Books4Guys - S.A. "Stephen" Schneider

S.A. Schneider has a wolf, so of course he writes middle grade fantasy,
wouldn’t you? Since his Lego and action figure days, he’s crafted worlds
and stories within those worlds. This pursuit continues to his books
today. Now he shows kids, and their parents, the joy of writing as a
lifelong pursuit and how to turn it into a career. Not just books, but
video game stories! He wants others to join him in fantastical worlds and possibly even delve into creating their own. 

sa-schneider.com/books/embracing-the-magic/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Yesterday, but no, we haven't we haven't seen snow in a couple months.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

So Months? We've lit almost I mean, we I I love snow. I'm a December baby. I have always enjoyed winter. I lived in San Diego and wanted to move back because I missed fall, I missed winter.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

But these last two years have been crazy. We I always say I'd love to have snow before my birthday, because it doesn't always happen. The last two years, we've had snow mid-November. And this year it was mid mid-November all the way through the end of March. And it stayed until the end of March, except for the week of Christmas. The week of Christmas was the only week we didn't have snow.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

So I'm a little tired of it actually.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, you're you're you're thinking, hey, I may maybe a trip out to San Diego makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yeah, I'm looking at looking at it more fondly.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah. No, I get it, man. Well, Steven, like I was saying, it's so good to have you on the Books for Guys podcast. And I've been looking forward to this as I haven't had too many authors like yourself who write fiction towards a certain group, and I I wanted to, again, have a different option out there for people interested in reading your books. And uh there was one in particular I found that I'm interested in reading. Uh and I'll let you talk more about it, but I found the Bigfoot case. That's the newest one. Yeah. I've always grown up intrigued by the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, anything like that. So I'm always down for a book about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Oh yeah, let's let's talk about that one because I can talk about the sightings that have been happening throughout March.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, hey, put jump right in because I'm I'm all about some Bigfoot talk.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

All right. So um well, you know what? I'm gonna hold up the book. I I have my covers ready, the book's ready. So there's the back, and I wasn't ready. So there's the Bigfoot case. Yeah. Uh it's my newest book. I'm super excited about it. So I mostly write middle grade fantasy. This one I would have to say is early teen-ish. Uh, I don't want to call it young adult because young adult has a certain vibe to the genre. Uh, and this does is not that vibe, but it's not necessarily an early chapter reader. So I I tell people it's you know early teens age, but I've had multiple adults read it and love it. So it's it's Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. It's not the YA genre, but if you're an adult, you don't have to shy away from it because it's written uh without being too too hokey kid like sometimes with the chapter books. So this one started off as short stories for my kids and stepkids for Christmas. My son was into Bigfoot, into all the cryptid stuff. He stole all my books. And um, we used to go to a lot of events, a lot of gatherings, conferences, festivals, and all that. So much so that my son started to do talks at them and wrote his own book, Him and a Buddy. And so the whole family ended up going to many of these, uh including one up in Maine for the Cryptozoologist Museum with Lauren Coleman. And my son got presented with the Young Cryptozoologist of the Year award. So we were all up there for that. So we're big into it. Well, the kids are all kind of gone, nobody's left. And I missed going to all these events. So I took these old short stories I had written and thought, hey, why don't I expand them into a full-blown book? And this first book was the first short story I wrote for all the kids. And all the kids kind of got fictionalized as characters in the book. So it's a group of sibling teenagers that investigate cryptids and things like Bigfoot. And they all have their own place, their own not powers, it's not superpowers or anything, but skills, except for Madeline, because she's a witch and she has magic. So they go on a hunt. But the coolest thing about the book is a good friend of ours that actually helped get my son into the community and talking, Stan Gordon. If you know of him from the Chestnut Hills area, he does a lot with Kecksburg. He's been on many TV shows. He's got his own set of books, which is the ones I had to run to an ATM to get for my son when he first got started. But Stan let me fictionalize him and put him in the book also. So his only caveat was make sure you tell people this isn't a real case that it's fiction. You made it up. I said, No problem. You know, people should understand that. So that's what the book is. Uh, we also put our wolf hunter in there, uh, he's a character in it also, and a few surprises also with others in there. So it's a fun book. Uh, I've got at least two planned because of other short stories, but I've already written several other stories to go with it, and I'm working on a kids' goosebump-like series that go with this that explore them as younger children. And that would be for like, you know, younger grades, shorter books. I just had a friend reading the book that texted me the other night. She texted me something and laughed. I said, What are you talking about? I'm like, Are you training a an attack squirrel to be in a horror movie? She goes, No, dummy, that's from your book. I went, I wrote that, didn't I? That's pretty funny. And she was laughing about it. And then she was like texting me. It's like, oh my God, this was hilarious. Oh my god, this is great. And I'm like, I'm trying to go to sleep. Thank you very much. You know, so I do have adults that enjoy it. I always I what I've been telling people is it's kind of like if Lemony Snicket had written it, that's what I tried to do, and that's the vibe I try to get to come across.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

The series of unfortunate events. I've read all those. I've got them. Actually, it's pretty cool, Stephen. I read them as a kid, and then a couple years ago, I actually ordered all the books and reread them because I was just wanting a good, you know, a good fiction series to work on. And I was like, you know, those were some of my favorite books. So I just bought them all off Amazon and reread them, and that was a really cool back in time kind of reading moment for me.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

For you, I was way beyond those when I was, you know, had already been adult. But because of writing kids' books, that's some of the books I got and read more recently. What are kids enjoying? My kids loved those books. My son actually dug them up out of his closet for me.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah. No, that's amazing. Well, Steven, talk a little bit about just your path to writing and starting to author these stories and books and your passion behind it. Because I I had your website pulled up too, and you've even got like resources for teachers and parents. Like I can tell you you're encouraging this and putting this positive message out there about writing and and all of that. And I just want you to talk for people that haven't followed your work or don't know really a lot about it, tell your story a little bit of how you got into writing.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Well, you you mean there's people that haven't followed my work? I'm hurt. No, and that's what these podcasts are for to get out there so people know about you. So when I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer like early in for my whole life or anything like that, when I was a Girl Scout leader with my daughter, I noticed all the girls were reading books, which we love. They all read books, but they were all books with male protagonists. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, you know, the girls need more of these. Now, I had not been into the kids' fiction, the middle grade fiction. So it's not like I was immersed in it and knew what everything that was out there. I had started to read Harry Potter to my kids, but when I was partway through book four, they they weren't listening as well. And I said, What is going on, guys? You've been loving these books for part way through. Well, they said, Daddy, we've already read up through book five. Um, you're you're just reading too slow for us. I'm like, oh, and that was the end of bedtime reading. But then I had to go read the books myself to finish the series. But uh I I said, you know, I should write books for the girls that have women in it, that have girls in it. And that was as far as it went. Like most people, hey, that's a wonderful idea, it'd be great. And then I didn't do anything with it for a while. But uh, once I did think about it again, I started writing, and it wasn't so much focused on the girls because by then all the girls were getting grown up, they were graduating. I wasn't doing it for them anymore. But I wanted to write for kids that aren't necessarily readers. I I worked with kids, you know, forever. I've been a coach for baseball, softball, bat or uh soccer, girl scout leader, cub scout leader, boy scout leader, martial arts instructor, all with kids, working with kids. So it made sense for me to want to do stuff with kids again. So my goal is to write some good kids' books, uh, as much as well as my friend Jeff Stran. Jeff Stran writes horror. I've described him as not all of his books, but a lot of them, as goosebumps for adults. And he's written some YA kids books that have gotten brave reviews. But the one I always remember is a librarian or a teacher said, Jeff, I gave one of your books to a group of boys who hate reading, who never want to read, and they read it and said, Can we have more? And I was like, Yes, that is that's it right there. That's if you can get a review like that, you've accomplished something in life. And that's what I'm trying to do. I want to write some books that kids would maybe reluctantly start to read, but enjoy it and then want the next one.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

And if that, then we've got a a a reader. You know, I I always think sometimes in school we shove down their throats books that they don't want to read, uh, that nobody remembers or really cares about, except some scholars and academics. Uh, and it's no wonder kids grow up not wanting to read. You know, me and my son both we started reading comics, and we still read comics, and people are like, oh, comics. I'm like, yeah, but you know what? It's a gateway drug. You know, if you read comics and like comics, you move on to reading other stuff. And you know, you can say it's comics, it's for kids, but no, then you really have not read today's modern comics, I will say that. But my son, who started reading comics, who started reading Harry Potter because I was reading too slow, that wrote a book giving talks when he was 16 at Bigfoot Festivals. That his favorite story now, his favorite book, The Tempest, William Shakespeare. So if I had shoved William Shakespeare at him when he was in fifth grade, he'd probably hate it. But he got led to it because of everything else. And you know what job he is does now? He's a librarian in Baltimore. So, you know, my proof positive that's I let them read whatever they wanted. We read many, many, many things, and that's how much of a reader he is now. So I'm pretty sure that my my thinking works, it just doesn't fit the common core.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

No, well, Steven, you just hit so many things uh that align with the mission at Books for Guys, and it's exactly what it was born out of was trying to get guys interested in reading at a at an earlier age. And to do that, our mission is to get them books they're actually interested in reading because then they'll want to pick up another book, and it leads to more challenging books and more challenging reading. And I always share my story. Like I love sports, so I started with sports books, and then it led to personal development and finance and business and then fiction and all these things. And I remember when I really got into reading post-college, I was like, Man, I wish I'd have read some of these books like six, seven years ago. I love them, and I would have learned a lot and I would have appreciated them so much. So I love everything you're saying about writing books that are interesting to young kids and to help them spark that curiosity journey and to continue reading because that's you're you're spot on. We get told what to read growing up, and most of the time we're like, we don't give a crap what this book's about. And then it then there's a big gap between that time of when you're forced to read and when you find it for enjoyment. And so I just think your purpose behind all of that is so incredible because everything you're saying, I'm like, that's exactly what we're doing at Books for Guys. That's exactly what we're doing at Books for Guys.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

And I love that you've got a podcast with that. The name itself is focused on hey guys, you can read. Hey guys, there's there's things you might want to read. Yeah, you know, that's exactly what is the same thing. I I go more broad, but I love the focus of just guys. And and I already mentioned it, guys. Go check out Jeff Strand as soon as you get the Bigfoot case. You know, get my Honest Questor book because you'd love it. But Jeff Strand's another one. Uh, some of his stuff. I've listened to the audiobooks and read some of his books multiple times. The Wolf Hunt, Haunted Forest Tour, those are probably my two favorite fun ones. Wolf Hunt, especially. The characters in there I absolutely love. But he's one of my inspirations for this book. And it's funny because I've had this what I want to do in my head, but it's hard to get it down on writing and get the voice right, the style, the vibe. And I wrote all of this and I was trying so hard to do it. And then my editor, who's another one everybody should check out, Zach Bohannan, he wrote a series called Dead South. It's a zombie series. He also wrote some books with another friend of mine, Jay Thorne, about uh vampires called the Dawn series. I think it's Dawn series. So I mean a lot of great stuff that guys would love. But Zach made a comment in the almost the last chapter. He said, You know what? You should take this part out. I understand what you're trying to do, but the the style that it doesn't come across well because you didn't do it anywhere else in the book. And I'm like, I'm reading his notes and I'm trying to fix everything because you know, that's what I pay editor for it is uh kind of get all the crap out of my book. And I'm trying, like, man, how am I gonna fix this? Because that is exactly what I wanted. Why is he telling me to pull this out? That's what I and then I went, wait a minute, why am I trying to fix this part? Why don't I write the whole book that way? And that's when it really clicked. I'm like, that's what I need to do to get what I want. And instead of releasing the book over a year ago, I spent time going back through, rewriting the voice of it to get that snarky narrator. I wanted it to feel like we're all sitting around a campfire and I'm telling you the story and making comments and asides as I do. That's what I wanted to get, like Lemony Snicket very much was. So that's where that came about. And there's a couple other books for guys to go check out, some author friends of mine. So make sure if you you do get one of their books, tell them that I sent you over there.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, yeah. No, well, Steven did and I'm in the process of getting your books on the web. By the time this podcast is out, people will be able to go and find all your books on the Books for Guys website. So they'll be posted for those to go purchase. And I'll work on getting some of your author friends on there too. But and you kind of walked, you you were kind of going through the process just now, but one of my questions for you was because you you had stated you had you didn't think you were gonna be a writer, you didn't, you know, uh most of your life it wasn't something you were planning to do. I'm curious to know now that you've put several books out there, have you been able to see a progression from the first book to your latest and just your overall ability to organize the story and and create works and and how motivating is it now? Again, I can see the passion in it, like for future projects. Like, do you have all these ideas that now you just you're just running now that you've gotten yourself through the process to be able to do this more confidently?

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Well, so in this Oddish Quester line, there are two books that will be coming out this year that I've worked. I I work on some things simultaneously. Got a little ADHD going on, so I jump between projects at times. So they all tend to get done at one time with nothing for way too long in between. Uh so I should have two more coming out with this. So, yes, this series is just it's very personal, and it's for me, it's a million ideas I could do with it if I had the time. And starting, yes, when Zach read this one, he said, Oh, I I can definitely see from when I first started working with him, like in 2019. He's like, I can definitely see your writing has improved, the quality has improved, you've gotten better. Uh, and he didn't even edit the first couple books I did. Uh, the very first one I wrote, which like everybody, this is going to be so good, so cool. I've got so many ideas. Everybody's gonna love this book. It's gonna be better than Harry Potter and all that. And I wrote the whole thing, didn't even realize how I was not writing a good book, sent it to the editor and was so excited. I was waiting for that comment from the editor to say, this was so good, I forgot to edit and just read the book. You know, I was waiting for that. Then I got it back, and there was so much red I could barely read any of the black words underneath it. Literally ripped out half of the book, 50% of the book, I just completely deleted because of what the editor had written, and then said, Wow, that was a lot of work and put it aside. I don't know if that one will ever see the light of day.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

So I have gotten better because there was not as much red when Zach edited the Bigfoot case.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah. No, but that's super cool though. And again, I want I want you to share that because people listening and watching, you know, again, I talk about this all the time. We see people like yourself, you have these books out, and people think, like, oh, Steven's a great writer. He's written books, you know, here's the highlight reel, you know, it's put out there. But I love talking about the journey of it because people don't really see that part as much. And I want, especially young guys, to see like, hey, if you're trying to get somewhere, you're probably gonna have some hiccups and you're gonna have to start over, take a few steps back, fine-tune what you're wanting to do, no matter what that is, building a business, writing a book, and becoming the best athlete you want to be. And so I love that you share your first books were just red, red, red, not good, not good. But now, how good of a feeling is it that you put in the work and where you're at now as a writer, and you've got future projects already in the works, and just how good of a feeling that is.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Yeah, and if I could go back in time and give advice to my younger self, what I would say, and this is to all the young writers out there, young writer, not necessarily young person, because I was in my 40s when I started writing. But I would say take all the books that I bought on writing, all the books that train me and teach me, all the courses I bought online to watch and go through, and all the conferences and things I went to and spent money for the writing and the lessons, take all that and burn it for right now and just sit down and write. I don't care what it is, how what but what how long it is or what you do. Write a book, write a short story. And then when you get done, put it away and write another one. Just write another book. Don't think about it, don't go back and I know people that I'll talk to, and for like four months, it's like, so how's your book coming? Oh, I'm still on chapter two. It takes you four months to write one chapter. Well, I keep going back through to edit it and prove it and make it better. No, don't do that. Write. Just write. And once you get a book or two and some short stories down, then go get the books on teaching you how to write. Go watch the courses. Because what I found for me, and I think this is probably true for most people, because I had not written, I read all these things academically, but they didn't really sink in. It's like I had knowledge here, but then my creative stuff was over here, but they didn't mesh. Once I had actually written, then when the knowledge came in, I could apply it to what I remembered about writing. And suddenly my writing got way better. So it seems like a slow process. No, it probably would have taken me just as long and I would have had better writing sooner, doing it that way. And that's what I tell everybody. That's what I've been telling kids and parents. I think in school, we we get too focused on spelling and grammar and writing. And then we tell kids, now write something based on this prompt. And the prompts suck. You know, no, every kid's like, what am I gonna write for this? But we don't do a lot of creative writing. A lot of it is some sort of nonfiction writing, you know, the typical what I did over my summer break, you know. I think in the younger grades, kindergarten, first grade, second, third, just have the kids tell stories, just let them tell stories. And with what our devices nowadays, they could talk into a microphone and it transcribes it. Just tell the stories. And once kids are thinking and telling stories without the worry of, oh my gosh, did I spell that right? Oh my gosh, did I get the right comma and apostrophes and all that crap? Once I can tell all those stories, guess what? The spelling and the grammar will come much easier. We do it backwards here. We force all that stuff, all the academic stuff on them, and then say, Well, how come you guys can't write a good story? Because they don't know how to tell a good story. We don't focus on that at all. Well, how come you don't like to read? Because stories mean nothing. You know, if we tell stories, we'll be interested in reading stories. It's all, oops, sorry, forgot my stepson uh stuff. So that's there's my advice woven into what I would love to see in the education system.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah. No, and I love that. I love that, Steven, because now more than ever, being creative and and thinking critically is is so important, especially with young people and all the the distractions of devices and all this stuff too. That can kind of just your brain's not doing a lot of that, but if you can encourage that, that's certainly a good thing. And I love your your recommendation too, to just just start running. You'll figure it out. You know, there's nothing better than on the job training, you know, break it, figure it out, and then and you'll learn on the go much faster than trying to comprehend something you've never actually experienced. So I like your example too of like, hey, I just wrote, and then everything I learned on the educational side, it made a lot more sense. So then you could quickly apply it and it became applicable. And I just love the way you. Breaking that down because I'm like, yeah, it just seems so simple, right? Like, why don't we do it this way? Um I'm sure, like yourself, you know, teaching others, especially young, young people, you're probably like, come on, there's a there's a better way to do this.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

I've talked to multiple teachers. Uh, and and unfortunately, you know, I'm not blaming teachers at all. I think teachers have a difficult job. They're heroes for wanting to do the job in the first place, and especially today's world, I will say. Um, but I've talked to many of them and they're like, Yeah, we struggle with that. It's so hard to get kids interested in not just reading, but wanting to write or tell stories because we have to do that after we get them to spell the words, after we get them to do the grammar and diagramming a sentence. And I I know authors, I mean, there's authors out there that diagram sentences and talk about that and go into it. But Stephen King, you know, did teach English. He did a lot of English classes, but I'm pretty sure he'd be one of the first to tell you that. Who cares if you can diagram it if the story sucks? The story sucks. You know, diagramming a sentence does not give you a good story. It's totally separate.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

No, you're right. You're right. If it's not a good story, no one's gonna pay attention to it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Right. And what here, I'm gonna say something else with the education. So, one of the ways in today's world that I'm focusing on working with kids for telling stories is through video games. Because if you think about it, go back about a hundred years ago when movies were still very, very early and just starting out. By by the 20s in movies, we were just about ready to get away from silent films into the talkies. And there were people that were making movies, but they weren't necessarily their full-time job, and there weren't many of them, and it was smaller, you know. But after the 30s into the 40s and 50s, the movie industry really took off. And there were people that were needed to write the scripts, to write good stories, because you couldn't just throw anything up on the screen anymore. People wanted to spend their money on a good movie, a good story. So people started earning money if they were good at writing stories for movies. Now, if you've never written a movie script, it is not the same as writing a novel. And it's definitely not the same as writing a newspaper article, and it's not the same as teaching an English class, it's its own skill set. But until that time in the 50s or so, there weren't many people earning a living as a script writer in the movies. Well, the video game industry is right now still in the era of like the 90s in the movie industry. We don't have script writing, we have narrative designers for the story elements, and that's not just the story itself, but that's all the lines that each NPC says. That's all the books in Diablo 4 that you pick up and read through the history of the world or Skyrim or something, all those. Those are the script writers of today's world, the video game world. And I've been doing a class, I wrote a book on that too. I'm gonna bring that up. There you go. There, there's a that's a how's that for? Hey, look at my book. But I do I have been teaching a class uh for focused on kids to show them uh how to get into the video game industry, how to start making video games. And the focus is on storytelling, because right now, storytelling in video games is equivalent to probably about the 20s or 30s in movies. So in the next 20 years, think of the explosion in video game stories, even the ones we have now. You know, I I've got Assassin's Creed, I've got Skyrim, and all the stories that are within those, just think of what's coming if those are the ones we look at. And they're going to need more people telling stories in video games. And the great thing is, and this is what I tell all the parents, and I I get parents that get very shocked that kids do not necessarily need a college degree to get into the video game industry because most of the video game industry right now is from people running running it, running the teams, doing the programming that didn't get a college degree in video games or even coding. There are so many opportunities now in video games where you don't have to code, you don't have to develop, you don't have to be a programmer. And storytelling is one of them. And what they look for is a portfolio, just like an artist. They want to see what games have you made to completion? What games did you put on the stores? What did you make for yourself? It doesn't matter. Complete games. The great thing is, a lot of these tools that are available that I'm showing kids in my series is things that kids' students can use for free and create complete video games. So what happens is when they turn 18, they graduate from high school, they have a portfolio of these video games they made, and maybe also some short stories, maybe they wrote a play, maybe they wrote a song, or they they have a portfolio of these creative writings they've done in one way or another. When they go to a lot of not all, when they go to a lot of these companies and say, look, I've got this portfolio, I've completed these games. Guess what? They're looking for people like that to hire. And some of these, some of these places I saw on indeed.com, PlayStation, Blizzard, Activision, they were advertising 64,000 starting pay with no college experience. What do they want? They want eagerness, they want a go-getter, they want someone that has a portfolio of games, or at least, you know, like an artist. They want a portfolio of graphic art, animation that you've done, things like that. So I tell parents, I'm like, you're worried about college. Here's a career that is growing, that is huge in the world, that has opportunities. If the kids just make video games they have do now and play those games. I mean, you can always tell at the classes when I teach them, you get those one or two kids where it clicks. They're like, you mean I can really make a video game instead of just play one? And they're the kids that when they get the tools, they start playing with the tools, they'll go test their game, but they go back into the tool and start messing with it and adding more. There's always kids that are like, oh, this is cool. They go and then all they want to do is play games. You know, I I see the differences in kids, and I'm like, the first one that keeps going back into the editor, that just those are the ones that would succeed in this industry. And they're 12 years old, they've got six more years of school to make video games. So, you know, parents, if they're gonna sit in front of a screen, do you want them making games or do you want them playing games?

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Because one will lead to a career if you don't count esports.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

No, I love that you brought that up. And I think, you know, as someone in education, you'd appreciate this. I'm I'm on the recruiting side and I've seen the transition with companies over the last decade who have started to dwindle that that college degree requirement. Because number one, a lot of the things we're doing now, universities are having a hard time catching up to even teaching a lot of the things. You know, you're talking AI, gaming. There's a lot of things out there that that kids are learning without college, and that's fine. That's a I think it's a good thing. It challenges universities to figure out a way to make this relevant and teach the curriculum, but also gives a path for individuals to to jump right in and go to work and figure things out and do some incredible things. And I've seen a little bit of the transition of that in a good way. And I'm I'm so glad you brought that up because I think it's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Absolutely. And we've got things like edX and Udemy out there. I mean, what they're discovering is I I read a survey or a report a couple years ago that they said we can hire somebody at age 18, whatever it, whatever industry company it is. This is pretty general, the survey they did, but we hire somebody at 18, we spend three and a half years training them so they're proficient and professional in our industry. And then they're going to be 22 and trained to do what we do. Or we hire them at age 23 with a college degree. And when we hire them at age 23 with a college degree, we still have to spend three and a half years training them in our industries. What the college degree does for most industries is nothing. It doesn't add value to that candidate because they still need to train. And so they're finding that, well, heck, I'd much rather pay somebody uh to go take, you know, five, six Udemy courses that are focused on exactly what they want, cut down the training time, and I get better qualified people but without a college degree. And then the people are like, hey, I don't have uh, you know,$150,000 in loans I have to pay back. My mother has friends whose grandchildren are looking at schools, they were looking at Ohio State, and it was like$40,000 a year without room and board. That that's just uh, you know, the tuition for it. So if you don't have$160,000 saved away, which some people do, good for you. But if you don't, then you're going to be spending, you know, how much time and money you have to get a really good job so that the big chunk of that can pay for the loan. And then you're really living at this smaller lifestyle. My son realized that. We went to college, he was going to look at it, and then he did crunch the numbers. He said, I'd be working for 25 years to pay off this loan. Whereas if I just get a job that maybe doesn't pay as much, I'd actually be making the same amount, but I could sock money away and have more money when I retire than I would after paying this loan. And he's not wrong. And many people are coming to that realization, including the colleges and the companies, video games, Atari, when they first started, none of those guys had computer video game degrees because none of nobody existed before them, except Magnavox. That's a different story, you know. But as a as an industry, though, that they were really kind of the first. And we still have that type of attitude. And a lot of the people that you know, Activision doesn't care if you have a degree in the humanities and you know history, and you know that the only reason they want you to know history is if you're working on Assassin's Creed, and you know what? You can look all that stuff up that you need. They know that. So they don't want to pay somebody, they've got thousands of people working on some of these games. They don't want to have to pay thousands of people$100,000 just because of a degree. I know that that's one of the problems you get with the competition in that. They'd rather pay you$80,000 without the degree. But again, if you don't have a degree, even making$50,000, you're really making more than you would. So that's another reason the industry is like that. And parents are amazed. I have printed out indeed.com listings from Activision and from PlayStation. Here's the job, here's starting paid, nothing listed for college degree. And they're like, Are you kidding me? And I love it because the kids are always like, Yes, more video games. I can, you know, you know, esports, that's a different issue. That's a whole nother thing, you know, that's in today's world. But I'm talking about just making the games. But it's it's fun seeing the parents and the kids learn this new information.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah. No, I I love this, Steven. Again, everything you're saying, I'm on board with, and I absolutely love you describing it and going into more detail on it. Um, but I've got I've got one more question for you. As uh I ask everybody that comes on the books for guys this question. And I'm curious to know, and this may be a tough one, you know, if you you've read a lot and you're well read, and it and it can depend on timing of life and and circumstances, but I'm always curious to know what's a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally or professionally, and what's a book recommendation you like to give to others when asked?

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Well, I mentioned Jeff Strand, so I'll do a plug for my buddy Jeff. I'll just make sure next time I see him, I'll tell him he owes me some kickbacks on that. Yeah. But I I loved his books, I love the style. He's the one that helped get me my voice just by reading it. But if I had to go and name, I had a friend ask me the other day, you know, what's favorite book of all time? I've got two. I I mean, I've got a bunch. I I've read so many things, mostly fantasy, sci-fi, that type of stuff. But the two that stick out as something both I've read several times in my life, and they just always pop into my head. The first is actually the Dragonlance series from Weiss and Hickman. That series came out when I was like 15, 16. I read it and just read, you know, devoured it. All my friends borrowed it. In fact, I still have my original book and it's all fallen apart because all my friends read it and it just got read so much. I had to buy, you know, new versions to read again. But the Dragonlance series is just the one for me that I absolutely have loved my whole life. And then the other was The Shining by Stephen King. Here you go, Chris. People look at me like, Are you kidding me? When I was younger, every year for Christmas, my mother would give me a box of books, you know, a collection. The first year was Little House on the Prairie. Uh, the second year was C.S. Lewis, the uh Lion Witch in the Wardrobe stuff. And the third year was Stephen King. And I don't know that progression makes sense. And the other thing you got to remember is when I got the Stephen King books, I was nine years old. So I got three Stephen King books at age nine. And uh The Shining was one of the first, and it's still one of my favorites of his. I love him still. But there was only one other kid in fourth grade that or uh third grade that was reading Stephen King at the time, and that was my buddy Reese. And we're still friends and we do a horror podcast together. Imagine that. Um but Stephen King's Shining and the Dragonland series are the two that have meant the most, I've read the most over and over.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yeah, love those, love those. Well, Stephen, man, this has been such a pleasure and such a fun and great conversation. And I thank you. Love everything you're you're trying to teach and put out there for for younger folks.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

And I appreciate a podcast like this, focused on guys, and you know, guys, if you have sons or nephews, you know, get them interested in reading. You're only doing them a favor. You know, listen to Chris's podcast and get some ideas, help them out.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah, no, absolutely, man. Well, we'll we'll leave it there, Steven. Can't wait to see all the future work you do and all the success that you have and all the positivity you put out there, man. So thank you for being a part of the Books for Guys mission. And we are happy to be a part of yours and helping spread your message and share your work, man. So keep keep it up.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Thanks. Thank you. I I hope uh you keep doing this and I can come back with some other new books for guys.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Absolutely. We'll have you on every time you put one out, man. Great, great. I'll talk to you then. Yep. Thanks, Steven. Bye.