Andy Lunique wears many hats as a cook, author, and influencer marketing expert in the games industry, and he combined those skills to write “The Ultimate Gamers Cookbook” and “Diablo: The Official Cookbook.” Andy joins Kaitlyn and Sam to discuss how he crafts gaming-friendly recipes, how influencers (including himself) find their brand, and how to reach people without losing authenticity.
Timecodes:
00:00:00 – Intro
00:02:18 – Andy’s Go-To Game Night Meal
00:09:33 – Andy’s Love (and Advice) for Pancakes
00:15:11 – Writing The Ultimate Gamers Cookbook
00:27:53 – Why Are Food and Gaming Synonymous?
00:34:28 – Key Learnings from Andy’s First Two Cookbooks
00:49:43 – How Andy Applied Influencer Marketing to His Book
01:00:21 – How Creators Find Their Brand
01:13:25 – How Andy Keeps Up with the Creator Space
01:20:28 – How Andy Stays Motivated
01:23:06 – Outro
Buy The Ultimate Gamers Cookbook on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Gamers-Cookbook-Recipes-Night/dp/1647229472), or get a signed copy here (https://www.andylunique.com/blank-2). Follow Andy on Twitter @AndyLunique and on TikTok @Andy_Lunique.
Follow the podcast on Twitter and YouTube @RealTimeStrats, and email us questions at podcast@triplepointpr.com. Follow Kaitlyn and Sam on social media @KaitlynRedWing and @SamScotMosher respectively.
hello and welcome to realtime strategy a gaming podcast from PR Pros I’m s moer joined by my co-host Caitlyn Redwing and today we’re thrilled to be discussing cooking gaming infusing your career and your passions with Andy lenique Andy has built a career in the games industry specializing in influencer marketing and management with experience at Bungie epic games Discord and Microsoft he’s also a chef and author of The Ultimate Gamers cookbook and Diablo the official cookbook so we’re excited to dive into a mix a stew if you will of all of those things Andy how are you doing today thanks so much for joining us Sam that has to be one of the best intros I’ve ever had in my life that was fantastic I’m doing well today has been busy but I feel like it has been a regular Tuesday these days I feel like we’re always exhausted but I feel great about where we’ve been and I’m really excited that you had me on I’m just really blessed to be able to speak with folks that I admire and are really smart eloquent and future facing individual so I’m very happy to be here well that’s so nice thank you also Sam’s stew comment wasn’t even in our outline he just thinks of that stuff on the fly like it is so impressive I don’t know how he does it Sam might be hungry he’s going to dinner after this so it might just be a little bit better yes that is that is true food puns are like one of the more fun and accessible food category of puns to do so um this episode I I hope to not annoy people too many with too much with them well it’s fine I I can’t ever come up with puns so I’ll come up with zero and then you can supply the puns well if everybody can bear through at least one more uh Andy when we have a new a guest a new person on the show we like to start with an intro question a get to know you question or an appetizer if you will um oh we’re doing this oh my God so before we get into all things cooking and your cookbooks and your work um kind of a a fun play Setter if you will for if Caitlyn and I were coming over for a game night what would you like what comes to mind of the first things you would make for us oh that’s such a dangerous question and I only say that because you have to design food for your guest taste and I don’t mean what they like you have to think about what’s going to keep them comfortable and what going to get them eating I’ve noticed that most of the parties that I’ve catered whether I be the host or just someone who’s making the food and leaving is if you don’t have the vibe correct you’ll have a failure of the food so if this is a bridal shower or some type of bachelorette party if you’re thinking about all the favorites of the group you need to think about what they’re going to be doing and if they’re snackers or if it’s a proper sit down meal and if you get that wrong you end up failing and suddenly the meal doesn’t matter anymore so based on what I know about you to you seem to like lots of different things lots of different foods I’m guessing let me know if I’m off base here but I would probably try to have something on the tapis side and try to essentially give you as many different options as possible so you can taste everything feel full but not feel like gross at the end of the day so I think that’s what I would Target foodwise in Cuisine I’ll try to match that as best I could am I close what are you thinking where am I at is it did the ADHD come out during our intro call and you’re like I no theyve got them pegged I’m not going to admit anything I just got the m and I felt like maybe this is where we’re gonna head am I even close though is that is that right yeah oh I absolutely would love a toas night yeah yeah me too I have a very very expensive paa pan gifted to me by bikeman and I have not broken it in and I don’t want to just make paa and serve it I would actually like to make like six different risoto and serve all the risotto in that pan so you can have like a risotto tasting uh it’s Blasphemous if you’re Italian but I think I’d try to do it that way not Italian just like a meat right just Meats it’s like it’s meat but it’s this big golden paa pan and it’s beautiful and I have no reason to serve anyone on it like I could serve my daughter or a giant pancake or something but it’s not g to work out so yeah she would love a giant pancake like that is something I feel like any child would remember is my dad made a giant pancake every Tuesday every Tuesday I gotta ask I’m glad you bring up the the you you mentioned pancakes I was you know admittedly like when we put together the show we you know have some photos we use for the thumbnail and I notice in a lot of your photos Andy you have you you have a shirt that says pancakes you’re often posing with a an absolutely delicious looking stack of pancakes like would you say this is a core food to your identity are you are you a do you identify as a lover of Pancakes okay uh we’re gonna sound very arrogant for a moment I feel confident that I make some of the best pancakes out there and I’m for some reason there’s something in my head confident that I’m going to have some type of Pancake Challenge thrown in my life I don’t know when it’s going to happen maybe it’s between me and Gordon Ramsay or maybe Jos tman we have a Pancake Challenge and I want to show them that I make better pancakes than they do of any variety I genuinely have that confidence but if I can be honest about 50% of the stuff that you see me post I am somewhat trolling uh the pancake shirt is actually trolling the Supreme company the pancake stacks of of the reason why there pancake Stacks everywhere is because I usually measure uh technology equipment game consoles computers even the Rog Aly and steam deck and how tall it is in pancakes because I think product specs are so redundant so I have gotten to the level of showing off pancakes everywhere kind of as a joke but now I’m just associ I’m synonymous with breakfast food and primarily pancakes and ever since my online arguments stating with very very deep Dives about 10 tweets long about why pancakes are superior to waffles because they are uh yeah that is part of me now pancakes are there and I know there’s someone violently stomping their feet or punching their dashboard right now but yeah I feel like that’s the absolute truth we can go into that right now this the rest of this entire show can be about the superiority of pancakes right now we don’t need to go any further I assure you oh I’m with you I choose a pancake over a waffle or french toast like any day I think you could do like so there’s like so many different toppings kind of like Crepes like you just kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure with pancakes do you have a not just like we’re not really derailing do you have a secret ingredient when you make your pancakes that you would like to share with the class I don’t believe in secret ingredients I don’t believe in secret ingredients although there are some major advantages um here’s two hacks one try lemon extract in your pancakes that’s actually a great flavor it’s really unexpected but not ingredient but a method I’ve told everyone this a thousand times but if you have omelette pans that are oven safe and you’re cooking pancakes throw your pan into the oven at like 400 degrees for like five minutes it Cooks from two different directions so the residual heat from the bottom of the pan is toasting the cakes and essentially getting those crispy edges but the heat from the oven is cooking the top layer so it’s cooking a little faster you’re not worrying about burning the other side you don’t have doughy cakes and it fluffs up twice as hard uh that’s primarily because of different reactions happening with baking powder but yeah that is that is my my key to to better pancakes well thank you I just like took real time notes I to try both of those and lemon extra extract I really like that I always love like a oh God my friend she made this like lemon blueberry like sauce like it was for a cake that she made and I always remember it but the next morning we had like leftover like this lemon blueberry sauce and we put it on pancakes and it was delicious and like one of my favorite pancake moments I’m going to say try lemon cello and blueberry next time and yeah like lemon cello ice cream or just lemon cello over like an ice cream cup and like just light it on fire and then like put that over pancakes that sounds like super fancy but delicious I Like It Lemon cello is amazing Andy related to the the the comparison photos with the pancakes which I love by the way I with with as I grow older I I’ve I’ve been exposed to thicker and fluffier pancakes um you know you have your basic I’m trying to like like um Buffet variety that I feel like are kind of thin my mom then started making them with with buttermilk and they got fluffier and when I moved to Kansas City I was there’s a Australian bakery here that makes their pancakes with ricotta cheese and they are the fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever had so where do you fall on like the fluffy Factor how how do you achieve your your fluffiness with your pancakes what are you trying to say Sam I that oven method that I that I did drop earlier does add a lot of air to your pancakes it adds a lot it reduces a lot of the thickness the the weight that comes with it because it’s baking but the egg white trick I.E uh foam not foaming um bringing your egg whites to stiff peaks and folding it into your batter is always the more known way to making sure your pancakes are fluffier the ricot is a great method because it’s a lighter Dairy than just adding buttermilk which buttermilk has so much fat and because of the way the fat is reacting inside of that cooking process it is pushing out a little bit more you know if you have a lot of butter butter starts to melt butter creates steam steam creates air air makes you know a bigger pancake it’s pretty simple but if you think about it from the point of view of making a lighter pancake things Little Steps like sifting your flour little things like making sure that if you’re going to be cooking at a higher temperature start high and then reduce to allow it to cook a little bit slower those are usually good ways to get fluffy pancakes it’s because when you’re cooking pancakes on a griddle you have this nice even heat so you have less to worry about when you’re cooking on a frying pan the heat drops suddenly and then you have these inconsistencies which is why you get weird spots at your pancakes is why I throw the whole in the oven so I think those are some of the quick quick hacks I have when it comes to Pancake fluffiness but I do need to find some new more vegan focused uh processes out there I think I need to get more of that going on especially with the uh aquafaba if you want to use that instead of egg whites that’s the way to go for sure well thank you for all of the great like cooking advice and I we could go on and on about cooking like obviously this is not a cooking podcast it’s not why am I here I know it’s I’m so sorry we actually fooled you and lied about what this podcast was about um but I want to go back to so last year You released your latest cookbook the ultimate Gamers cookbook um and we for those who are watching you can see it on screen you can get it I think Amazon or any of like your local bookstores online bookstores I would love to know like since you’ve also worked in like influencer Marketing in the video game industry and now this like this cookbook what kind of came first your love for video games your love for cooking how did you get to this like point where you were able to mesh like both of these together you know I still haven’t gotten to the point of accepting that these books are on shelves and family and friends go look what I found like that never stops being weird uh to be honest with you and when they see my name they’re just like hey that’s you that’s really you you like it’s not another Andy uh I’ve never gotten used to it the birth of this cookbook came from a frustration where there were fewer books dedicated to simple approachable recipes and it’s actually what’s leading me to my third book because I do find that recipes have become bloated inflated overly complicated way too direct and not and don’t doesn’t leave enough room for improvisation for modification and I feel like we need to do better so when the publisher and I came together and talked about we wanted something approachable and game night became the approachable method you want something that’s very simple do your best to keep your hands clean but it should be dishes that anybody can get from their local grocer or their local store uh because one other criticism I have of other cookbooks is going to find beetroot sugar and like 30 other ingredients at stores that are nowhere near you stop you from making recipes but even in addition not many people are trained to adjust on the Fly they don’t know how to replace they don’t know what to do and that’s not helping them so the game night book was born to kind of break down the barriers and show accessibility the same way we do with games and then allow food to be a bigger focus on the game night rather than just grabbing your pizzas and grabbing your other Stacks so I had a lot of Ed to different video games card games and lots of memes in this book which was a ton of fun but I do think that this book is born of games first and food second but that’s just how most of us are I’ve been playing games since I was six and after I left the hospitality industry I meant to go into marketing and PR for food and then eventually said no most of my friends reminded me that I know games better so I decided to go in that direction and the rest is history but it’s still a good way to share the passion of love and passion and love behind food uh through this medium which has been great I’m curious with the so you come up with this idea with the publisher for the book of like game night is your your window in um once you’ve and and creating recipes that are accessible love that I I will never forgive the recipe whatever recipe I made several years ago that called for white pepper um which is a a very expensive bottle of spice that I bought and have not used in any recipe since uh put white pepper in your alfredo sauce for that is writing that down but so you had the idea and the theme for it and kind of the objective for the mission you’re trying to accomplish with it what’s the next step from there how do you go into themes or do you just take it one recipe at a time oh that’s just a painful answer it’s just nothing but pain after that it’s it’s it’s it’s debating back and forth about where things should go they’ve been a great publisher it’s inside editions and may have been really great in trying to get information to my head to be able to translate what I’m doing but also trying to adhere to what the Casual reader usually uh leans into a lot of books have it done in sections where it’s breakfast items lunch items dinner items dessert items and a lot of other books might go into uh separating it into regions if you’re going multi-regional some folks might go into Just Desserts just drinks and then all food so how you want to tell your story has a lot to do with how you write your book with my next book uh I’m actually going by skill level instead so there can be uh honestly I’m looking at my whiteboard now because I just I whiteboard this every day like I’m working at it all the time but the idea is soups salad sandwiches morning midday midnight and what else did I write you know groups Gathering solo and then storage I.E food that you can just put away for the time being or maybe even meal prep I’m trying to make a book that is even more accessible more approachable to folks who don’t normally follow recipes so I’m trying to think about how to go that route but for ultimate Gamers and for the sake of Diablo and deep contrary to that for Diablo this was actually based off of different locations within the Diablo universe so when you’re talking about the Steeps or if you’re talking about different areas in uh in without throughout the world I’m just going to say that because I’m not sure if everyone’s playing Diablo I don’t want to get too deep but you theme it based off of where those uh particular regions are and then you try to tie the food into the themes that’s there yeah that’s that that makes sense to me uh do you have so so crafting the ultimate Gamers cookbook um throughout the the development of it like do you recall certain like moments of like whether it was the order ing of it or certain recipes and where they would go where like where I guess what I’m trying to build toward is where do you get your creativity from when putting together these sort of thematic collections of recipes absolute failure uh that’s a lot a lot of inspiration comes from repetition this is only because I worked in kitchens for so long and you had so many opportunities to create and iterate while you were in school and while you worked in restaurants you don’t really make dishes on the fly but as you’re making them you have something that’s just so down pat that you can alter and change the recipes into something that’s for you but the most painful part of recipe writing was I don’t know I didn’t know how to write recipes properly it is a completely different game not to the point where you want a food scientist there but when I season with salt having to tell the reader this is one tablespoon of salt and I’m only like half sh about that because I’m seasoning with my eyes and I say how much is that again well that make sense and it depends on how what kind of book you’re writing and certainly your publisher but they don’t really let season two taste slide they don’t let uh you know and it’s the truth is it’s why I’m so anti- cookbook now like it was it was an eye openening moment of there are some folks in the world that absolutely need step one through 10 listed out completely they need that but there’s other folks who go I just need some new ideas and I do think that that was a big struggle for me uh I I I struggle now explaining recipes to folks online who say hey where’d you get the recipe oh I’ll say I use this method and change it however you want to and they’re paralyzed like no you need to tell me exactly what you did to make it look like that or I could never make it and it’s like oh my God I was messing around with it when I made this day so yeah it’s hard it can get really distracting sometimes I I understand your your pain but as someone who’s on the other side who like I I did not grow up learning like how to cook and I am I am new to the like cooking world I need the like step one through 20 like clearly listed out also I joked about the ADHD this morning no if I don’t have each step and I’m not Crossing them off I will miss something or I’m going to add like two pounds of pepper and then like something crazy and I’m going to like poison my entire dinner party uh so I I feel like that’s I understand the Publishers being like no you can’t just say like season to taste but I do Wonder because I haven’t read many cookbooks like are there cookbooks out there that are more for I guess like experienced um chefs I guess as you’ll say that like may say like seasoned to taste or you do you think it’s usually pretty much like you’ve got to have looking at my cookbooks here I have a library to my right which I don’t know maybe I should have this behind me instead of you know alard but I I’m looking at two books now and there is baking and pastry it’s a Culinary Institute of America book that’s the college I went to that is a book that is expectant of learning particular terms at the glossery so it won’t teach you again it’s also recipes that are for scale so you’re making enough Crepes for like a hundred people and then you are supposed to scale the recipes down but there’s another book called the flavor Bible that is technically not a recipe book it’s just a list of food a list of ingredients that tells you this goes with this but this tastes better with this so you might go to the o to the glossery O it’ll go to Orange and it’ll tell you everything that tastes good with oranges and it’ll tell you blood oranges taste good with this or that pistachios or for fennel seed that’s actually for professionals that know hey I have a few ideas these ingredients I have how do I put this together that’s a book that you can recommend but I do think that there are some expert level books that skip all the fluff and I do see them out there but if you’re that well trained you you don’t frequently buy cookbooks unless you’re trying a brand new Cuisine so there’s a bit of a rock and a hard place for giving a book to a trained professional when a lot of will just go online or just watch a video or an episode of chopped and just kind of watch it happen and if you’ve been cooking as long as I have you can just look at it and go cool I know what to do and then just go do it um otherwise there’s some food out there that I don’t have the slightest clue how to do that and I need to practice this about five times like making uh raspberry caviar for the sake of example if you want like a really obscure example uh I’d seen that on Tik Tok a few times I understood the process I know what I need to get and within about a couple rounds I can do so but it’s that simple so I think there needs to be uh a few books for the pros but I do believe that we need more books for the amateurs because a lot of books have become you know what I’m not going to use the word I was going to use I think I think a lot of books have become difficult that’s the word I’ll use Caitlyn I if I may I am curious if your cookbooks were more like workbooks like let’s just say it was more like sharped instead of yeah a very delicate book with binding and you had the opportunity to dry erase the steps and then write notes in pen if you wanted to just to have those lists there what are your thoughts about having something like that because that’s something I don’t see all the time I really like that you just like if there like imagine a theoretical like a animated light bulb next to my head it went off when you said that because it’s like I’m holding a pen right now and I’m not even writing I just like always have a notebook near me and I always have a pen and I jot things down all the time as soon as I have like a thought I like that I think it makes it a more I want to say more interactive experience even though it’s already interactive because you’re cooking something with your hands but being able to like add your own thoughts cuz I there are many recipes that I followed and I’m like oh I’m like this could have used like more vanilla or something like who knows um but I and I always add like more pepper and salt or whatever and then like other spices and just more tomato like I feel like a lot of recipes are the very like bare minimum and I always find having to like add more or I changed like the oven temp or it’s like that didn’t for my oven specifically like maybe that didn’t cook all the way through and I have to like I have to change something so I like that idea because not everybody Cooks the same way not everybody has the same taste I sometimes like I like making like stir fry I kind of like burning things that may s that may be sacriligious Ling yeah yeah like Gordon Ramsey is about to KCK down my front door and put call me an idiot sandwich um like everybody just has their own preferences so I don’t know that that’s a very interesting idea and I think I would buy a cookbook that had that in it you actually bring up a really honest point that I’m going to be a little vulnerable here but I think it’s where I’ve struggled the most when it comes to sending or providing recipes because there’s a point where you can’t help but feel like you’re lying a little bit and I don’t mean in writing it down and selling a product I mean you mentioned it quite well how much salt is what salt are you using right are you using kosher diamond or you using culture ground what kind of pan is you you know what kind of pan are you using how much metal is there how heavy is the base how much heat is your stove putting out do you have hot spots in your oven what’s your elevation how much time are you tracking when it’s golden brown versus what someone tells you H what kind of tongs are you using all of these things all lend to slowly creating variants among the recipe that no matter what you do the variations are still going to come so it’s the hardest part about writing recipes because in in the moment I know it’s about a cup of salt but I also go but I need to say if it’s iodized I also need to say if it’s kosher I also need to make sure you don’t do this all in one sentence and it even drives me a little crazy where hey it’s a it’s a it’s a cup of strawberries and whether or not you’re talking about a cup of whole strawberries you can be specific to say use enough strawberries to cover the top for the sake of example but then there are a lot of strawberry Brands out there I use Driscoll those are the best strawberries how do you know if they’re ripe and if you didn’t get the ripest strawberries does that impact the flavor do you really like it so it becomes this never ending spiral of there’s so many variables that I can’t control and I want to do my best but then you don’t want to lose the reader you certainly don’t want to lose the viewer so it gets tough yeah that’s you extrapolated things I was saying that I did didn’t even know what I was saying in the moment um well I again like so this book is it is it’s a cookbook but it’s also branded it’s for gamers it’s to elevate your gaming night I it makes me think of like we have lots of video games about cooking in general we’ve got like most re recently I played good pizza great pizza it was on Apple arcade I loved that game youve got games like cooking mama we can go all the way back to Pac-Man which is essentially a game about like you’re eating things um and like and food in general has just it’s very synonymous with like in games as a health item or to like give you Buffs in your game what like why do you think gaming and cooking or food in general have such this like synonymous like relationship why why do we always why do we think of gaming when we’re thinking of food and vice versa I feel like in the last 15 years or so food is so approachable and easy to understand that in the world of cooking systems and games it’s been easy to understand that if I eat the turkey the wall turkey in Castlevania you know I’m going to be able to get health back so we’ve we we’ve already associated with food and health being something that’s very closely tied together we’ve done it with lots of games games Pac-Man you know inclusive of that for more points in time being able to train a player and understanding certain mechanics is just easier to do with food and cooking than it is to do with potions and all these meta systems I also believe that food is so Universal that it’s easy to find Community when it comes to games the way you do food because food is often a social experience you know no matter how introverted you might be everyone can remember a time where they’re sharing a meal with someone and sharing a meal with a group and you often experience games of any type the same way now to watch us slowly March towards those connection points obviously dirty controllers don’t really match with you know uh dirty plates but I do think that being able to have a meal is the thing that you end up doing whether you’re going to an Esports event or just hanging out on the couch because you’re going to order you know you know the trope we’re eating Cheetos and ordering pizza food’s always been there but we’re just getting older and we’re just maturing with it right like for a while the Mountain Dew Cheeto dust uh you know Trope has always been there even though I don’t remember did you guys do that I didn’t eat Mountain Dew I didn’t drink mountain and eat Cheetos all the time I it wasn’t Cheetos it was Doritos and I I think it was because of Call of Duty has always had The Branding with Mountain Dew yes and so I think that’s like I I know I bought both of those to get the double XP I’m not even I well this is like Teenage me I I think if I drink a sip of Mountain Dew today I would have a heart attack like just fall to the ground and die um I I make a face because I know you drink a ghost regularly okay wait is Ghost an energy drink is an energy drink it’s got like Pre-Workout in it whatever I’m drinking an Alani today and I have sparkling water with lemons you know I there’s balance in my life um double fishing of drinks is hilarious I also I also have my Evan water just to like really add to the that’s my like Flat Water mineral water you know I don’t even know what I was saying I Andy you bring up the the Doritos Mountain Dew which I was never I’m I’m too like scared of uh like scuffing up my controllers and getting like nacho cheese dust all over them that that was never my bag but I know that is largely at least was kind of The Stereotype or the thing people associate with oh I’m going to game and this is what I’m going to eat maybe that in a Hot Pocket um I’m I’m curious if if that like stigma came up at all When developing this book and like thinking of the audience for it was that a hurdle you had to overcome when like telling people you were making a cookbook for with with you know people who love games and mind or do you feel like we’re we’re past that stereotype and that’s in the rear remir I think we’re a little bit past it but that did lend itself to the book quite well because I was aiming to give options to folks to have food available for all kinds of game nights and again we’re talking about tabletop we’re talking about cards Uno and of course Co-op couch gaming with controllers like two of the rest Rees in the book are inside of jars one of them is a noodle dish a cold noodle dish that you can serve ahead of time and you can pull those out instead of greasy Pizza another one is uh essentially having tacos but they’re served inside of puff pastry so you can have an entire Taco bite you can just pop that in but you can replace that with turkey meat you can do vegetables you can do vegan I did Tofu for an example so you can do it that way so you could have these nice foods to game with rather than doing the fallback Staples but the reason why I focused on game night is because very few books that I had seen had that kind of event in mind uh the publisher had also mentioned that where I like they’ve always wanted to see a book like this as well which is fantastic but it’s fascinating to know that so many of the recipes out there were dedicated to cooking for two cooking for families and as time goes on books start to fade into the background like people are releasing new cookbooks probably every week week at this point and after a while you have to start reminding folks what’s available my book is going to be in a sea of other books that are available but when it’s really targeting something that you might want to do whether it’s you want to start hosting more social events because we’ve been locked up for so long and people are still getting themselves out it was meant to inspire you to not only create an experience with the food and with the games but then put the onus on someone else to make a game night right like hey take the book now it’s your turn to host next week let’s get together but instead of just ordering whatever now it’s a recipe from the book uh there’s a few things I didn’t get to pull off in that area but the act of trading and sharing information was absolutely something I wanted to do I love that idea of the the passing on the knowledge to the next group or or make or like not just making the eating of the food a shared activity but the learning and the the EXP experience gaining if you will to use a a gaming like lingo of of you know tackling each recipe as a group I think is really fun I you mentioned earlier uh the creative process for writing these books was you know partly informed by failure of what what does and doesn’t work about a recipe and what does and doesn’t work about um writing and and um putting these recipes in stone if you will um what lessons have you learned from these two cookbooks like at a at a more kind of like macro level both the ultimate Gamers cookbook and the Diablo 4 cookbook that’s informing your approach to this third book one I’ve made so many mistakes especially in Diablo it’s embarrassing it’s just like how did I miss that because you’re waiting you’re trying to get to a deadline that is the sincere truth but another learning from those books is there are cultural differences that are missed in books all too often I imagine if I were to leave this country and focus on the range of cookbooks available in other places we’re going to see a dramatically different perspective but going back to accessibility if I could have had my book localized it would go a lot further but we don’t do that if I could have had my book clearly articulated to not I I did um Imperial and Metric uh and metric system measurements in the same recipe but then I felt like well we’re missing accessibility for Braille or missing accessibility for folks who might have Vision issues I think the text is too small there’s not enough options to take the book home it’s so standard and I think that has been the lesson because the failures come from folks who cannot achieve the vision they had of the dish and then of course the biggest thing and this is actually my biggest piece of feedback for all cookbooks the feedbacks not there you get a review on Amazon you get some folks who are making pieces but I know that the only way you’re going to get these recipes down is to make make it like five times mess with it as much as possible to make it your own and then write that down and make it your recipe that’s the one part that really hurts the most where I will get some folks who say great recipe fantastic they might have at best made two or three recipes from the book not many people make a lot of them because some PE if you have one cookbook you probably have 10 I have 66 so I feel like there are just some things that you don’t get and that back and forth is so critical and though lots of bloggers you know you see the blogs that happen where people scroll all the way down they see the comments good recipe but I changed about 45 things that are here and completely changed the dish but five out of five right uh I just know that that happens more often than uh people might like to admit and I do believe every failure that the reader has is a failure of my own does that make sense yeah so like I guess like reverse engineering those in a way to try to get ahead of how people might adapt or make them their own or uh like you said completely change what the intent was um yes it’s part of the objective with the next book exactly I don’t take offense when people change the recipe I only take offense when they say it’s wrong it’s like of course it’s wrong it’s my version it’s what I’m doing if you want to copy this down to the very very letter you need to be in the kitchen with me and yes there are some recipes out there that if you do every single thing this way it’ll come out just like that but then you’re getting away from what cooking can be because not everybody has the same equipment and not everybody has the same style and if you’re only replicating the food then are you really expressing at that point there’s a time in a place where you’re grilling a piece of chicken and there’s a right way to do that sure but if we’re talking about an entire dish that’s a different story what speaking of the feedback and the audience for the book one thing I’m curious about what you’ve learned from these past two books is is the audience of them is what have you learned about finding them like I mean I know you uh targeted game night with the with the theme with the publisher but once the book was finished tell us about what the the marketing the distribution the getting the book out in front of people and uh what that experience was like and what you learned from it all right we’re going to get into PR talk here uh so so oh there’s the topic there’s what our podcast is about how long we’ve been talking so far my goodness um I’ll be honest and you know if it’s possible I actually like to see your faces when I say this so here’s what I’m gonna say right now I had absolutely no idea how crazy upside down the world of book publishing Book Sales and book promotions are it felt like walking into the mafia uh like what you know it’s like you understand games you understand influencer marketing and then when the books came out all of these people that I’ve never seen before suddenly started following and all of these people following very different rules were there I learned about how the New York Times best bestseller list works I learned how the Amazon bestseller list works and it felt like an ocean of dread like oh no this isn’t wholesome this is Cutthroat this is wild but luckily I cultivated a relationship with so many good individuals who have a strong influence who were day one buying the book Because I had been harassed to write a book for a long time and I finally did it and the support was undeniably incredible I can’t it was incredible to see but here’s where it gets crazy when you’re promoting a book you have to send so many of them when I say so many we’ve seated codes for games in the past we’ve done you know a few thousand selling a few thousand books is a very heavy shipping labor intensive uh piece and then as you’re choosing the people who get to put them in bookstores get to put them in different areas I have no control over that that is something that those folks have down and then in a world where your book can be in Barnes and Nobles you don’t know when it’s going to be there so all of a sudden somebody can order your book oh that’s a great book and they can have a full display which happened in New York it was a bunch of gaming related cookbooks I was next to Pokemon I was next to Pokemon great and it meanss nothing because no one contacts you you don’t really do signings it’s insane so it just feels like you do all this work you hold the trophy above your head link style and then it’s out into the sea it’s an ocean uh I have no clue how anyone navigates that world if you have a better idea about what to do you let me know there’s a library behind you C Caitlyn but I’m just saying this is a fake this is a fake Library actually but it’s representative of like my world around me is literally hundreds of books and I will die by my books falling on me one day that is like I’m saying that as a fact um it would be hilarious to see you replicate that exact bookshelf and then just turn off the green screen it’s just the exact same bookshelf oh that that is the dream I just like don’t have this current setup in my apartment to make this a reality but like I could if if I had a wall space and like a desk like I could put it in front of it um I have this many books I have I think a library is you have to have at least like 900 books I’m close I could technically have like my own personal Library um I I actually when I was in college getting my writing degree I thought I wanted to work in book publishing that was I like started out I was editing like manuscripts and learning about the the book publishing industry and and you’re right is very Cutthroat Cutthroat and like the world of Barnes & Noble and Amazon has really changed the industry and even recently like Barnes & Noble has changed how their stores work where it’s like I think it used to be like whatever like headquarters corporation like they chose what books were sent to like each store and now it’s almost like the individual owners of each Barnes & Noble location can like they can order what books they want and put those out so it’s like it’s it’s changing and I think like pretty rapidly so I don’t have any advice I hopefully someone’s listening and like they’ve got advice but I I pay attention still with like I follow a lot of authors and the conversation around book publishing and I like it is a hard world out there and like I there just really is no easy or right answer and I feel for everybody who’s publishing book right now cuz it’s tough and unless you get like those viral like moments or book talk and all that stuff it’s I was about to say do you follow book talk because I book talk gets dicey because I always end up in that section of book talk I I I say everybody is in charge of their own for you page and if people are on that side of Book talk then and it’s literally your job and you can get out of that side of Book talk um and it’s not that hard to do but no I that that’s sort of J half joking but also I get it that part of book talk is a very large portion of it and it it’s hard to get visibility if you’re in any other subsection and not just like the most viral like ya new adults like sub genre of books um I don’t know I don’t I don’t want to like get to In The Weeds because that’s a that’s a whole other topic and we could we could have an episode of book talk if we find a way to relate it to games but um yeah it’s I I don’t have any answers for you but I it’s it is odd I mean go back to the days where we had Prima guides like I have I have a Souls born book around here sometimes it’s no souls born I have an Elden ring book and it’s the guide It’s the breakdown it’s everything right it’s a beautiful book I needed to have it Elden Rings like game of a [ __ ] oh sorry can I swear sorry R is okay but Elden ring is a game of a lifetime and I I needed the book I also think back to well how do you put a book like that out like you know your audience you’re selling it to Gamers people who play the game so then I wonder is there like a world where there can be some crossover because we’ve all we’ve seen the gaming cookbooks right that’s a really lwh hanging fruit example we’ve seen the art gaming books right and now I’m starting to ask myself besides guides art and now food are there books that we are not thinking about when it comes to being able to bridge the relationship between the player and their experience and non-endemic experiences now I’m kind of thinking about it right yeah we’ve admired the work at UH lost and Colt uh quite AIT I don’t know if you’ve followed their like published collections of really thoughtful game analysis um and we’ve you know we’ve had the im8 bit folks on this show and I know they don’t do book publishing but they’re in the market of physical game goods and games in shop biz’s newsletter today was just about the market of gaming vinyl and all this goes to say is like you highlight a good point that they’re we are shifting towards an increasingly Niche but still possibly very like fruitful Market of game Goods that aren’t just statues and Collector’s Editions of the game itself so I’m very interested to see where like the publishing side specifically goes from here uh because there is a market there but like you said there still feels like there’s Stones left to be overturned yeah I have Xbox toaster was a good investment oh I’m so sorry I I have the Xbox uh mini fridge I don’t know why I have that I have one too no I have one too I expected better yes it doesn’t hold very much also my camera’s out of focus again Excuse me while I fix that hopefully that fixed that no I it just like wants me to be out of focus today um yeah I I’m a huge fan of like the lost in cult books um I have a lot of them out like on display out in my living room room next to another company that does a really good job of like these almost like highquality like branded books it’s not about video games but a24 puts out a lot of like really interesting books around movies um which is another like genre of entertainment that I think like other than like screenplays or like the the books around movies have not really been as creative that I think a24 is kind of changing um I I’m sure there are tons of books about games that we that haven’t been published that like we haven’t seen yet um the a24 example makes me wonder if there’s a market for like really nice publish and of course this would peel so many layers back on the industry and the way games are made that just isn’t the case right now so I don’t know if this would ever happen but if someone would be brave enough to do it I would really admire it and I would be interested in getting it is like a published book of design docs like concept art uh gameplay design docs um how character models progress over the years of making the game like that sort of toome chronicling how a game goes from conception to final product would be really I mean a educational but B also just really interesting to fans of whatever that game would be um there’s a there’s a free idea I mean we see those in collector’s often in games where you have the little booklet that it’s so adorable and you see concept art and locations and other areas weapon art it’s interesting to think about it from the perspective of from start to finish for maybe like a deprecated game like the team from Dead Space could do something like this now where that game is done that story’s been told I’m sure someone will resurrect it again but it would be F fascinating to go through the thought process and have that documented I think Destiny would be a a Grand seller uh just to be able to kind of look at it from that perspective because so much has gone into that game and has changed over 10 years uh the serendipitous that we’re talking about it today but I do believe that it is fascinating to think about being able to see a design doc that’s a good one that’s a really good one returning to just the the book itself and and the marketing of it Andy you mentioned your experience working in influencer marketing and management I’m curious like other than or or maybe part of it of course uh to elaborate further on is the highlighting of creators you said like the key voices that would you know shine a light on the book and it would resonate with them and they would have an audience interested in um checking out the book themselves like what other you know were there any other ways that your experience working in influencer marketing influenced your own marketing of your book yeah and it was actually it’s almost a paradox getting out there and promoting the book actually makes a big difference so there’s this it seems to be a stigma if you think about it from the perspective of how a twitch streamer or a YouTube Creator pushes their Channel out to other IND individuals if we were all at Pax or if we were all at twitchcon and let me know if you heard this before if you were out there saying hey I am this individual person you follow my channel we would just go away you know you know hold up their cell phones do you know who I am that’s very poor Behavior but if we were to go in the direction of how you should be talking about your brand the marketing of that is going to signings put yourself out there have conversations like this my wife wants to kill me every day because I’m actually the one person that doesn’t talk about his book at all because I’m shy and nervous about it because I’ve learned all of the humble like the humility of hospitality like you know stay down let let the food speak for itself and in gaming in in your channel let the content speak for itself and I don’t talk about my own book and in fact I’ve actually forgotten that I’ve written it more than a few times where I was like oh yeah I did the thing and it’s not to be like humble brag it’s just that you have to be so front and center doing the work and putting it out there and even signing the book I’m thinking nobody wants to see my signature I should get this other person to sign my book and she’s again slapping me upside the head but it is actually a very active in yourface uh promotion because it is a connection to the artist in a way and they do want your fingerprints on that book and it’s it’s such a learning and I realize that the my peers who’ve all sold books have had to just constantly Railroad and go go go go go because it is the only way to not only inform folks because once folks know they go oh that’s great I would love to buy it but we’re not used to that Behavior Uh even Josh weissman’s a great example bending with babish is a good example of I’m putting this book in every single video and it just feels weird after a while like I just don’t want to keep doing this seems like you want to make you want to sell the book you want to do those things but if you just wait like three months everyone’s GNA forget you have a book so right like once you sh shut off the valve people forget so getting comfortable with that has been the most difficult part of marketing uh and talking about the book and putting it out there and I think this is why publicists exist like I’ll do it for you because we know we never will but this it’s a very familiar story I’ve heard with other with other authors and I am a very minimal author by comparison to a fiction author but I mean look at r r right both are you know George you know not the other one but but when we talk about George even he is somebody who is a well-known author doesn’t really talk about his own book the same way at least not now he’s more like I’m telling new stories but this looks really fun I would love to know how those folks think like if I could talk to more authors not even cookbook authors what’s it like for them what have you experienced I’m curious we’re not authors oh no no not oh you’re asking them okay the way it ended I was like wait hey fellow authors no no no I I I meant what have you seen and when it comes to promoting or marketing a book like that what’s that like from what I’ve seen with like a lot of authors is just it’s the book tour going to like there’s a lot of like book events like New York’s got a book show LA we just had one here recently um and like a I I’m in La so there’s a lot of like a lot of bookstores a lot of author talks that I go to I’ve found a lot of authors that way but like you said like a publicist exists because like not everybody can do all the publicizing themselves like authors their job is to write books so like once once they’ve put a book out most of the time they’re like immediately starting another book and don’t have time to like do full like fully publicize the book that they just put out many of them do and I don’t really think that they have a lot of free time and I commend them for it yeah it’s just this like constant like you’ve got to be promoting it you’ve got to be sending it out to like the The Arc copies which for those who don’t know Advanced reader copies to influencers your book talk your book tube the people who review on good reads I used to be one of those people like I used to get books sent and I would write reviews um I no longer do that now because just don’t have time but it it is like this constant work and effort to get your book out there and I think especially in the past 10 years I think there’s just been like so many more books are being published and it’s you’re really like fighting get on on those like when you walk in a bookstore on those like front tables and the endc caps and you’re fighting to be like that the one that’s viral on Tik Tok and I think that’s also changing how a lot of people are writing books for better or worse you could probably people can make their own assumptions there but like I don’t know it’s it’s this whole thing of like people having to change how they’re making video games to follow Trends or how they’re writing about video games and how they’re writing books and were all victims to the SEO lifestyle algorithm I uh I worked at a local bookstore before um going to college and I always enjoyed the author events we put on and one of the events that were most popular for our area were partnered or like um you know kind of combined events where it was two authors with a similar audience but not necessarily readers had was familiar with either of their works and off like it was a good way to expand Their audience um to a demographic that was most likely going to be interested in what they were writing and it was also it made the Talk itself much more exciting because versus like a librarian or the bookstore owner um asking questions for the author which were often engaging it was fun hearing two people who just really get it who are doing the exact same thing but have different experiences and are not necessarily writing about the same thing but maybe something similar and they can swap their experiences and finding those similarities and differences um make for really interesting Nuance conversations and I mean all that goes to say is is like um I’m curious if you’ve connected much or um scen like what does the landscape look like for kind of Niche entertainment focused cookbooks like is that like what are other authors that you’ve met or like that you would connect with for something like that there’s still room because as you’ve learned with the world of influence and with how we consume media now there’s something out there for everyone and whatever you think you’re crazy is someone else likes that c as well truthfully uh believe me there was there was a time in my life where I thought who’s going to about what the stricks Haven School in the match of the Gathering universe is going to have in their commissary and then I got a campaign about that if you want to know how crazy I literally thought it’d be so cool because these colleges have all this food I want to know what they eat everyone’s gonna have an interest so I do think that the world will benefit from having more folks to explore those niches and find creativity I just don’t think there needs to be a product tied to every single thing even I feel weird about having a fun idea and thinking I need to make a product capitalism sell I just think there’s room to share but if you consider how many how meta things get over time you can attach to anything that you love right there’s actually a great Channel I follow on Tik Tok called nich te and she essentially talks about all of the uh the the the gentle drama or the weird drama that’s happening in communities that you may not be part of and the truth is many many times I have not been part of those communities some one one time it was part of Pokemon go another one it was about renars another one was about the uh knitting Community they all have their drama she she tells it all I found I find it to be very fascinating until she came across my tea and I was like oh wait I’m part of this community what’s going on and then I get the info from this individual who’s just looking from the outside in I found that to be fascinating but just to find out again Reddit can tell you just how many micro communities are out there and now discord’s telling you the same thing there’s a lot of room for folks to have their fun but I the last thing I’ll say is I do believe big Tech has persuaded us to think that everything needs to be scaled like everything needs to be MCU Call of Duty fortnite levels a big where no we’re all happy with our like group of 400 people here who happen to like you know the interworkings of the political system within Monsters of Might and Magic in the year you know like again that completely random random made up but I think folks are pretty happy in their micro communities and we don’t want them to Silo we want them to feel welcome but I think that’s what it looks like that’s my thought there I I like that you said something in our in our the call we had before this podcast recording where you’re like return to the small things as like advice to people when like creating something because like you never know like even something that feels like a niche or like micro community may still have like millions of people who are interested in that thing because like we’re a planet of what seven billi seven and a half billion people um that’s that’s a lot of people and a lot of people have like very similar interests so I I you said that on that Callum that has like just stuck with me that’s like even if you’re like you’re interested in thing you’re like oh it’s not big enough or it’s not interesting enough like you never know it it may be like if it interests you it’s most likely going to interest other people as well agreed it’s what I try very hard to train the creators that I work with regardless of where I’m working where it doesn’t matter what type of content you create you should be able to look at a franchise look at a brand look at a character and find a way to relate what you love to said character again I use my ridiculous pancakes example but if I had if I was going to use my favorite franchise in the world Devil May Cry and I go I making breakfast food for all of the cast members in the entire franchise I’m capable excited and very able to do that no one in their right Minds is gonna come up with that idea but it’s mine but I’m still able to talk to the fandom in ways they go that sounds like fun I’m gonna enjoy it I encourage more creators to think this way because if you’re in the mindset of infinite growth you’re gonna play the same game as everybody else and IR regardless of what game you’re playing if it’s all about just get gameplay content go go go go go you’re just handicapping yourself especially since you’ve made yourself run the same race but you also haven’t given your opport yourself the opportunity to expand and then before you you could blow up you could do great you could blow up with that same content but now you missed out on the opportunity to get weird and that’s kind of a downer like one of the one of the few people in the world that I I don’t understand how we never got here but swifter one of the oldest creators in the book like was there at Justin there for twitch swifter is fantastic he created swifter says out of Call of Duty it’s one of the modes that people have talked about for years he does great on Tik Tok short form content that’s there he plays Simon says inside of Call of Duty I think all the clips are hilarious and I’ve been following that series for like seven years he’s been doing it for years and I’m always watching it and that was his thing and that sounds really simple now it’s like oh well it’s a popular game it’s like but you could have taken that Direction with your content in any way shape or form so you really have to find those niches as soon as you can and then carve it out yourself because there’s plenty of room but again the rat race is pushing us all into One Direction yeah that’s you you really called out like a lot of really good points and interesting things and you talked about branding and people like trying to rely on an existing brand when especially with like content creators I feel like a lot of that branding like they should be branding themselves and if you’re a Creator and you’re putting yourself out there like you are you’re already a brand and whatever your name and the community that you’re cultivating and so like if you’ve already got like a solid brand there like just just do what what you like what you’re passionate about and interested in and ignore the like like you said following the the major Trends constantly I I understand like having to do it or wanting to do every now and then um to try and grow your brand but yeah when you’re all com doing the same thing and competing against what another that makes it really difficult to stand out with the rat race like being what it is and and feeling that push to create or to follow the Trends or to try to chase the infinite audience growth um how do you when when taking that opposite approach of what you outlined of of finding that Niche or or trying to find that Niche what’s your advice to other creators and even what drives yourself like to keep going for that audience versus trying to make something that just appeals to the widest bace possible um if that makes sense I think it does I’ll do my best to answer but let me know if I’m off base by slapping me uh so I earlier in our conversation at the top of this chat we had talked about where the affinity and the connection between food and games had come across where’ that come from and I believe that it’s important to remember that no Creator no individual is a monolith you’re not just somebody who’s into one thing we’re all into so many different things and believe you’re best served making sure that people know that because you can easily overbrand yourself to be completely inescapable from certain franchises I’ve worked with a lot of creators who couldn’t move because I am this person and every time I don’t perform elsewhere I don’t get the views and thus I don’t have the confidence or the motivation needed when you approach with variety and change in mind you’re able to find your niches by being open into new experiences Magic the Gathering is actually a great example in this case because many of the systems that we learned from DND transferred over to Magic transferred over to video games okay so there’s a lot of rooted systems that you absolutely love in different franchises and in different mediums and in different entertainment uh devices that are right there at your fingertips and there’s communities in there and you do not need to behave as an individual that is only dedicated to one type of content one type of one type of uh entertainment and even speaking away from creators if you’re somebody looking seeking community and looking to make friends you need to treat yourself the same way you are more than just the person who goes to work plays video games and watches Sports there’s probably a ton more complex there’s tons more complexity to you but if you put yourself in that box you will never explore those complexities I mean we got to fantasy football leagues after the love of sports overflowed past the stadium we ended up getting into Tupperware parties because there was a love of food and cooking but there was also a love of production and organization right I I know it sounds really weird but if you look at those early phases of those Community Gatherings that were happening and the birth of Avon God help us all uh you know there are there’s there’s a there’s a social impact to why those groups are getting interesting and those niches came from whether it became about finding Community wanting to make more money wanting to meet your neighbors or just wanting to get out of the damn house they going to find reasons to find the people but I think that’s how creators can slowly start to find their niches because at the end of the day listen look at Matt Pat look at you know all these other creators who are in their retirement phases who have shown you what happens at the end of the road even when you’re at the top that hey I have had the most views on this platform and I am at burnout you have to start asking yourself what does the end game look like and this is something that probably needs some psychological analysis from a real expert but I do think that the creator of Renaissance is going to come after a massive Fallout of millions of individuals who identified as Creator across multiple platforms Community owners are gonna find a loss of identity if they’re not doing the thing that they love all the time and I do get concerned about those folks I I have a lot of love and affinity for creators who are entrepreneurs but that is something that people will likely ignore and I do think it’s going to be to consider their wellbeing or at the very least give them resources to make sure they don’t taper off and fall off when it comes to emotional support or psychological support very well said yeah I I’ve noticed um I don’t know if it’s a trend but like you said like a lot of them become entrepreneurs at the once they reach that burnout phase and that’s I’m really glad a lot of them are trying to find new avenues to I mean continue make money but hopefully something that also is interesting to them and that they still find enjoyment and value out of and yeah we we’ve talked also about like the potential of Tik Tok no longer existing in America and like how that’s going to affect the millions of creators just in America and like that loss of income and job and identity and what does that mean for that and how do you Market yourself as like employable if you’re a content creator I think there’s also still that cultural I think a cultural shift that needs to happen around how people view creators and we we see this a lot um across many Industries I seen it a lot now in regards to like film um critics or film content creators and a lot of them are getting more involved in interviewing and the industry and there’s lots of thoughts and um soap boxes happening but yeah it’s we’re we’re in a shift and that shift’s going to continue and we’ll we’ll see how it where it lands we are indeed in a paradigm shift you can’t deny that and if you’re not paying attention to it and you’re participating in dated rituals or tactics yeah you’re gonna look a lot like print media did I don’t know how many years ago at this point but I’ve lost count but you let you folks let me know when print media truly died but uh don’t worry be back in 20 20 30 years hey Game Informer is now like you can now go and subscribe to Game Informer Magazine like a physical Edition on their website you no longer have to go through game GameStop or try and go through GameStop like me and then GameStop just never actually sends you the magazine ever just ever let you cancel game inform forer had the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to what do we do with our subscriptions let like make the magazine quality collectible right like this is a magazine that you’re throwing on the floor but if you made it like a prima guide like there’s this always beautiful art on the game and former cover there’s always such interesting pieces but if you made it collectible where it’s like oh I kind of want it I want that displayed I don’t just want it on the on the coffee counter I want it displayed I’m gon to read it once and leave I just don’t know why they didn’t go that route like I feel like an idiot like I’m I’m gonna get hold on literally this is a Japanese V cookbook okay the quality of this book it’s embossed on every single side there’s wonderful binding there’s several different guards that are here and it comes with a very very very nice book cover okay this is not just a cookbook that mimics the rest that I have but this is one of the nicest books that I’ve ever owned and it was probably a more premium price but now I’m more inclined to take care of it and I just feel like where print has gone is well how come people don’t like this cheap stuff that I got like we we’re learning that people will pay a premium for very nice boxes Collector’s Editions don’t get me started on the box disc industry looking at you Blu-ray but right so you just didn’t make going right that’s all I’m saying it’s like you should have just made it nicer I don’t know why we didn’t have that conversation I I have leatherbound Lord of the Rings boxes like it’s um oh is it mant or no H HD Zeta I had to go through like a forum on a website and like paid a I’m not I’m not going to say how much I paid for them but like they’re a premium product and they’re beautiful and they’ve got multiple additions inside that have like the different covers like L lenticular ones full lenticulars like the images Chang they’ve got steelbooks inside they’ve got booklets inside them and like I will pay a premium dollar for that I’ve got my Criterion collections I have so many steel books and they’re all in drawers right now because I haven’t figured out how to display them um though I do have like a really nice like Jaws like um collector’s edition out there yeah I I will pay premium product for movies I have many books that are like premium books I do the like some book subscription boxes I yeah PE like there are people out there who will pay that it’s when they’re like get rid of print media and they’re like well no one buying it it’s like you’re not like it’s not accessible for one I had to like dig through the internet and try and find forums and go through back channels just to get a movie is crazy limited run is GNA save us all yes yes with uh with that paradigm shift that you mentioned Andy I feel like even you know someone works with press as well as influencers the influencer space has changed changes so quickly changes um and it often to a degree that it’s like hard to follow on the dayto day unless you’re immersed in it how how do you follow it yourself how do you keep track of the Paradigm shifts and not just for yourself but also for helping like you say manage these relationships you built over the last couple years speaking as somebody who has had several teams who are supposed to keep their finger on the button no human alive can stay on top of every single Trend so every team needs to have eyes in different areas including agencies that just give you a bit of an understanding about what’s happening but when it comes to trying to know how quickly it’s moving what happens it’s about empowerment you need the opportunity and the ability to act and react to the landscape with speed because that’s what’s going to keep you relevant it’s what’s going to keep you there it’s a 72h hour cycle and it’s not to say that you’re trying to be the best brand at all times but if I’m talking from the brand perspective versus the Creator you both need to be authentic so the moment you try to change your language and change your style now especially the way gen Z and Alpha behaves they’re going to immediately tell hey Brand you don’t need to be like us we’ll respect you if you’re authentic so if you’re always buttoned up and professional if you’re always digital Foundry and then you suddenly try to hip it up they’re going to call you out on it now before it used to be brand shift now it’s no just be you because now you’re the wolf and the F you’re the fox and the headen house no the lamb you’re the wolf and Lamb’s clothing there it is I was like what the heck is that analogy but they just they call you out immediately so best to lean into what you are and what you do there’s no reason to assume that you need to have the attention of every single brand and every single piece because the sincere truth is you probably don’t have 100% of your own audience’s attention so you might as well focus on who’s there and then work towards making sure that they all know that when you say something it’s worth your time I feel like again our infinite growth example is always new audiences and always building it’s just like Hey listen there’s a hundred million people in your house right now and you’re still handing out flyers stop it you know what I mean like serve your guests in the house I’m sure there’s a lot to do because I do feel like a lot of Brands know that it’s better to bring the folks who were already part of your product back then to try to sell new customers and I think there’s something that we’ve forgotten about that over time but let me be really Frank I didn’t learn that from gaming I didn’t learn that from Tech I learned that from Hospitality we’ve learned that in restaurants where you’ve probably seen this clip in in bar nightmare restaurant nightmare that most restaurants had folks that were coming back because of recommendations and suggestions not because of advertising and marketing and it’s because where the word of mouth is always the the layman’s term but it’s deeper than that it is about ensuring that the friends and family and the people that you’ve served in the past have a have lovian response when someone says I need a good burger I immediately go there it’s not even the best burger but I’m most comfortable here and I know that that does a lot of work but that likely started with customer service it likely started with the experience and I learned that what what I’m saying about being able to serve the folks inside the house upselling people that get a dessert instead of just leaving right after dinner having them get more drinks service the people who are already coming to your restaurant get them to engage more it’s a better experience for them instead of going well people stopped coming so now I need more customers it’s like you you probably aren’t serving the if they’re not all giving you five stars and saying you’re awesome you have work to do before you bringing new people into your house that’s how I see it yeah I most restaurants that I go to I they’re because of a recommendation for a friend it’s yeah sometimes I’m going on gelp and I’m looking at reviews but usually I’m like texting friend groups I’m like hey I’m in this city or I’m in this part of La like where have you gone where should I go and I think whenever I think of like good customer service I always think of a good restaurant experience not like a clothing store or getting my oil changed or something like that like it’s it’s always the yeah the the food industry comes to mind First Connect Sam sorry I was well I was going to say in games obviously influencers have the ability to drive audience to games because I like this Creator because they play games like I do but even in platform Xbox PlayStation have this little blip steam has it too where your friends are playing these games your friends have earned these at trophies it’s like well I know my buddy Joe pretty well and he would never touch this game if it wasn’t at least decent so I’m going to check that out I do believe that has a lot to do with it there’s I’m not going to mention of my name because he’ll hate me if I did it but it’s it’s it’s counterintuitive but every game that he likes I hate so whenever he says he really dislikes a game I go that’s gonna be my jam and it’s it’s it’s I’ve told him this into his face he’s like that actually might be the most directed way to know that it’s honest but I like oh did you hate this game I’m gonna love it man I’m I’m so glad because I know your style so yeah I you you my mind I was going to connect what Caitlyn said to gaming that exact thing of like you know I had H you know hell diver sold I think 10 million sales by the time I bought it but it I missed the first three months of the game despite it getting like amazing reviews uh because my buddy like the weekend before I bought it had spent all of his Saturday night playing it and was like this was my like best Saturday night I’ve had in weeks and you know that and he was like I felt like my time was really valued playing that game so not only did he have a sense of hospitality playing that game but then that word of mouth and that sense of um security or pleasure he had himself was what encouraged me to hop in so it’s the same way with like creators like um YouTubers that I find are often friends being like yeah I I I spent all night watching this 4-Hour video and I think you would like it too uh B’s 10hour Destiny video which I thought I’m not going to watch that I watched all 10 hours yep cool that’s it’s I worked at Bungie and I I worked at Bungie and I still watch the video 10 out of [Laughter] 10 one last question for you Andy on the you know we have a lot of listeners um tuning in we’ve had people reach out that are like in college or stting up to be in the games industry and you know obviously like one of the reason we were so excited to have you on is because your career track has been so exciting going from Hospitality into the games industry and then even once in the games industry then making the leap to write the cookbook like what drives you to like I feel like you know kind of going back to what you said earlier think people are so often eager or or feel like they need to box themselves in what gives you the the drive or or the the courage if you will to make these leaps that you’ve had in your career I could probably attribute a lot of this to my mom who is just as eccentric in her adventures throughout the years and it actually I actually whiteboard it at one point of like how many jobs has my mom had versus how many jobs I’ve had and she still had more jobs than I’ve had uh which is insane but she really hasn’t taken no for an answer I admire that about her I believe that my Mantra is 30 minutes a day like I know that it’s very easy to get ahead like I do I I I LIF weights I play games and I try really hard to remember that those that the fleeting 30 minutes I’ve wasted it doing a bunch of other things so if I treat everything like just a little bit at a time I can get a lot more done so even playing through games that have massive you know hours dedicated I go all right 30 minutes a day and therefore I’m getting through the game a little bit but I schedule 30 minutes I don’t feel guilty uh playing a game for 30 minutes because I’m not spending two and a half hours doing it it’s what I’m doing with my book in the morning before I go and then I just dedicate the time but it’s only because again it’s that Chef mentality I’m always counting minutes about how long until something’s done and if you go through the day and you realize I did have time to play video games I did have time to kind of work on this for a bit and if you just kind of sort things out anybody everybody knows this you’ve heard this story before by the time you get to the end of the month of the time you get to the end of six months you’re like holy crap I’ve done so much or I got through this game or I have like at least a few pages written it takes discipline to get it done like you have to get 30 minutes done but I sincerely mean it once you start treating Your Entertainment your TV shows and your games the same way now the work doesn’t seem as intimidating so now it’s 30 minutes of whatever game I’m playing now I got my 30 minutes out and I’m good then I can actually do my other pieces and it’s not dedicated to my job only way you’re going to do it love that time is everything and that’s yeah that’s I keep thinking of that episode of the bear every minute counts oh we could talk about the bear June what June 20 27th when is season 3 I can’t wait for my next anxiety attack June 27th I was right kin’s got it locked I EXC I am locked in well uh speaking of every minute counting any thank you for giving us so many minutes for this podcast it has been an absolutely insightful and fun conversation where can the people buy your cookbooks Amazon uh from my page andul lin.com where I’ll personally sign it and that’s where I actually make money on the book uh and you can also buy it in Barnes & Nobles and the other book shops that are there uh many of the gaming card shops that are out there and board game shops actually house my book so if there’s anybody who owns a shop listening we’d love to send them to you just because we just want people sharing recipes and breaking my own and in other promotion and find Andy places you’re working on a third book and you’re also working on a redacted thing as your bio says where can the people follow you to you know stay tuned to what you got coming up next uh that is Andy a n d ylu n i qu e uh on Twitter on Instagram on everything I don’t think I’m ever going to change that and once things are ready to be announced you’ll news but any support that you provide even my ridiculous memes and random food thirst traps I love it all and since I have baby number two on the way I might be Mia for a bit or I might just be online all the time it all depends on what he’s doing so yeah but they don’t move much in the first six months so I might just I can use my phone and that is all you may you may just be a little like sleep deprived tweeting but who doesn’t love that exactly just unhinged pancake tweets yeah wait you’re talking about my Twitter now I don’t know whose Twitter you’re talking about but yeah where do you folks normally uh what what I want to say do you do dinner parties or do you host with each other because I think we should do like a small little dinner party together I can just I just kind of want to feed you to be honest we don’t actually have to talk but you know I wouldn’t mind doing that where where are you located I’m on the East Coast you’re on the East unun all over in the middle of the country I would love to do a dinner party sometime that sounds amazing and I’m in Los Angeles so I am in La very often it’ll be fine you again invite a partner I’ve done lots of group dinners and couples dinners as well I actually have one coming up really soon those are really fun to do because then I get to theme the whole thing around you and like print out your menu that’s always fun but I also need guinea pigs if I’m being 100% honest like I need to test some things out and my whole family is like really over most of my recipes they’re just like H like I will spend 10 hours on a dish this is pretty good and then I’ll whip something together as if I didn’t give a damn at all this is the best thing you’ve ever made and I just want to throw a plate against the wall so yeah I need other people to cook for I’m in just let me know cool and I love trying new things and I love eating so we’ll talk more H you got a deal well uh my appetite is getting to me so with that uh this has been realtime strategy you can find us everywhere at realtime strats including on Twitter Instagram Tik Tok and YouTube you can email us questions at podcast TriPoint pr.com links to Andy’s social media and his books will be in the description so go check those out and until next time thank you all so much for listening thanks Andy bye everyone bye everyone it’s been a pleasure