Embracing the Freedom of RV Living: Casey Roman's Quest for Authentic Happiness

Have you ever felt tethered to a job that drains your spirit, fantasizing about a life that aligns with your passions? Casey Roman did, and she's here to recount the raw journey of exiting her stable news industry career to embrace the freedom of RV living, as chronicled in her memoir "Looking Up." Our conversation with Casey peels back the curtain on the emotional roller coaster of such a major transition, emphasizing the courage it takes to chase authentic happiness. It's not just about the allure of the open road; it's about the soul-searching, the year-long "divorce" from a former life, and the quest for content accessibility, like turning her book into an audiobook for on-the-go audiences.

The social media landscape is a battlefield, where the demand for drama often eclipses the yearning for uplifting content. Casey Roman shares her firsthand experience with this harsh reality, including the unexpected challenges of content creation and the darker side of online engagement. From the online harassment to the solidarity found within a supportive digital community, our discussion uncovers the strategies for weathering the storm of negativity. Further, we delve into the unique challenges that come with being a woman traveling solo, providing insights into the strength required to face and transcend the impersonal yet impactful nature of RV life.
Writing a book is no small feat, and Casey enlightens us on the dedication it demands, from the underestimated time commitment to the struggles with publishers. She opens up about her decision to maintain the rawness of personal stories in her work, including her father's suicide, and the delicate balance of staying true to one's narrative while navigating the publishing industry. As we wrap up with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of audiobook recording and a heart-to-heart on the financial realities of authorship, Casey leaves us with a piece of invaluable advice for aspiring podcasters and influencers: Authenticity isn't just a buzzword, it's the foundation of a genuine connection with your audience and the key to building lasting relationships.

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https://a.co/d/hXdSdUz
Audible
https://www.audible.com/pd/Looking-Up-Audiobook/B0CTJ8JQPW?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You popped my cherry, so thank you Adding that to the resume?

Speaker 1: 0:06

The Lovey Mishy Bi podcast. Let's inspire each other. Today I am getting a chance to sit down with Casey Roman. She has a new book out, looking Up a memoir about life's exits. You should go check it out. Go to Amazon. To say that I was nervous would be an understatement. She put me completely at ease and it was such a great conversation and I can actually say she taught me a thing or two. So I hope you enjoy this episode of Love you Miss you Bye with Casey Roman. This episode of Love you Miss you Bye with Casey Roman. Well, nice to meet you. First of all, I know I feel like I've read a lot and heard a lot. I've been stalking you a little bit, I have to be honest, because I was looking at your TikTok, your YouTube, your website.

Speaker 2: 1:03

I wanted to know as much as I possibly could before I sat down with you. I think you actually read the book, which I appreciate, because I've done some of these where they haven't and they're like so camping Now you go.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Lori sent me something. She's a mutual friend of ours Sent me a package from Amazon, so I opened it up and it's looking up. This is what I received in the package. I never get any time to actually sit and read. I put it down, I went and I followed you on TikTok. I'm like, well, all right, I'll get to the book. I'll get to the book. And I never really got to the book. But because I followed you on TikTok, my kids are running around. You know what I mean. Because I followed you on TikTok, a post popped up on my page and it was you sitting in your closet trying to do and I'm like now I'm going to be able to listen to her in the car on the way, like nothing's going to stop me from hearing her book. Thank you for doing that, because I never have time to read.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Some of the officers who I used to work with. They were like, if you never do an audio book, I'm not reading this. There's just some people that I just you know don't enjoy the act of reading and straight up told me like, if you, if you're not willing to, we're not. So there was, there was some pressure there.

Speaker 1: 2:13

A lot of what I like to listen to has to do with the human connection. I really care about learning about people. I'm not an RV person, I'm not a nature person, so I was worried I wouldn't connect, but I did. I think where we relate mostly that you probably don't know is I'm stuck in a corporate job right now, but it's not really my passion, and so I'm pursuing my passion on my weekends and after work. And you actually were in everything that you had wanted to be in and you left it, and that's what I want to do. I so admire that you were able to do that. Can you tell me a little bit about?

Speaker 2: 2:55

how scary that was. Yeah, when I was sort of pitching that book and story around and people would say in the publishing world, they would say, well, you know, rving and camping is really like a niche thing, and I said that's not the point of the story. Rving, ultimately, was how it manifested. But I was also not an RV or camping person. I'm not really much of an outdoors person. So I wrote the book for reasons that had nothing to do with encouraging people.

Speaker 2: 3:26

I do think there's a lot of people it sounds like yourself included who very much fantasize throughout the day about just walking out, either on good terms or with both middle fingers blazing and selling all their stuff and running into the sunset and being very unencumbered from their things or their responsibilities. And while I don't try to romanticize that and I'm very honest about what happened out in the road, yeah, the crux of it is about our careers and what happens when they fall apart. And yes, the irony of my situation is I had no interest in that falling apart. It wasn't the best relationship because I didn't really enjoy the news industry. I enjoyed the job, which is usually what people don't enjoy is the actual job. But I was good to go. I mean I would have written my retirement plan on doing that work. I mean I would have written my retirement plan on doing that work and then it was just in a matter of hours it was gone. It was gone in the sense that I knew that that career would be ending. The actual ending of it was a year-long divorce and if you've been in a corporate job or any job for any amount of time, unwinding, that is not only an emotional experience, because you've got your work, family, and then you've got your schedule, and then there's just the how you go about the day, but, um, your connection to that work, and for some people they want to sever that connection as fast as they possibly can. But I, I didn't. I, that was the hardest part to let go. So another criticism I got from publishers was that I took too long to get to the on the road part. They just wanted the wind in my hair, wild woman out on the road.

Speaker 2: 5:12

But it was a year, almost a year exactly, between finding out that this was all going to hell and then actually walking out of the newsroom for the last time, because it was like we were still living together, we were still under the same roof, we still had to see each other every day. I had a lot of my financial aspects of my life were still tied to that job Company, cell phone company, car, health insurance, 401k. And it took a year. And I think people should know that, and it's part of the reason why I dove into it so much was because, if you do see yourself as transitioning out, my first bad piece of news is that the only way it's quick is if you get fired and they change the door code. The other person in that relationship, my boss at the time, came back and said let's just keep going, sort of this like makeup talk, like let's not separate. And at that point though, yeah, you know I'll change. I could still have some parts of that life, like my. I don't have to go live in a cargo van, I don't. I can go buy another house, I'm going to have a paycheck that's going to keep coming every two weeks.

Speaker 2: 6:21

And the alternative was the abyss was just on January 1st. I was unemployed. I mean, that was I say in the book. I call it the. I had this Pavlovian response because everything would have been better. And staying on the theme of a divorce. You know, it's that conversation like let's work this out, things will be different. But you know, you know, yeah, that it's not going to be different and we always get what we tolerate in this life, and so I knew that it would just be another year of the same. But boy, the security and comfort and the title. I mean that was a big thing. In Wilmington I was the news lady and so having that relevance all stay. Truth be told, when I look back at that today and I read that portion, I'm like well, that was ballsy.

Speaker 1: 7:07

It's a fantasy, because I've been a mom since I was 19. So seeing you do it, I was just like I'm counting the days. Not that I'm trying to push my son out of high school, I'm not. I mean, I adore him, don't get me wrong. But I'm very, very excited for thinking about myself for the first time, and seeing you do that was I connected to that in a really cool way.

Speaker 2: 7:33

I could relive January 1st like it was yesterday, because it was just a bleak, crappy winter day and now I had no routine and I think there's a lot to be said about having some rhythm to the day, but it was the first time in 11 years that I didn't have to rush out to be at a scene or be at an interview and I was totally in control of my day, and I think people think that that probably feels very liberating. It's actually not. It's very scary because you have to fill the day now and there was definitely that first two weeks where I slept until one and that just felt amazing. But it's not good for us. It's not, and I think a lot of people experience that in retirement. It's why they go back to work after they retire, because you lose track of the rest of the world. So I had a solid two weeks of self-loathing and sleeping and not doing much of anything and then that van was parked outside and, truth be told, the only thing that really kept me going at that point with that van because now I had embedded fear Like there was no money. Besides, whatever, I was getting off YouTube and Patreon and I think people think that creators make bank on YouTube and Patreon. And I'm here to tell you that that era came and went and I was not up there in the numbers to be making big bucks at all, but so I just had that and I was flipping tchotchkes that I bought at flea markets and the salvage spot in Wilmington and anything I could find to make a buck. And then whatever I made would go right back in the van. And if I hadn't had that YouTube channel of people who were vicariously living through me and rooting me on through the whole thing, I probably would not have gone.

Speaker 2: 9:24

And then around February 25th that was actually the day that I left, but that full week or two prior the van was finished. And so then it's like get in the van, go do your big journey, this thing that you've been telling thousands of people on the internet who are waiting for you to go do the damn thing. And I did not want to go. It was cold, I had gas heat and a washer and dryer and it's winter, and I would wake up and look at that thing and be like what the hell did I do here?

Speaker 2: 9:59

It was sunny that day and it got up into the sixties when I woke up and I thought if I don't get in that thing right now, I'm never going to get in it. So I packed eight days worth of everything and threw it in the van. I didn't tell anyone that I was going that day. There was no big hurrah video on YouTube like takeoff, like all the other van channels where they have this big send off. Like I just gotten it, you didn't. I drove across the bridge, okay, and that was it.

Speaker 1: 10:27

The fact that you you talked about it meant you were trying, I guess, to hold yourself accountable that you would do it. Was that the goal of putting it out there?

Speaker 2: 10:37

So, like I have to do it now, I have no choice. No, the I didn't my ambitions for the YouTube social media sphere. I mean, I had it going from news, but the only reason I started that YouTube channel was because I wanted to write. So I wanted I had a blog, that I was trying to figure out how blogging worked and I needed somewhere to host the videos that I was going to put on the blog. So, in an effort to become a writer, I inadvertently became a YouTuber, and that was never the intention. I strictly wanted to write and I couldn't, and it just ended up flip-flopping itself immediately and I think I only got to Georgia before. I just threw the blog out because nobody was reading it. They wanted to watch the train wreck in action, but they didn't want to read about it.

Speaker 1: 11:31

It was not a train wreck. It was so awesome. That's why people follow you. I'm learning, you know, with the YouTube and everything, that it seems like the more outrageous you are, the more people watch, and the less outrageous you are, the less people watch, which is insane to me. You know, you just want to relate to people, but they want craziness. Sometimes that's hard to give them, but you gave that to them.

Speaker 2: 11:59

I did so. When I actually started writing the book, it was years after I got back and the question had been asked like why would you take? That was such a visual story, you know, why would you put that in writing and write a book? Like? That's not your sphere. You are definitely a social media and video person and the reason is is because so many of the stories, the things that actually happened on the road that I knew, were beautiful stories. Like you know helping birth, the cow in Buffalo and the man who owned the gristmill in Indiana I would pour myself into making those videos.

Speaker 2: 12:39

I mean just the editing, and I would script it and I was. I basically was working in news again, I mean everything that I did in news. I was repeating to do these beautiful products to send out to the whole world. And I would watch the view counts and when I had this great story about a small town or somebody I met on the road, the view count was very low, but when something bad happened to me, the view count would go through the roof.

Speaker 2: 13:05

And so I learned very quickly which you've seen, is that just like in TV news, drama theatrics, bad news sells and what people claim that they want, they don't actually consume. And so I thought well, I can just let these stories die and they can just dwindle away into history on YouTube, or I can try to find a different audience for them in people who invest in actual story, which tends to be more readers, and put them on to paper. And you see why these channels get so unhinged, where people end up getting arrested or all the crazy. Because there's you. Once you build up a tolerance with that audience, it's like what's the next thing and what's the and what's the crazy next thing.

Speaker 1: 13:54

Plus, the hate you get in the comments is kind of stressful as well. I I'm learning. How do you deal with that You're? You've got like almost 30,000 followers.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Um, so I'll tell you the thing that I'm supposed to say and then I'll tell you what I actually do. I was known, I mean, I would go toe-to-toe with people in the news, like on our social media, in the newsroom. The phone was taken out of my office, like I will not back down, and so the thing you're supposed to do, that news consultants would tell us to do, is that you either ignore it, you're supposed to ignore it, you're supposed to turn the other cheek, or you just, you know, turn it around. So it's all a positive, and my attitude has always been that sometimes you have to bully, a bully we do not tolerate with children, when there are bullies with kids, but their parents will turn around and be an asshole in a second and hide behind an avatar, and so that if you come onto my lawn and say something stupid, you better be ready for combat.

Speaker 2: 15:03

I, I and cause. I feel the same way about it that I do about kids. You know we will fly in and rescue a kid that's being pushed around on the playground, but with adults it's this free for all and um, so I just, I just have a. I've always had that with my social media and so, interestingly enough, I don't deal with a lot of it. It's just sort of a known thing.

Speaker 1: 15:26

Lucky you.

Speaker 2: 15:27

Yeah, occasionally I'll get a new person in there and at this point I've cultivated a relationship with the people who do follow my pages that usually they'll go to bat before I even get in there, which is nice. I just don't?

Speaker 1: 15:40

I'm seeing a little of that too.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Yeah, I mean, you'll never find me on someone else's page being a ding dong in the comment section, and so I just don't. I think a lot of creators tolerate it because it's another, it's the algorithm, it's you know, or I'll say that to people. I had someone come from my neck the other day and I just typed in there. I had someone come from my neck the other day and I just typed in there. I said you can get as wild in this comment section as you want, because every time you type something it's helping my algorithm. And so, girlfriend, just just you have fun here and in fact, like just keep going. And then they get frustrated and go away because they don't understand that they're actually like furthering my cause, Helping.

Speaker 1: 16:26

Yeah, yeah. As long as I can get past the self-esteem issues, self-esteem issues, I'm good. It's like, okay, they don't know me, they don't know me. That's how I keep telling myself you know, but they are raising up the algorithm, so that can't be a bad thing.

Speaker 2: 16:44

You know as a woman the abyss They'll come. So a lot of the comments that I get on mine that are really hard to absorb is when people saw me in the van.

Speaker 2: 16:59

I was clinically depressed and almost suicidal and I wasn in here and and now I live in an HVAC, air conditioned house with big couches and a TV and a Netflix subscription and a fridge where I'll have not three, but maybe four, five meals a day. And so, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not walking all over America like I was so happy, yeah, like I'm actually the body weight I probably should be. But boy they will, they will go right in on that and I I'll never sit here and say like, oh, I just blow it off, like no, you, you feel that. And I have to remember that there's an ogre hiding behind a fake picture on the internet named fuzzyuzzyBunny69. Who said it. I'm sure she's not looking that fly either, exactly.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Being a woman on the road. How was that? I know that there were some scary moments that happened to you along the way. How did you deal with that just at night? That would be terrifying. I get scared in my house. Yes, I do too.

Speaker 2: 18:03

I think you're so, which is pathetic, because I live in this very safe area. I'm the president of the HOA, so I essentially have diplomatic control over a village here, and I'm the same way. I'll go through and check the windows and the doors. So the two issues that happened, like so many instances of crime or danger, were, when I least expected it, when your guard is down Again, usually when that happens by week three. It took three weeks for that van to become my new normal, and those three weeks I did not sleep that much. I think it was a blessing that I was so physically active every day that I had just completely worn myself out, but the thing, the physical manifestation that was most obvious, was that I didn't dream For almost eight months. However, I was on the road was. I didn't dream, which means I never really got into a very deep sleep, and you can't because you're hearing things constantly. I think the only time I got totally knocked out in a sleep was when I was in a friend's driveway and outside of that there's a part of your brain that is just very aware that I'm in a car and what was that noise? And so I never really got a very deep sleep and that became physically grueling after month four. Just that lack of rest. And that was not only while you're sleeping, but then when you're out and about. There's an extra sense of vigilance because I don't know where I am, I don't know where the van is, I'm hungry, I'm cold, I'm hot. And then I pursued areas where people would think I was asking for it, like Gary, indiana, the murder capital of the United States of America. To be perfectly frank with you, when you asked me what my favorite part was my time in Gary, which ironically combines One of the most dangerous situations I was in and then one of the best experiences I had was all in the same day.

Speaker 2: 20:10

As far as safety goes, I mean, I definitely carried several knives and I'm not a believer in pepper spray. Why so? I've been mugged before and it's landed me in the hospital. And when you are the victim of some kind of violent crime I would say almost 10 out of 10 times whoever is the perpetrator has already sized you up. They've been watching you, they see where your weaknesses are and then they go in for the you know whatever. And so you are. On the time you're in a scenario like that, like when I was mugged, your face is in the pavement or you've been punched or you're. You know, you've got an adrenaline response Like you can't say pardon, I need to get something out of my purse and go rifle around in your bag to get the pepper spray. Then you have to size up where the spray is, where they are, and then make sure that you don't spray both of you, because you're probably this close to one another, so how am I going to get the?

Speaker 2: 21:19

So my feeling for women and I spent 11 years in news, watching and reporting on females being victims of violent crime, among other things is that if you are going to threaten my life, I'm willing to help you meet your maker. I'm not going to make your eyeballs sting. If you try to hurt me, I'm going to one-up you on that, because I'm smaller than you, I'm not as strong as you chances are, and so I'm going to one-up you on that, because I'm smaller than you, I'm not as strong as you chances are, and so I'm going to have. If you're going to come at me with your fist, like I'm going to, I need to have something that's better than that, and if it's my life or you know 12 jurors, then so be it. So I did not carry pepper spray. I carried something that would save my life.

Speaker 2: 22:06

As much as I can talk about personal safety and the things that happened to me in the times that were very scary, there was the strict majority of the time. People were absolutely wonderful to me. My girlfriends could not believe that I was sleeping at truck stops. Truckers were phenomenal. They were wonderful to me. Nobody ever got creepy. They would. You know, I would squeeze in between like two giant 18 wheelers and try to like between them and they. They helped me with tire issues, any questions I had about the van. They never did anything creepy, knocking on my window or anything like that. I think for the strict majority of people I met on the road, when they saw that I was by myself, they did not take advantage of it. They tried to help me and that is a very American. I was very proud of our country, except for a few cases that when they saw a woman by herself, there wasn't the thought to take advantage of that situation. It was to help.

Speaker 1: 23:14

Do you miss it? Do you miss being out there?

Speaker 2: 23:18

Nope, sorry, no, I mean I think I don't feel the need to repeat that. I mean there are some days when I remember a couple unique places I went to and waking up with the sunrise or the sunsets, or I'll have a tough day in real estate. I'm like gosh. I could be driving around hill country in Texas and not bothered by anyone but my comment section. But I don't feel like I have anything to prove in that regard and I think I'm more interested in thinking like well, what's a different adventure than I could have than to go relive another one? And plus, covid has encouraged so many people into RVing that what was once a $40 a night RV park stay is now $120 a night. And so it's again like when you asked me about, when you go back to places and you see that that's changed and there's a certain sorrow in realizing that your memory is just that a memory. I think the experience out on the road would be very different now as well.

Speaker 1: 24:35

One of the things that you talk about that I had never really thought about was the way that you touched the banisters and the thought of who touched it before you, and I never thought about that before, and now I know that when I see an older place or banister, I can now envision the same thing, which I would have never thought to do before. But that is a really cool view of that.

Speaker 2: 25:03

It's, and I don't know when I started doing that, but I do do it pretty regularly. I caused quite a scene at the Biltmore Estate a year or two ago when I was having a moment with the banister, the spiral staircase and the security staff came up because they thought I was having a seizure. It's like no, just reflecting on the past Carry on, but yeah, they are. I think from restoring mine and ripping into those walls and seeing someone else's work from 110 years ago and it all gets covered up and changed over time. But that if you know much about houses and how they operated, no matter what station you were in that house, whether you were staff or the highest member of the family, everybody used that staircase and I've always thought that that was pretty special.

Speaker 1: 25:55

I mean, I like history, I like that part of it, but just the house in itself has a story.

Speaker 2: 26:01

It used to take ages to build these, even the smaller historic homes, and the time they spent finding the craftsmen and the materials. And if you remember Bolt Castle when I was there in New York, he hid in all the moldings and the woodwork and the stained glass. He hid hearts for her to find over the years. And so there's this. Just however many square feet bulk castle is this love letter and, like you know what woman doesn't want? A guy who's going to embed hearts all over her house? So perpetuity for the rest of her life, no matter where she is. She can see all these little hidden. I love yous around the house Like they. She is. She can see all these little hidden. I love you's around the house, like they. There was so much more thought put into it and you know now I sell real estate today and the most thought that goes into any house is is it granite or quartz? And it's like who cares? You know there's no, we don't build legacy today and it does kill me that that that era um is gone.

Speaker 1: 27:09

When did you decide to actually write the book it?

Speaker 2: 27:11

just bugged me that I had all those great experiences and that they were just kind of existing on YouTube, that like nothing really came out of it. And so I thought, well, maybe it wasn't. That wasn't the best place for those stories. I think my personality and my rants, and that is fine for video. But it bothered me that those stories of all those people I met and the things that I did just laid dormant on that platform. And so I was kind of bored and I thought I'll write a book.

Speaker 2: 27:46

And once again, I obviously have no conception of time because, much like I thought I'd only be in the van for three weeks, I thought that I would take me no more than two weeks to write the book because I was there, I did everything and I have all the videos and photos and notes and all that. And I was like this is going to take me no time at all and I've got all this social media and news background. I'll just get this thing over to a publisher and it'll just be a thing that I do. And it took a year to write. It was, oh my gosh, and it was grueling. It took several iterations to write Around chapter 10 was when I started to go out to publishers and try to see if I could get an agent or somebody to work with me on this book, and they did not want the first five chapters. That was very obvious very early on, so it was already a struggle.

Speaker 1: 28:40

That's my favorite part. That's where I connected.

Speaker 2: 28:43

You know and I still don't the publishing world. There's a lot of gatekeeping in the news world. It's very hard to get your foot in the door at news. I've certainly learned that. I think that's true of all creative work. It's a very cold process to go through and if you are not already famous, god help you. They said I didn't have a big enough social media following, which I thought was a little odd. Like mine's not huge, but it's larger than most.

Speaker 2: 29:11

I hadn't published books before and so it became clear that if I wasn't 100% proven product, that nobody was going to get on board and they did not want those first five chapters. When you submit a book for an agent, they usually ask for like the first 50 pages or first two chapters or whatever, and I just it was no after no, after no. So I did, for a period of time, take out those that beginning part, and I went straight to the buying the van and all that other stuff, just because it was like well, do you want to get published or not, casey, you want to see it on a bookshelf or not? And then around that time was when my father committed suicide, and that was when I added I was like oh no, we're going to, I'm adding the first five back, I'm sorry. And so at that I added everything back and I just decided if nobody wants to publish it, that's fine. But I don't think I'm the only person who's had suicide have such a big impact in their life, and so I'm going to keep it. And if it keeps it from getting published, it keeps it from getting published. I'll turn around to these people on YouTube and sell it right to them. So I put it back and then it was a year to finish it and then another year of editing and reviewing and I mean it's a I.

Speaker 2: 30:31

When I go to a bookstore now I I used to be the person that I'll take it off the book and I'll like read the first chapter or two to see if I'm, you know, going to invest in this thing, and I like won't even touch them. I won't even touch it if I know I'm going to buy it because I know what it took to get that thing to market. But I'm also curious to know all those big name publishers. In order to get with them, you have to hand over. You can't choose the title of the book, you can't choose the cover art. They have full editorial control over the story. So you lose all your control if you get in the big five. Yeah, you, you hand it over. And then, like they, they take it from there.

Speaker 2: 31:13

And so now I'm curious, like I wish there was a bookstore of the original manuscripts, like I want to see what the author originally wrote for all the books that are so popular. Like, where's the? Where's the black market of untouched manuscripts? Um, but so yeah, it was 2020. Gosh, it didn't come out until 2023.

Speaker 1: 31:36

So, yeah, it took a long time and you had to fight for it. You didn't settle. That's another part of you being a badass. No, and it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 31:45

It had several edits. There's a developmental edit, there's all that, and there's still some mistakes in the book that people have caught. In no way does it compromise the story, but there's just some stuff in there, and so the truth is that everything is digital now and so it would be no time for me to go back into the digital manuscript and change things and fix it. But I have deliberately left the errors in there because to me, like that, those errors are a part of how that book came to be. Like it is not perfect and I say right at the beginning, it's going to lack some polish, and so I've and I some people think that's so crazy and I'm like, no, you know, it didn't, it didn't get run through a corporate machine. It had it, had people look at it and we made changes, and now I'm, those errors are part of the story and I'm going to leave them. I'm not touching a damn thing.

Speaker 1: 32:51

It's on brand with who you are, so that's why it has to be in there, just like the beginning of the book. That's who you are, so I love that you stood true to yourself and that's a lesson that we can all learn, because I don't know that I would have connected with it as much as I did if you didn't leave it in there. That's the part I identified the human in the book. I mean there's a lot of human, you're talking about a lot of people, but you're human, you. We needed that piece to get to know who you are.

Speaker 2: 33:22

So I'm glad you left it in. That was really cool.

Speaker 1: 33:27

Now you have to figure out how to do the audible, which I have. You have to tell the story, because I just love it.

Speaker 2: 33:36

The. I can't express enough how exhausted I was when the book was finished. Every time you get your book back you have to read the whole blessed thing again. And I got to a point where I was like I don't want to hear about this chick anymore. Like I am so sick of reading my book that I don't want to. I don't want to hear about this chick anymore. Like I am so sick of reading my book that I don't want to. I don't want to, like I don't even care, just send it.

Speaker 2: 34:00

But there was. And then, like, even when the manuscript is done, then you have to have it formatted. And then there, that cover of the book you held up. There were a thousand individual decisions on just what that cover would look like, the height of that font, the where it's positioned on the page. I mean, everything is a decision and I was so sick of it that I just wanted it done. And so we get that book done. And then it becomes clear because people were asking for it, particularly people on my YouTube page, because, as I'm told which maybe I don't have enough awareness of that I just say things in a certain way that only I can say them from how I inflect or what hacks, so they there were people that said I'm not, I'm not buying it until there's an audio book, because they had been invested in the visual and auditory experience of my story and they wanted that same experience.

Speaker 2: 34:59

So I thought I can't even imagine having to read this thing again, like that was torture. So I went out into the wild and I looked for and I looked cause you can hire people to do this and I got a flat no on that. They were like no, you you have to track the book. And I got a flat no on that. They were like no, you you have to track the book. And I did interview a couple of people and I gave them some of my quirky phrases I kind of have my own language and so I gave them some of the parts that you know I would say in my own special way, and they would send me back their samples and I was like no, no, that's not actually how you say that phrase or whatever swear word I had in there. That's not how I would do it.

Speaker 2: 35:40

And then I looked for a studio, because in news, when you track for a story, you have to have a completely soundproof room. You have all this fancy audio equipment and the computer. And I got a quote and it was $6,000. Just keep in mind, just getting the book to print was like $15,000. Add onto that another six grand. I'm definitely not going to do that. I found a guy who used to work in movies and he told me what kind of microphone to buy. And then you have to set up a place where you're going to be essentially as close to soundproof as possible, and the best way to do that is to put all that soundproofing in.

Speaker 2: 36:22

But I didn't want to remodel my home. So I went in the closet and you're trying to keep sound from bouncing off. You can probably hear it in this room. You're trying to keep sound from bouncing around. So I went into the closet because I could sit underneath my clothes hanging above me, so that would prevent the bounce off the ceiling. And then I took a bunch of old curtains and pillows and it looked like a fort. It looked like the fort that you build when your sixth grade friend comes over and you're hiding in the living room from your parents. And I went in every day with my laptop and this computer and I would say I had to do one hour, one hour of tracking and that doesn't sound like it would be that hard to talk for an hour, but you get physically tired because you have to hold your chest up and you have to hold your neck up and you have to enunciate and I wrote the damn thing.

Speaker 2: 37:16

But I tripped all over my words again and again and again and again, and some of the things I wrote in the book, like places I didn't actually know how to pronounce correctly. I mean, there's a couple of points where, like, like itches springs I called it itchy, but springs and I thought, god, people are going to hear this and they're going to think I like their town. And the last little quirk about that that I'll add is that I did hire someone to edit it. There was no way that I could possibly read it again and then go back and listen to the whole thing again. No, so I found a guy to edit it, but you have to communicate with your editor in the audio and so the way you do that is every time you make a mistake you have to clap and that creates an arc in the audio so that they just look for the arcs and then they splice, splice and splice, and it's a way to make editing a lot faster.

Speaker 2: 38:07

There would be nights I'd come back from work and I'm so tired and I'm so hungry and I smell like a sock and I would just make tea and hatefully go sit in my fort and just like I'd get through three words and have to clap and like three more and have to clap, and then I'm just like having this manic moment on that and I would talk to the editor on my audio and he never, ever told me. But I thought this man is going to think that a psychopath tracked this audio. He did such a good job, though I don't think people realize when you write a review for a book online or when you send an author an email about how much you liked it, you make as an author like 25 cents a book. Nobody, except the famous people, are getting rich off a book. I will likely never make that. Yeah, it's pennies. You make very, very little Because the printing cost is the bulk of the book and then shipping and all that other stuff, and then there's all kinds of fees that come out. So you make pennies and I knew that I didn't write it because I thought it would make me a lot of money If I wanted to make a lot of money, I would just join OnlyFans or something like that, so it wasn't the pursuit.

Speaker 2: 39:24

But when you do read a book and if you do take the time to write that review or sometimes people send me emails and like that that will repay your soul in full for the work that you did, because then you know that somebody actually cared. When you do a YouTube video or even a podcast, the feedback is immediate. I post a video and I can go right to the comment section and I can read that feedback. Tiktok, instagram, facebook it is this fast loop. But with a book, you put your whole life story out onto hundreds of pages and it ships to somewhere you don't know because you don't control the shipping and you have no idea what someone else's experience is on the other side. So it is really meaningful when people take the time to do that.

Speaker 1: 40:17

And I will say I did go to Amazon because I was stalking you, like I said, and I read the reviews for the book and they are phenomenal. They love the book, they really love the book. I'm gonna have the link to the Amazon so they can go get your book in my story notes on my podcast, but they can also just head over to Amazon, because I don't make any money, you don't have to use my link. You can head right over to Amazon and get her book yourself, but definitely leave a review because, as you can see, she wants to hear the feedback, so maybe she'll do another book. Is that on the horizon?

Speaker 2: 40:49

I would love to do another one, because now I've learned so much that I feel like I could do it better, like I feel like I could have saved myself a whole lot of of hassle, but, um, I don't have any ideas just yet. I mean, I have spent the past three days trying to lure a possum in my backyard into my house, and, and you know, I think some of that stuff people find very funny, but this is just a normal, this is just what happens, so we'll see. I'm not quite sure, though. So you have a friend, so you're not alone. He doesn't. I don't know that the friendship is reciprocated.

Speaker 2: 41:24

The van held was not the magic. There was nothing special about the van. That experience could have happened many different ways. It was just, ultimately, the one that I chose, and so I do get a lot of emails and messages from people telling me that they're going to sell all their stuff and head out on the road and they're going to live in an RV, and I usually go through an exercise with them of like is that because you want to live my experience or because that's actually what you're interested in, that you're actually going to enjoy living without a sense of community around you and you're going to be untethered, because it's fun to be untethered. It absolutely is, and there's a lot that you'll learn about yourself in that. But it doesn't come without some costs.

Speaker 1: 42:16

So I have to ask you this question. You're probably going to think it's weird, but that's all right If you could give me any piece of advice for my pursuits in podcasting and the social media aspect. What would you say to me?

Speaker 2: 42:31

So from a news, I'll answer this partially from a news perspective, and this is actually something I'm going through right now with a project I'm working on. If you're a natural born storyteller and if that is just something that you're good at, you know when you have a good story, in the same way that someone who's in construction can look at a piece of land and see that that's where the house has to go. I can't, but I know when I have a good story and I know when there's a story that's worth telling, and it was where a lot of the conflict I had with my newsroom is that I would not if I knew that that was the next documentary, I'm going to keep going for it, and so I think the thing that I see a lot of people do on social media is find successful niches and placate to those audiences, because they do have a wide base. But if it's not the story that you're interested in telling, you're probably not going to be that good at it. You can't put me at a political TV news assignment. I will offend at least half of the room. I mean I can't be in that. Now you put me at a heroin bust or a prostitution bust and I'm like come alive. That's where I should be, and because I'm not a good storyteller in all aspects. So I think that if, rather than trying to, when people try to find something that they think that well, the masses will love, like what is the actual story that you're interested in telling?

Speaker 2: 44:07

And the thing that kills me most about social media is really aiming to be as brutally authentic, with as much audacity as possible. That some people have it but a lot of people don't. I mean, as much of a jerk as I can be in real life is how I come across on social media. I swear, in real life I do it on social media, my YouTube channel. Sometimes I look really pretty and my Disney princess hair is all out, but sometimes I look like I just crawled out from under a bridge and I do it intentionally because that's how I am in real life.

Speaker 2: 44:45

I think because social media and podcasting has become monetized. It's become very much a business and an industry and there's nothing wrong with aiming for that, but finding your space in that, that is truly who you are. I'll tell you that your audience will marry you forever. I left my van and RV and the natural thing that should have happened is that my viewership would disappear, because now I'm just a real estate agent and they're still there years later watching the train wreck, because I've always stuck to just trying to tell them a story or entertaining them.

Speaker 2: 45:27

I find it really refreshing and I gravitate towards people on podcasts and platforms where I know there, like I know there'd be nothing different if I met them in person, like that too, and that's so hard to find because most of it I was listening to a podcast last night where I was like slamming my head against the wall because it was just, it was so self-help podcast. Well, it was just so everything was what you would think it would be, and um, and you just don't get that raw honesty anymore out of people, and so that's what I would say is because I would be excited to find that person.

Speaker 1: 46:05

Yeah, I think for me it's. It's about walking through your fear, because sometimes the skeletons in your closet will connect you to people, but it's scary to put it all out there. And and I think that's where I struggle a little bit sometimes is I want to be as authentic as possible, but I still have to wake up in the morning and know that I just put that story out there. You know, the more I do that, I think, the more people enjoy it. So I'm, I'm trying to do that. So, basically, authenticity is what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 46:36

Yeah, and I don't know that.

Speaker 2: 46:37

I think we're always so afraid that people aren't going to respect us or take us seriously. I've not really had that. I mean, maybe I have, but I've not really had that experience. And even in news, um, you know, I have. I have a photo that I put up um on YouTube and social media when I was epoxying the the countertops and I was, I was making fun of ditzy YouTubers because most of the category that I was in was like bikinis and you know, showing cleavage to get views and all that. And so I put on, I put on a bra over my hoodie and I named it my thinking bra and I shot this whole video in my thinking bra while poxying the countertops.

Speaker 2: 47:25

And it came up recently in a professional capacity and and like nobody cared, like they thought it was funny, and I think that people trust you more. Well, I think people trust you more when they know that what they see is what they get. And I was very it was very important to me in news. I remember working in news and people would see me out in public and they would ask like, oh well, what's you know? So-and-so like in real life, like an anchor, is she actually really friendly in person. And I always committed from those experiences in news that no one would ever say that about me, that they would say, no, she's as batshit crazy in real life as you saw her in that video. And so that there wouldn't be this duplicity to my life where I felt like I had.

Speaker 2: 48:14

And celebrities are like that. You know, you hear about how they're awful people behind the scenes and and I just I I think that when you have that relationship with your audience, they know that when you tell them a story, it's going to be true and they know that what you're saying or advising them is also going to be true. And and they will, they will stick with you. My clients are like that, my real estate clients. I have no problem telling a seller when I think he's being a butthole and I've been in meetings where someone in the office has been like I'm like, no, he's and he knows and I'm going to get him across the finish line. But yes, in fact he is being a butthole. I say that to you also, knowing that you're not.

Speaker 2: 48:58

It's not like you're off that mark, but I do understand the pressure that you feel like I have this thing. I want it to grow. You know why is it that this ding dong, whose content isn't interesting, like what's he got that I don't. And there is a lot of um pressure to, to, to aim to the middle, to just get yourself off the ground and then, once I can do that, I can kind of take over the world.

Speaker 2: 49:26

But I think as true as social media as it is in business, is that the riches are in the niches.

Speaker 2: 49:32

I've been through two times with YouTube where my platform has been demonetized and the money has been taken away for reasons that were never made clear, and all the social media platforms have highly subjective control over content, and we saw that happen with COVID and we saw that happen in certain political issues.

Speaker 2: 49:56

I would never advise anyone to build their kingdom on land that they don't own, and so I think that it's good to have it a part of your overall empire. But if my entire income was controlled by a company that I don't own and that I don't have a say over how they conduct business I mean, think of how many people are making, yeah, a killing on TikTok, and now it's possibly not going to be there I would aim to have that big of an audience because it empowers everything else that I'm doing, not because I want my paychecks to come from somewhere where I have no control. And in this day and age, if you say one thing wrong, you can be booted out of everything. And now you have nothing because you never owned anything to begin with.

Speaker 1: 50:46

Thank you for going through my awkwardness at times, because I definitely felt it for a little bit. You popped my cherry, so thank you.

Speaker 2: 50:57

Adding that to the resume. But I give you a lot of credit because podcasting is a very saturated corner of the social media world to be in and you are heavily reliant on the dialogue. There's no flashbang from video. There's not a lot of that visual stimulation that, if you maybe are not a great storyteller, you've got great editing skills. It is strictly your ability to tell a story and so if you can do that, the cream rises to the top. But it's a tough corner to be in.

Speaker 1: 51:30

It is. One thing I can say is I actually fell in love with editing Good. I think that's almost my favorite part of everything is to sit there and create a story. There may be something in that aspect of it. I haven't quite figured out yet. But yeah, you can, you can. The magic is in the editing. A hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 51:49

Same thing with videos, and I feel the same way about I'm not happiest when I'm out shooting video, but when I get back, you know, I remember like late nights in the van and like I, you know, light a candle and then you, just you put this mosaic together on a timeline and I felt that way about all my documentaries. I would look at that. I mean it was just this quilt of thousands of individual decisions that had been made and that ends up being this final product, and then you're excited to upload it and, like I made this for you, enjoy it. Keep in mind that I had that YouTube channel for years and then one day I hit a topic that a lot of people wanted to hear and then after that, the rest of it got really easy.

Speaker 2: 52:36

So it wasn't I didn't like start it that one day. I mean, I had been putting up all my news stories and that wasn't doing anything and it frustrated me because I was winning awards for those news stories. Like shouldn't they be doing good on YouTube? But I found a topic that people were interested in and the rest of it was history. Yeah, you can also check out the that people were interested in and the rest of it was history.

Speaker 1: 52:55

Yeah, you can also check out the pictures in color on her website at CaseyRomancom. We'll do girl talk anytime. Thank you, Casey. Love you, miss you bye. L-u-m-u-b podcast Love you, Miss you, Bye has been brought to you by Christy Chanel LLC, but if you're looking for more information or want to follow us on social media, go check out christyschanelcom. All the podcasts are streamed there and the YouTube episodes are there, so why not? You can also listen where all podcasts are streamed. This includes Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And lastly, thank you to you. You, yeah, you, the one that's listening or watching. I appreciate you so much. Love you, Misha Bye.