The Feral Fandoms Podcast
Why do some stories explode into global fandoms while others fade away? What makes readers ship characters, obsess over merch, and turn books into cult phenomena?
The Feral Fandoms Podcast dives deep into fandom culture — from Twilight to K-pop, Supernatural to BL dramas — to uncover the psychology, rituals, and chaos that fuel obsession. Hosted by author and cult-brand strategist Onley James and cohost Shannon Ezzell, each episode blends pop culture analysis, fandom breakdowns, and witchy insights with practical takeaways for writers and creators.
If you’re a burned-out author, indie creator, or fandom fan who wants to stop hustling and start building a devoted audience, this podcast is your initiation. Expect ship wars, fandom lore, marketing secrets, and unfiltered chaos, plus the tools to turn your work into a world fans can’t quit.
Because readers buy books. But fandoms buy everything.
The Feral Fandoms Podcast
Turning Fandom Obsession Into Million-Dollar Success
Have you ever wondered how some authors create such passionate fan bases that readers literally buy everything they release—sometimes multiple times? Welcome to the world of fandom architecture, where understanding the psychology behind superfans can transform your writing career.
In this inaugural episode of Feral Fandoms Podcast, host Onley James (gay romance author and self-proclaimed "fandom architect") shares the surprising story of how Glee fanfiction on Tumblr became the unexpected blueprint for her seven-figure writing career. Alongside her assistant Shannon, who admittedly "knows nothing about fandoms" (but secretly does), James reveals how she went from contemplating quitting her nursing job to building a rabid reader base that includes 4,000+ Patreon subscribers and a six-figure merchandise store.
The core insight? "Readers buy books, but fandoms buy everything." James breaks down how she applied her psychology background to create characters that readers become obsessed with, so obsessed that they create fan accounts for her fictional characters and often correct her about her own world-building details. She shares the exact moment she decided she was "tired of writing books that get five stars and are immediately forgotten" and how that led her to reverse-engineer popular fandoms to build her own.
Throughout the episode, we explore essential fandom terminology (from OTP to stanning), the psychology behind why super fans purchase multiple copies of the same item, and preview upcoming episodes that will break down specific fandoms like K-pop Demon Hunters and Twilight to extract actionable strategies for authors.
Whether you're a writer looking to build your own reader community or simply fascinated by the psychology of fandom, this podcast offers an unfiltered, occasionally profane, but always insightful look into what makes fans go from casual readers to passionate evangelists. Join our Discord community of 700+ writers and fans, and check out our Patreon tiers for extended episodes and exclusive fandom-building resources!
Want the uncut chaos + bonus episodes? Join us inside the cult at Patreon.com/TheBurnedOutMuse. Or find everything else (Discord, socials, freebies) at linktr.ee/theburnedoutmuse.
Glee made me a millionaire. Glee, the actual show, made me a millionaire. We got this. Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the Feral Fandoms Podcast. I am only James. I am a gay romance author, fandom architect, and creator of courses that I'm hoping that you will actually be taking. Yay! And with me, I have.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, my name is Shannon Ezel. I am an author personal assistant for Solely Only James. And I know nothing about fandoms. And that's the gag.
SPEAKER_00:That's why she's here. So this podcast I created so that we can help authors break down popular fandoms and reverse engineer their own fandoms. Because readers buy books, but fandoms buy everything. Like everything. And Shannon can attest to that because she has to sell or send all the stuff out to my fans.
SPEAKER_02:You you bitches buy everything. Twice. Twice, twice.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes I have to message you like, hey, you know you own this already, right? That is true.
SPEAKER_00:That's the whole point. That was the impetus for creating this podcast because I have a course where I break down exactly how I did the exact same thing by using my love of fan fiction, K-pop, BL, and all kinds of ships to reverse engineer my own fandom. And I guess I'll start by telling you how I did that or why I did that. So we're gonna go back in time. After my failed YA career in 2019, I switched to writing romance novels. And luckily, I had friends in the romance community who helped me get seen right away. But even then, I was just doing okay. I wasn't doing well enough to quit my day job, which was nursing. And so I just loped along for a couple of years. And then one day I was sitting in the parking lot of my job and I was contemplating jumping off the roof. And I was like, I shouldn't do this anymore. So I sat down and I meditated. I swear to God, I lit a candle, I sat and I meditated, and I was like, what do I do? And then woke up the next morning and I quit my job. And I was like, And then what happened?
SPEAKER_01:And then I knew what happened. Don't forget to tell them what you started. Guys, she actually manifested COVID. I did not.
SPEAKER_00:Don't you listener? I did not. And then COVID hit. So the 401k that I had planned on living on for a year was basically cut in half. So then I had no options but to succeed. But then I got sick and it took forever to finish the book I was working on, the last book in a series. But I eventually got it out. But I was stumped as to what to do next. So I asked my readers, my 12 readers, what do you want to read from me? And they said they wanted more psychopaths. I had one character that was a sociopath. Anyway, they wanted more psychopaths. So I was like, okay, but I'm tired of writing a book and it gets five stars, and the readers immediately forget it exists. I want people to make fan accounts. I want people who are feral over my characters. I want them to know everything about them. I want them to just eat, sleep, and breathe these characters. And we're about to get real dark, guys. Sorry. But when my mother was dying back in 2013, I fell down a Tumblr rabbit hole. I mean deep down a tumbler rabbit hole. Like 20 out of 24 hours a day, I was scrolling on Tumblr. And I was part of the most lame fandom in history. I was a glee. Glee made me a millionaire. Glee, the show, made me a millionaire. Because I got sucked into reading about Kurt and Blaine, the gay couple on there. And then that led me to the steric fandom, and then that led me to the Dusty L fandom, and then that led me to K-pop. So I saw how easily people could get sucked in to this community. And that's what I wanted. So I took my psychology background and I started researching like who just research fandoms for a living. And so I figured out what it was about fandoms that I loved and that other people loved. And I decided I was going to give them seven psychos, and they were all going to be gay, and I didn't care if anybody cared about that. And I was going to make this huge Dexter Meets the Umbrella Academy series. And either it was going to skyrocket or it was going to crash and burn. And the day it released, everything went wrong. And I was almost positive that it had, in fact, crashed and burned. But then it didn't. And then it took off. And now within five years, I went from 32 patrons to at last count 4,000 patrons. And I have a six-figure merch store and a seven-figure career, all because my readers are absolutely insane. Most of my author friends are afraid of them.
SPEAKER_02:Love them so much. I love them.
SPEAKER_00:Shannon loves my readers. She loves them. She likes babies them. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Even when they're mad at me, I'm like, baby, no, don't do this. Come on.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it. So yeah, I want to teach other people how to do what I did because it is talent, but a lot of writers have talent. And you'll see it. People have five-star reads. I had plenty of five-star reviews with my other books, but immediately people forgot them afterwards because readers just gobble up everything. And I wanted people to remember my characters. I wanted them to fixate on them. And now I have fan accounts that have fake finstas for my actual characters.
SPEAKER_02:Actually, correct her about her characters. They'll be like, um, actually? Yeah. Actually.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. If I had really plotted my series out like I should have, I would have mathed properly and I would have actually thought about how old the characters were when they were adopted, how old they are in the series, what the age gap is. I didn't know any of that. And my readers bring it up constantly. And imagine them like, you know that meme.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where they're like tracking it, like they're like tracking everything like a murder board. That's how I feel like they're. And we always have to tell them, like, hey guys, just let's have a good time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm like, look, I don't math. They can be however old you want them to be. That's the beauty of this.
SPEAKER_01:Whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00:It's all up here for you, baby. Whatever you want. Yeah. And they want to know what the characters look like. I'm like, look, I have Pinterest boards, but they can look like whatever you want them to look like. It doesn't matter. It's completely up to you. But yeah, that is the impetus behind the podcast. And I brought Shannon because Shannon is funny. Be funny, Shannon. Right now on command. Peace out. Be funny. Do something funny. But I am really bad on camera, which you will find.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I will I think she looks so cool and I look so lame. Shut up. Your background, the whole vibe. And I'm just like.
SPEAKER_00:When I'm by myself, I feel like I'm talking to myself, which is weird, even though I do talk to myself. So I figured I'd have Shannon because Shannon really doesn't understand. Well, if that's not true. Shannon knows a lot about fandoms, but like the fandom she's interested in. She's a Swifty, she's a recent cat's eye fan. So she knows something coffee, my little uggs.
SPEAKER_02:I'm just a stupid little bitch.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sure. I'm sure when we get to the Twilight fandom, she's gonna have plenty to say. And when we break down K-pop demon hunters next week, I'm sure she's gonna have plenty to say. My children, her daughter, is obsessed with K-pop demon hunters. I should tell you that we have zero filters. So this isn't a podcast for children. We tend to swear, we tend to be a little loud and aggressive, and sometimes we veer political accidentally. So just so you know, it happens. Oopsies. It's up seven o'clock, guys. Don't worry. I am gonna edit some of this. So if you want the extended, unfiltered, we have a$5 tier on Patreon where you get the extended cuts, the ad-free cuts, all that good stuff. So you can do that if you want to hear all the ramblings that we do. But also, we do have a$10 tier for baby authors who don't know some of the stuff that nobody ever teaches you, like how do you load your stuff onto Amazon? How do you format a book? How do you use Vellum? How do you copyright a book? So we'll have all of that on the$10 tier because my right hand is going to be doing courses that will teach you guys how to do all of the newbie stuff. And then at the top tier,$25, you get all of that and you get me. And I will be breaking down all of the stuff we talk about on the podcast, but also extra stuff in my weird witchy way that I do. And our Patreon is called the Burned Out Muse, which owns the Feral Phantoms podcast. And yeah, that's all of the housekeeping stuff. Oh, and if you like this, please, please, please, please, please rate, review, subscribe because we would like to actually have more than five listeners. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:And if it's just five of you, I love you.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we love all five of you. Don't get it twisted. We do. We're so happy to have you.
SPEAKER_02:You're my favorite.
SPEAKER_00:But you already have right there. You're my favorite. We already have 10 patrons. People that just think we're gonna follow through with some. I know like we're here. They're like, we just want to be in on the ground floor. And if you do get in on the ground floor as a founding member, we'd lowered the price for that.
SPEAKER_01:Fun fact, you have a Patreon who's on your top tier for only for your regular one, who doesn't actually want any of the perks. She just wants to give you a hundred dollars a month. Every time I accidentally send her special stuff, she'll be like, hey, quick reminder, I don't actually want any of this stuff. I already own it. That's insane. That's insane.
SPEAKER_00:But thank you. Thank you. I know I keep forgetting though. I'm annoying her with the extra stuff because I keep forgetting she doesn't want it. That reminds me of like when they like don't want to deposit checks in the bank because like they're like, Did you actually deposit this or is somebody else depositing it for you? Who fucking cares? If somebody wants to deposit money in my account, let them. Where's the waiver? Where's the waiver? If there's a waiver, please, for the love of God, just let people put money in my account. What the hell? Money, please. I'm sure everybody knows what a fandom is. It's basically just a community coming together over a love of one specific thing. But I thought I would quiz Shannon a little bit on some of the lingo because I was told by some of my readers that they have no idea like what some of this stuff means. So I definitely won't. I know, I'm excited. All right, so let's see. Do you know what OTP stands for?
SPEAKER_01:You're down with OTP? I'm showing my age. Yeah, you know, I'm down with OTP. I would say other top person, other top person.
SPEAKER_00:It's like on top. It stands for one true pair. And that's if you have one couple you ship above all others. Yes, exactly. If you have one couple that you ship together over all others, do you know what ship is?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, ship. I know what ship is. I said relationship. But it's usually made up. Yes. True. Yes. Ships are usually not usually canon. Correct.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, look at you go. In the literary space. I know she's so good at this. But yeah, so ships are usually fake. Some people say I don't ship, I support because they're not fake. Canon means it's actually happened in the world of the narrations, things that happened in the show, the book, the movie. Fanon. Our fan theories that the entire fandom has adopted is true, even though it's not. Let's see. Oh, let's switch to K-pop a little bit. Do you know what bias means? Bias?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Does it mean I prefer a bias towards you? I know what the word bias means. You would be shocked how many people don't know what that means in the world. I was just gonna be only assuming that I actually am illiterate.
SPEAKER_00:Do you know what alt bias means? I have an alternative bias. So your bias is your favorite in a group. Your alt bias is your favorite overall. So if you're like a multi-shipper and you like five different K-pop groups, your alt bias is like that number one person in all of those groups. I choose. Yeah, I'm a stray kids stan for the most part. I do like ATs too, but like for the most part, I'm a stray kids stan. So my bias and my alt bias are the same person. Han. I'm really boring in that way. But oh now we have moodlighting. Whenever I don't move enough of Han, the spirit of Han is with you and supports you.
SPEAKER_01:Compelling your podcast endeavor.
SPEAKER_00:Whenever I don't move enough, my office thinks that I'm not here. So it just shuts my light off, which usually is a great thing because I don't want to be in the light. I like to be in the dark. But today is not a good thing. There we go.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I'm working.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, so Alt Bias is like who you love above all others. Do you know what stanning is?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like the ultimate fan. I stan you. I'm your fan. Yeah. I'm a stan.
SPEAKER_00:Do you know where the term stan comes from? Uh M M? Yes. Yes. Am I am I fucking killing this? You are. I'm really killing this. You are on for the fire. Number one fan. This is Stan. I think I'm just old. No, I never put two and two together until a couple years ago. And then I was listening to the song Stan, and I went, that can't be where that comes from. And then I Googled it and it was, and I was like, damn, M made more of an impact than we actually think that's and made his own term. Yeah, that's crazy. That's next level. But he is next level. He used to be kind of hot. Listen, him and I are the same age. To me, he's still pretty hot. And now he's a grandfather, just like I'm a grandmother.
SPEAKER_01:Listen, I recently discovered Bad Bunny. I don't know if you guys know.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a little bit like feral. Bad Bunny is hot. Like, I honestly, I'm not gonna lie. This is how out of this is how out of the loop I am on like American music. I thought it was a woman until somebody showed me a picture.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. TikTok recently was like, hey, here's a beautiful Puerto Rican man shaking his junk on stage.
SPEAKER_00:And I was like, who's this? I'm recently obsessed with Youngblood. Have you seen him? He's British. He is like one of those uh singers who is so in love with his own fandom. Oh, the Ozzie Osborne, the new Ozzie Osbourne.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:He is so magnetic. I don't even know how else to put it. When he talks to people, he makes that deep eye contact, he holds their hands. You know what? That's a K-pop thing. If you ever watch K-pop stars with their fans, when they do the face-to-face meet and greets, they hold their hands, they got that intense eye contact, they flirt with them, and that is all part of the magic. That is all part of the reason these women are handing over their money, and sometimes men, but mostly women. Like, it's the reason they're handing over their money. And that is also something you can steal. The women are the ones spending the money. They really like trains. I'm not gonna lie, I probably have about$7,000 worth of manga and uh K-pop stuff. Of what?
SPEAKER_01:Manga? I thought you said manga, and I was like, what? Like a you gotta hit out somebody? What the fuck?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Manga. Manga. Yeah. Comics, Korean comics. Manga.
SPEAKER_01:Graphic novels.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Did you know I read graphic novels? I bet you didn't.
SPEAKER_01:I did not know that.
SPEAKER_00:And you're my name.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't know you had time to read anything. Yeah. Oh, also we're related. And we're lovers.
SPEAKER_00:It's a picture book. Oh God, please don't bring that back from the podcast. Princess. They're picture books. I have time to read them because it's mostly pictures and little tiny bubbles. It's much easier to read than a full book. I don't have time for full books, but I do have time for falling in love with each other. Reading picture books together. Yes, they're not allowed to look at my picture books though, because mine are much more graphic. My kids aren't even allowed in my garage anymore. I'm like, kid out of the garage. Oh god, after the coloring book, yeah. Oopsies. They were super little though. They were so little and they were so cute. They're in love. They're in love. They're happy.
SPEAKER_01:Get rid of that.
SPEAKER_00:There is nothing more terrifying when you work with a gay romance author than hearing your two toddlers say, Oh, they're in love.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When you can't see them.
SPEAKER_01:Or when he told his teacher that what does mommy do for work? She ships books with sad boys on the cover.
SPEAKER_00:I want to know why. He thinks my boys on the cover look sad to him.
SPEAKER_01:They're not smiling. And when he takes a picture, he says tease. Oh, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, they're all very smising. They're smoldering. They're smoldering, yes. Tyra Banks. Mega, yes, not MAGA. Bringing it back. And it's also sometimes called Manoa.
SPEAKER_01:Manoa sounds like a spell book. Let me go grab my grimoire, my memoir.
SPEAKER_00:In Thailand, it's called Why. You know what? Fair. Yeah. It is pretty spicy. I definitely fall into that category of a fan or a super fan. I buy every Stray Kids album, all copies. So for their last album, I bought both versions of the same album as well as the two records of that album. Every single release of Stray Kids, I pretty much buy four to five copies of the exact same thing, and I never listen to them. I just own them. I was gonna say everything's digital. Yeah, I just own them. And they're so smart for the way they market these things because the FOMO you feel if you don't buy all of the versions is real, especially for somebody like me who will not let me know something exists out there that I don't have. And so that's why I have an affinity for fandoms because I think as a super fan, I now get it psychologically why it's so you're in it. Yeah, you're in it. I am so in it. And it's funny, I'm more into fandom than probably the people who will listen to this podcast, but I'm not into my own fandom. Never deal what you do. Listen.
SPEAKER_01:Never deal what you do, folks.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because I could tell you Han Jisong's eyebrow from any other eyebrow. I'll tell you Adam's birthday. Yeah. Don't quiz her on that Mulvaney birth years, okay? Yeah, no, I have a fan account that I've become friends with, and I will ask her questions. Mulvaney media? Yes, I will ask her. Shout out Mulvaney Media. Yes, I love her. I love her. Uh I will ask her questions about my own characters. I'll be like, did I ever mention Felix's mom? Did I say what her name was? And she'll be like, Yes, girl, you said her name. And I'm like, We have a book Bible for her now. She has a book Bible now. Yes, I do, I do, I do. I finally did it. I finally did it. I still don't look at it as much as I should. Next week we're gonna break down K-pop demon hunters. And when I say next week, I mean as soon as I hit stop, we're gonna just record the next one. So if we're wearing the same outfits, we have more than one. We're just recording on the same day.
SPEAKER_01:I don't. I'm poor. Subscribe, please. I need a multi shirt. Spend all my money on K-pop demon hunters for a four-year-old. I'm scared of her. I'm terrified of her.
SPEAKER_00:My favorite thing is watching people discover K-pop demon hunters. My new crack is just watching people who be like, uh, I don't want to watch it. And then they're just like, oh. And they just get so sucked in. I love it. Great movie.
SPEAKER_01:I'm so glad that that's the movie we're playing over and over, and it's not frozen or anything better than that.
SPEAKER_00:Music fucking slaps. So I can't wait to talk about it next. And then we're gonna be switching to Twilight. We're gonna go a little old school. Can't believe Twilight is old school, but it is old school because I remember taking Mikhaila to see New Moon for her 11th birthday, I think it was. It was like a pre-tiny one, yeah. Yeah, it was like I remember we got there late, so we were just basically just staring up their noses. Skin of a killer, Bella. Yeah, that's gonna be great. I can't fucking wait for that one. We're going to talk about the Phantom. I'm going to break down what people really liked about it, like what kind of things you can steal. You'll see a lot of that on the Patreon. I have worksheets and nine-page breakdowns of things you can try for yourself. We also have a Discord that's free. You can hop on the Discord. There's already 700 people in there. Phantom writers. Writing sprints, we've got astrology babes, we've got everything you could possibly imagine if you're a fan or a writer. So check that out. It's free. You can find us link tree l-inktr.ee slash the burned out muse. And that will get you to our Discord, our Patreon, and our website, which will be up by the time this actually drops on the first. It's coming. Don't worry about that. It's coming. It's coming. Um, I think we should wrap it up here. Yeah, 35 minutes. Yeah. I swear we'll be more structured for the next one. We will go off on a tangent and there will be a lot of gossip. But yeah. So yeah. I've got all the tea all the time. I'm excited. I'm ready. So yeah, rate, review, subscribe if this is your thing, or if you just want to support us. If you just feel sorry for us because we're not good at this. We'll take a pity follow, a pity lie. I will take anything. I'm not above it either. At this point, I'll bribe people. Like, I'll give you five dollars if you give me five dollars. Giving you guys money. Don't listen to her. No. All right. So we'll see you in five minutes. We're dropping three podcasts at a time. So you will see us in five minutes, hopefully, if you give us a still hated this. Then you're like never coming back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. They're like, what was that? All right. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Glee made me a millionaire. Glee, the show made me a millionaire. Because I got sucked into reading about Kurt and Blaine, the gay couple on there. Glee made me a millionaire. Glee, the show, made me a millionaire. Because I got sucked into reading about Kurt and Blaine, the gay couple on there.
