On Tuesday I sent my first pitch. It went to Nigel Rawlins, who hosts the Wisepreneurs Podcast in Australia. It comes out every two weeks, for independent professionals over 50, and it talks a lot about AI tools and changing direction late in a career. That’s me, on both counts.
I asked whether my story would suit the show. The story is the one in week 0: a newsletter with 3,456 subscribers that turned out to be mostly machines, and a 78-year-old starting over where people can watch.
I’d listened to his episode with Filip Dřímalka, about not letting your own skills go rusty because of AI. I mentioned it, because it’s true, and because it’s the line I try to hold. The AI helps. The person still does the writing.
Sending it was clumsier than writing it. The contact form on his website takes 350 characters, which is about three sentences. I got the pitch down to 343, pressed send, and nothing happened. No “thank you,” no “message sent.” I couldn’t tell whether it had gone.
So I found a second form, on the podcast’s own page, and sent the full version there, with a line apologising in case he got both. That one went through. It’s the same pitch to the same man, so I’m counting it once.
On Wednesday I posted in the weekly self-promotion thread on Reddit’s r/financialindependence. It’s the one place on that forum where you’re allowed to mention your own work. I wrote a short version of week 0 and linked to this page. Then I opened a private browser window, logged out, and checked it was really there. Reddit sometimes hides posts from quiet accounts like mine without telling you. Mine showed.
Here’s what came back, as of Friday afternoon. No reply from Nigel. No sign-ups from Reddit. Nothing else.
That isn’t a surprise. Podcasts book guests weeks or months ahead, and a three-day-old pitch has barely reached the inbox. That’s why this one went first. A comment in a weekly thread is one among many, and it gets a day or two of attention before the next thread starts.
So week 1 reads: one pitch, one post, $0. The running total is the same, because this is where it starts.
Next week I’ll pitch a second show and post on Reddit again. I’ll write it down whether anything comes back or not.