, as the personality, not just personalities. Yeah, that has just been you know, I haven't had a single bad experience, which i I'm still I'm so grateful for, but in that kind of shocks me to you that I haven't, But um, everyone has been so great and there's just been just countless really awesome experiences. That's fantastic too. So let me ask you a little bit more about just sort of the the sort of stuff you do for fan bold the kind of day to date activities. Uh,

do you have a stuff? I don't. It is me, UM, I do have. It's just me. I don't want to say it's just me. But it is a little bit overwhelming some days one like a lot of news breaks, or like last week I got like I don't know, it's like seven emails from HBO all the stuff that needed to go up in addition to everything else, and it can be overwhelming, But like I do truly I

love what I do, so it doesn't feel like work. UM. I do have a couple contributing writers that um um our friends and for still she does um er recaps for me and we'll do normally does conventions with me and we'll kind of tag team press rooms and newing interviews and things like that. UM and then a couple of other people that will just submit news, Like anyone can go onto famble and submit a news article and if it's appropriate, um I will edit it and then post it up on the site. So it's it is

a by the fans for the fans community. Anyone can submit news UM, but on the staff's it it's just me. So you actually do have an editorial voice. You haven't. Yes, you have editorial standards. It's exactly. It's not a free for all, exactly exactly a lot of people. When we first put up that submit news um feature, it was just like press release, press release, press release, and it's like, now,

you know. The thing about Fambles and what makes it unique in my opinion, is that it is by the fans, for the fans, and it's the point is that the person writing it is passionate about what they're covering UM. So it's not going to be an unbiased news type article. It's going to be heavily biased based upon what a fan actually thought of of that material. All right, Well, what's the backbone of the site, if you don't mind

word press? It was I will tell you. When I first started the site, i coded all of it to work with UM. All of it was in PHP and it was coded to work with the peoples and message board system, which I've since moved on from UM. But that process of it from a custom like PHP coded application and moving fourteen thousand news articles into word crafts was one of the most stressful things I've ever done in my life. Anytime where you're having to migrate a

system over from one thing to another. It's a huge endeavor, especially when you've built up a long history of material. So, uh, well, that's great. I had to ask because I just was curious how how you could stay on top of things. Obviously, when you're using something that has its own kind of structure that you can play around with. Work is WordPress is pretty robust. It is. It's a little bit of

a learning curve. It can be. Yeah, it's um, but it's it saves you so much time in terms of building a site and wanting to add special features and and keep things current and up to date in terms of you know, versions that are released and all of that. It it saves me. It's even though I know how to do it, I could code all of that mysel off if I wanted to. It saves me so much more time to be able to focus on the actual content of the site and not just you know, all

of the the back end of the site. Now, you also mentioned that you started this before social media was really a thing. Now social media is a thing in what you do as well. Yeah, I mean it's kind of a love hate relationship honestly, because yeah, it's it's

um it definitely. Message boards are a different place now than they were um back before social media, and ours were actually getting ready to relaunch ours because we switched everything over, like I said, from people it's and gotten away from that and then we're going in this new direction.

So that's coming very soon UM on the site. But everyone took a lot of those conversations to social media, so it's kind of an interesting learning curve of like, all right, well, how do we get these conversations back on the site and how do we you know, continue to have that kind of engagement on the site, and which is still something I'm I'm trying to figure out. And we we figured it out with certain fan bases really well. And that's just because you know, Walking Dead,

Game of Thrones are kind of sweet spots. UM. Even some of like them, like the teenage girly shows on CW we have they have they have one of the loudest voices scariest voices in fandom too. UM. So it's usually when you say something that either people really agree with our people find highly controversial, UM, then you'll get a you just you have to to take a stand and say something that someone feels passionate about, and that's really how you create that conversation UM post social media.

But social media has been great too in terms of bringing new people into the site. Um. You know, we've done a lot of sponsorships and promotions around UM sponsored tweets and sponsored Instagrams and all that sort of thing too. Um So, I definitely see it as a huge part that's that's been beneficial to the site. My own personal experience, because of course social media is a part of my job as well. Is that social media is a great way to reach out to people. It's a great way

to find out what they're thinking. But it's also a great way to dedicate way more time to managing social media than to doing everything else that you need to do. It's a time suck, really. Uh So, it is interesting that you say that. I do think that sites like yours have incredible value because if you look at something like social media, you're generally talking about the same group of people contributing to this conversation. You're not getting any

ideas outside of that group. It's patively small, right since your Facebook friends or it's your Twitter followers. Maybe someone just did a search for a hashtag that you contributed to and they they might join in. But Twitter is already limited because you have so little space. Facebook, you're limited to the people who are your friends generally speaking, unless unless you're someone notable who has a lot of

public followers. So sites like yours allow people who have no interaction outside of their own circle of friends to meet up with each other and share a love for

something quite literally. Actually I had to my members get married. Yeah, it's two thousand and seven, So that was really cool that they met on the site and then started like long distance dating and then like three years later they got married and um, so yeah, it is a place where you can come and for for all of the kind of message boards fan communities like that, you do get exposed to, you know, other people than you would on your your own social network. So that's that's definitely

a really great opportunity to meet fans. And then if you end up meeting up at conventions and kind of having your your group of con friends when you go to the different conventions. Um, that's not something that I think is that easy to find, um just through your Facebook and Twitter and media outside of the con circuit. Like for a long time, local science fiction conventions were really the only way that you would meet up with other fans that you did not necessarily personally know beforehand

and get a chance to talk to them. Internet suddenly allows that to happen over on a global scale, so you can have the equivalent of a fan panel about a particular TV series or film series all the time, anytime, everywhere. Because of that, and uh, it's one of the things I've liked. I've been part of various fan communities over the years. Uh, for those who want to know, way back in the day, I used to contribute regularly to a message board called Lebronze, which was a Buffy the

Vampire Slayer fan song. Yeah, so these are these communities, These online communities are something that's really fascinating to me because it does allow for people who otherwise would never have any connection to one another to forge those connections that can be really meaningful in the case that you've a lifelong connection exactly. So that's really exciting stuff as well. Well. What are you looking forward to in the future? Is there anything besides I mean you're talking about the site

is evolving and growing. Is there anything uh, specifically that's got you really excited or maybe even just really scared. Two things actually, so Fampled is launching a podcast in partnership with Atlanta Movie Tours Fantastic. I'll be glad to be a guest anytime you will totally have you as I guess, so we'll totally have you on UM. So we're still trying to we're trying to be very thorough with all of all of our tone in our our our kind of structure of the of the show before

we launch it. UM. So we're still kind of in the beginning planning stages. We've done a couple of like test episodes, and so I hope that that will be something you know, um within the next month or two that will push out. But UM, it's going to be called The Atlas Wonderful because a little a t l

that lovely the hometown exactly exactly. And while we're not going to focus just on Atlanta entertainment, UM, that definitely will be UM a part of the show and every eating that's filming in the city and and going on in the city. UM. But the other thing that I've been having a total blast with, UM we've partnered with

Joystick game bar third Thursday of every month for Project Cosplay. Um, and so St Patty's Day, we're going to have our third one and that one will be UM d C Comics and we're I think we're gonna do like a little spring Break style, So it's gonna be like Batman versus Superman spring Break style. Um. Yeah. So Joystick, for those who aren't in Atlanta, is a bar arcade. Yes, so it's an adult arcade because it's it's a bar. But yeah, one of those one of those really cool,

very Atlanta kind of feel location. So it's great that you've got that partnership going. It's been great. And um, the two guys that run it, Johnny and Brandon um run the bar. Um, They're they're amazing and they've been so instrumental in getting all of this together with Project Cosplay. We have a great group of people that do it. R NC Candice amazing. Um. I always kind of describe it as a fun hot mess because it is a little bit of like a hot mess, but it's so

much fun. Um, so much fun. They contestants have We have three contestants a month. You have roughly twenty minutes to put together a costume with you know, we we provide all the materials, duct tape depends, um some and we usually throw in a couple of curveballs. UM. But it's just been so much fun and we've gotten such an incredible response to it for us to only be

on our third month. UM. So the winner gets a golden Joystick and that's the that's the big prize and bragging rights obviously, but it's just been I'm so excited about it. And that's I think seeing just the growth of that over the last couple of months and just how much of a community that's being built around that.

Like everyone stays and hangs out after we finished the show, which only runs for about an hour from nine to ten UM, but everyone stays and hangs out, and it's we're kind of fostering a little community with with those people now and it's so many great people. And that's what I love about doing doing all this is it's just the people. The people are so great and the friendships are incredible. Yeah, and you mentioned something else that's

really interesting. People again not in Atlanta probably aren't as aware of this, but the city over the last five years has really become a hotbed for film and television production, um Walking Dead being an obvious example, but there are other ones, sleepy hollow films in the area. Now we've got movies that are always being shot. We've got Pinewood Studios south of the city that was the sister Pinewood

Studios to the one that's in London. So since you've launched, you've seen the city that you work in turning turn into a major film and television hub. So you really lucked out. I really did. Like I always people people always ask me like, when are you going to l A?

Aren't you gonna go to l A? And I'm like, well, in l A, I'd be a very small fish and very pond But with everything going on in Atlanta and really the lack of of media there, you know, we don't have the the entertainment Tonight's or the a On Mines or you know, all of those kind of big entertainment giants in Atlanta. So I get to do so much and and go to so many sets and do so many interviews, and um, I'm not planning on leaving, like I don't. Firstly, don't exactly exactly. There's so much

and especially in the genre space we just have. I mean, like you said, with Walking Dead and Sleepy Hollow. Um, Netflix is Stranger Things, which I'm really stoked about comes out in June. Um. I'm really looking forward to that one. Um. But there's just so many ones that are in that kind of sci fi or genre and that's like, that's what I love. So being able to see the shows that I actually love to watch on TV being filmed around the city. It's just so cool. That's great. So

let everyone know where they can find your site. It's fanbled dot com. That's at a n B o lt dot com and you can find us on all the social media's at fan bolts and me personally Emma Loggins. Uh like Kenny Loggins. Yeah, g I enough that much like Kney Long not that not that much like any lot, but but yeah, Emma Loggins on all on all social media,

and UM, I constantly post. You know, we post articles usually five days a week, Monday through Friday, but if we're at conventions and stuff like that, we'll do some special stuff on Saturday and say too. But there's always something new on the side. Great. Well, I encourage my listeners to go and check that out. And guys, if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, you gotta let me know about them, because otherwise I'm

just kinda wandering around with my eyes closed. So here's how you do that. You send me an email. The address is tech stuff at hell stuff works dot com, or you can drop me a line on Twitter or Facebook where tech stuff hs w at those and I will talk to you again and really you soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com, wh