My name is Oren Cohen. It’s nice to meet or re-meet you if you’re already one of the 900+ people I imported here from a past email list.
In this introductory article, I want to give you a little idea about what is happening with this Substack and what kind of content to expect soon. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s jump right in!
Where Am I In My Journey?
For my entire life, I’ve always been that nerd guy. The one who knows everything about video games. The one who knows how to fix your computer. Or even the one with an iPhone who still knows how to fix your aunt’s esoteric Android phone.
Over the years, I tried to build an online business and failed. I was focused on the wrong things.
When I started writing articles on E-zine Articles in 2010, I tried to write about things I didn’t know, hoping to plant affiliate links in those articles and make some sales. I was 22 and still clueless about what I was doing.
Later, when I realized I was being scammed by the affiliate site that wanted me to write on E-zine articles, I decided to try this publishing thing on my own and started a gaming news site called Alive2Play. This domain still exists today, but the site is long gone.
I learned a lot during those days. I had ten volunteer writers for that website and we grew to the point we were getting keys to review video games. I didn’t know anything about monetizing a website and so, in 2013, Alive2Play started falling apart as more and more writers decided to leave to pursue college and college jobs.
Publishing online took a back seat for me in the years 2014-2018 as I was studying for my Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science while also working a full time day job. I took a small detour from Computer Science in 2016 when I took a professional writing course between semesters. It consisted of 16 frontal classes that taught me a lot about various types of writing. That’s also when my fantasy world started to solidify in my brain and take better shape, but we’ll talk about that later.
My native language is still Hebrew, but I’m doing my best to express myself as clearly as possible in English.
In February 2019, I joined Medium after learning it existed from
’s newsletter. She was documenting her experience with the platform and I was excited to learn about a new publishing opportunity.My second article on the platform was “curated” which meant a human curator read it and said something along the lines of, “hey, this deserves some more exposure.”
This is definitely not how it works in 2024. But back then, it was what it was.
During my time on Medium I also met and purchased
’s Medium course. I even started a Facebook group of Medium Writers I called Medium Dreamers. The latter still exists today and has over 2700 members.I realized Medium’s role as my main platform was coming to an end when I wasn’t enjoying the process anymore. I was frustrated what I was writing wasn’t getting curated anymore. I didn’t see I sacrificed my writing voice for curation. The voice you’re reading right now.
Fortunately, Medium gave me one enormous gift in 2019 and that was curating my article about Dimension 20 - a TV show I was watching at the time and decided to write about.
That curation and my post about it on social media, led to an interview with Brennan Lee Mulligan - the host and creator of Dimension 20. After that, a door I didn’t know existed opened up and I decided to step through: doing interviews and writing about them.
In 2020, after being cooped up at home for several months, I decided to start a YouTube channel. At first, I gave it my own name because it was me who was publishing. As time passed and I started publishing interviews with Brennan and then other creators, I realized this wasn’t about me anymore. So I rebranded to Geek Peek.
Today Geek Peek still exists on YouTube and has over 10k subscribers. I have started a small blog under the same name to review TV shows and nerd out. To date we made 47 interviews and we’re working on season 3 of the podcast.
And that, my friend, is where I am in my journey right now. Let’s talk next about how my journey can benefit yours.
What Can I Do For You?
At the end of the day, this is the important question. You’re here not because you crave everything I have to say. You’re here because you are the hero of my story. My success with this publication is to see you take the tips and lessons learned I share here and use them to see success on your own.
I dabbled in a lot of things over the years:
Starting a blog on a publishing platform (WordPress, Medium, etc.)
Starting your own blog (Bluehost WordPress, Ghost, etc.)
Starting a YouTube Channel (I’m still learning more about YouTube every day).
Starting a Podcast and its distribution.
Starting an Etsy store (both POD and Digital).
Starting a Shopify store.
Setting up automations with Zapier.
Building email courses.
Building video courses.
Self-publishing a book.
And more…
My Ultimate Goal Is Helping You
I want to become a person who is no longer relying on an employer to own my time and location. One way I started doing that is by learning video editing. I plan to offer my services to creators sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I’m documenting all of the other things I’m trying right here on this publication which will also be the hub of all my content related to what I’m learning.
There won’t any video game or TV related articles here unless they have a spin to them related to content creation or helping creators in general.
What direction were you thinking? What are you creating? I would love to get to know you better and see how I can help you!
I Also Write a Fantasy Novel
As this publication is all about content creation and making dreams come true, I want to use it to literally make one of my dreams come true and publish a fantasy novel as a series of chapters sent over email instead of a traditional book.
The idea for this did not exist in a void. About two years ago I learned about
and how she was doing it with not one but two books with great success. I let the idea simmer until things locked into place a couple of weeks ago when I discovered Elle has published a TEDx talk:So, because this publication is meant to attract content creators who are also nerds, you might actually enjoy reading the story, too. Elle said in a podcast only a handful of people are actually interested in the story she wrote, but many want to support the publication itself and the behind the scenes content she publishes. This resonates with me. I would pay a good amount for any Brandon Sanderson book. I would pay a small fortune (if I had it) for a Brandon Sanderson writing course!
My plan is to send one chapter per week. Some might be longer, others shorter. In the end, it’s still a draft. I do this to actually finish the story. Some of you who might be interested, could also influence the story.
I might also publish world-building essays from time to time about how I’m building the world as I’m writing it.
Aside from publishing the story itself, I intend to create a D&D game in the story world and publish it as a one-shot or mini campaign on Geek Peek.
What About Monetization?
So, this is early days. I don’t know what to monetize yet so I’m not monetizing anything. But I did turn on paid. So if you’re feeling inclined to support what I’m doing here, you can. Consider it my version of a Patreon.
Through this publication you’re supporting me directly.
My first instinct based on podcasts I listened to with Elle is to keep the story itself free to read. I might lock the research posts and some of the content creation posts behind a paywall but we’ll see.
How Often Will I Post?
I don’t intend to bombard your inbox with emails every day. I might publish two times a week for start. Maybe three when I have some more time.
Posts will usually come on Monday 8 AM EST and Friday 8 AM EST. The third post slot might change so I won’t commit to it.
That’s it for today!
Thank you so much for reading! I’ll see you in the next post!