The Prepper Broadcasting Network - NPM 17: Derrick from Prepper Press

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

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Ladies and gentlemen, day 17, kind of. Maybe I'll tell you the secret about day 17 someday, but let's go with day 17. National preparedness month, tremendous month thus far. Unfortunately, I think I might be indebted to like a ton of people for doing this, man. It's been such a great, a great group of guests. Today, no different. Today, no different. Today we have somebody who really caught.

We're going to talk to him about it, really carved out sort of a unique spot in the prepping content creation world here on Instagram. And I'm pretty sure on TikTok also. And yeah, that's not how I met him. You know what I mean? And it's just been really cool watching his stuff evolve over time. We have with us today, Derek, from Prepper Press. My man, how are you? How are you?

Doing good, man. Doing good. I remember distinctly sort of your content changing into what it is now. And I think you really found a cool sort of niche for what you're doing. I don't know if niche is the right word, but method maybe is the better word, you know? Yeah, like, well, what did you observe? For me, it's easy to that stuff kind of evolves. Yeah, well, I, here's the best way to break it down.

When I think of you and your new style, I think of movement. You know what I mean? I don't know why. I always think of like you're chewing your way through an environment and teaching people about a thing. You know what I mean? And I think those are some of the coolest videos. And I kind of remember like when those started popping up on my feet and I was like, oh, look at this. I like this.

This is cool. You know, and it's since then, it's, you know, that kind of is aside from that and you at the desk, like reviewing the coolest freaking. Nerf guns of all time and that kind of stuff. So everybody's got to love that video. People aren't crazy for those things. If you're kind of silly, it's like, it's like, oh, I've got this like pump like automat or pump Nerf gun and then I've got this like fully auto Nerf gun and like, you can like, this is silly and simultaneously kind of awesome.

Oh, definitely awesome. Yeah. Definitely. Like, don't lose sight of the awesomeness of that. I know. I think I'm like holding these. I'm like, I wish these had been around. around when my kid was just a little bit younger.

Oh, yeah. They're perfect for, you know, play around the house or the tree house. Definitely, man. I was at the, I was at a gun show up in Philly, not but a month ago or about a month ago. And they were selling these guns, these handguns that were made out of Legos. But they shot, you put a, put like a, you know, like a legitimate casing in it that had a little stringloaded bullet in it. They were really cool.

I had to get them for my kids because they were. so sweet, but you can build on them too. You can turn into an airplane. Right, right. That stuff's fun, man. That stuff's definitely fun. What kind of reactions are you getting to your stuff over there, like in terms of, I do read your comments from time to time, and I try to comment because I know it helps.

Do you feel like you're getting a pretty good, you know, balance of people? You get people that are, I'm sure you get plenty of people that are like, this dude's nuts, you know, and that kind of stuff. Well, you always get some of those people. Right. And it's interesting, like, every platform has its own unique crowd. I'm not too familiar with TikTok. What is that like? Well, yeah, TikTok is like, um, TikTok's very different from the rest.

Um, because you get, you know, it's very specific to the video itself. Like, I can go over on TikTok and I can review something totally unrelated to prepping, some product video. And TikTok's content, well, that's. That's a whole conversation, but I can make a product video over there and know that it's not really going to annoy my, my, you know, core prepper audience on that platform because TikTok just won't feed it to them. They won't feed it to a lot of the followers unless it's, like, aligned with the followers. But if it's on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, then I kind of got to be a little more mindful of, like, people don't want to hear about, you know, cast iron cookware could apply. but as an example.

Yeah, so how does TikTok know? What does it go by the titles? I think, well, I think AI is like skiing in what you're saying. That's probably first and foremost. Okay. With the algorithm and then, and then what you, you know, your description and your YouTube title. I mean, sorry for your video title. Yeah.

But yes, I mean, I never really wanted to make videos. You know, I started, I started in, I started producing content in 2000. seven and that was blogging and it was at the time it's way back at the time yeah it was Shtf blog

that was like early days of prep of blogging so I was like one of like five prepper survival bloggers me survival blog James Wesley Rawls

yeah a couple Dakin guy who's long gone MD Creek Moore he's still on YouTube he was blogging going Yeah.

Survival. No, no, no. They were relatively new. Who else is old? You know, because I was, I mean, I'm, I went to, I have an English degree. I know, I was into writing, and I was quite comfortable just doing an anonymous blog. And, and then book publishing came along, and I got into that. And then just blogging, AI, kill, Google algorithm and, and AI killed blogging, really, for the

most part. So, and all the attention was moving to videos. And I was like, I guess if I want to continue doing this, then I have to suck it up and figure it out. Hey, I'm right there with you, man. I am right. I love nothing more than doing a podcast, unkempt, no shirt on me and the microphone. Like, it is my favorite. And same thing. How do you grab more audience? How do you get more people? You got to put a camera up and light and light. Yeah, yeah. Right. Drive yourself crazy with production, to reach out to people. And I guess that's just to get, that's about as much of the game

as I'm willing to play because there's a lot of, the game's deep, right? I mean, the content creation game. And it's constantly evolving. It's constantly changing. Yeah, I'm too dumb for that.

I can't keep up. I just know it. There's just no way I'm going to keep up. Yeah. It's crazy talk, you know. But I like, go ahead. No, I just just say,

finish out that that was sort of the TikTok scene. TikTok is just, for me anyway, the content's very product heavy. But with Facebook and Instagram, those are pretty similar. Different videos will take off for randomly, who knows what reason, differently on the two platforms. But the audiences are more sort of core preppers. I would describe as my core preppers. Facebook's my biggest following.

I've got a little over a million there. Wow. But the Facebook crowd can, you either got people that are just like, a lot of people are, maybe I've whittled the audience down or maybe it's just sort of gravitated that way, but a lot of the people that are in the comments are supportive and trying to help each other out and asking questions. But Facebook, Instagram audience is a little more kind than the Facebook audience because you can get still the people that are just, just like wanting to insult you and everyone else and just scroll past.

I wonder if they're even real. You ever wonder about that? I wonder like, is this a real person or is this? Is this a bot that's like out here? Yeah, I think sometimes it's both. It's both. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Sure. Do you notice anything big in terms of like because so much of prepping is online in video, like do you ever notice any weird trends or anything like that? Like people are doing this. One thing that comes to mind is like the area study. The area study was a thing that I never really heard of. And then I felt like all of a sudden everybody was talking area study on. all kinds of different platforms.

Do you ever pick up on those kind of trends coming and going? Sort of. I was just having a conversation with my, I try to tailor my feed. So my feeds on all platforms are largely, for the most part. I've got prepper content, survival content, and I've got content on producing content. So, you know, content for,

for for for for influencers yeah video hacks what's happening in the algorithms and whatnot um my wife is like you don't follow any bands you don't listen you don't follow metallica I don't I don't I'm not now Metallica on Instagram seems weird

yeah all the big bands are on on on any of them like they have to be right we're all we're all doomed to this thing we're all together yeah yeah but I do see trends I do see trends I do see friends from what I would describe as not your typical pepper. So you know, you've got all the big names that you, the people that you and I both know that have been in this industry, in this

niche for a while. Then you've got other people who may have successful followings because either they're a lifestyle brand or, you know, they're just, you know, buff and fit and good looking and go to exotic places. They will sometimes pull in on current events. They will sometimes pull in on current events and and it's they'll produce some content that's like survival or this is the you know the events of the world and this is how we got to pull our shit together and survive this. So yeah, those sort of like fringe influencers, content creators will sometimes get on a theme. And I picked up on this one in a recent video. Everyone was doing these 2030 get ready for 2030 videos.

I saw one of those. Yeah. I didn't know that was like an ongoing thing, but I definitely saw a guy. talking about that, get ready for 20-30 type of. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I did one of those videos, and it seems to be performing well so far. Yeah, that's a big piece too, right? You want to hit those trends at the right time.

At the right time, I mean, for me, I'm trying, in my sort of evolution as a content creator, trying to hit those trends, grow the audience and those sorts of things. But, like, you know, if you want to, this, as you know, this is a full-time job. It's brutal. Yeah. And you don't, you know, it never ends. You never get it all done. And then you're like, okay, I've got to make some money at this because this is just, oh, it's a job.

And then you get people that are hating on you calling your sellout. But then you're dealing with all the brands and just goes on and on. So where I'm trying to get is like more, I'm trying to develop my own products, my own books, because somebody thought about people are asking me questions. That's a good place to be here. Yeah. Yeah. So then I'm not like slave.

to all these companies who are, you know, asking me to do content for them. Do this and do that and yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, they're fun people too. I work with good brands. I'm not trashing them. They're bad brands. I don't work with them.

But so I try not to do too many trends. I'm trying to do fewer trends and try to do more, do more like helpful content, particularly on Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. Because people want, I mean, do you want to build that loyalty? people don't want to be sold products some people want the information on products so that's fine but some people just want you know this is the basics of purifying water and so that may not be a trend video you know that may only get 30,000 views versus 300,000 views but those 30,000 views

are ultimately more valuable than you know 300,000. It's a crazy game. Does it affect you prepping it all? I mean, you probably get more stuff. I know I have a lot more prep related stuff when you get into the sort of and it was never my goal to get into the online influencer thing but you wind up with stuff. People send

you cool stuff. They talk about my stuff. So you probably wind up with more preps and stuff right? I have a stupid amount of prep. Yeah, I give a lot of stuff away. I give my friends like you guys, you sure you don't need another power station? That's the way that I do it also.

I gave my, I gave my, I gave my UPS driver a generator last year. No way. Yeah. And like the chaos of TikTok, it was just like packages after packages after packages. And I'm like, are you my regular UPS driver? He's like, yep. You're a generator?

Merry Chris. Hey, that's doing the prepping thing right there. That's spreading the word and the love for real. That's right. That's right. But I mean, I get, I mean, like I said, I've been doing this since 2007, and you think you know it all and people will hit me with questions and I'm like I don't know the answer to that question and then I'll end up doing some research and figuring it out and so I can I continue to learn

yeah yeah I look back one of the things that I wish I had done early on you mean you could always change but one of the things that I had wish I had done early on was created a pattern of creating DIY videos that then funded themselves over time you know what I mean I think about like wow, what would that backyard look like? What would that pantry room look like if I was doing that kind of content? You know, because that's what like you said. And, you know, one of the probably dirty secrets is like some days you do so much work on creating something and promoting something. It's like prepping.

I don't have any time for that right now. Busy to like this month. Like national preparedness month, I don't know what I'm going to get done of note. You know what I mean? Maintenance and that kind of stuff. but yeah that's the weird Yeah well that's what I've got going on now I've got game cameras

because it's archery season's approaching here I've got game cameras set up I got a hunting blind set up I got the chair set up in it and I'm just like went through the sole process but I and then I'm looking at you know video commitments and what not the next you know month and a half

I'm like I don't know if I'm actually going to be get out there and sit in the chair it is weird isn't it that's one of those weird things about it I I don't know that you mention it I think it's actually urban archery season here right now and yeah my neighborhood is dude they just they keep digging and they keep building here in richmond virginia and i swear all roads lead to my backyard i don't understand it like this well it's really our neighborhood it's just overtaken with deer everywhere yeah so we've got to do

something about that but um so are you going to are you you don't seem to want to relinquish the prep or press angle of it. Are you looking to just go into creating your own books? You're going to drag some people in and kind of get back to the business of publishing too? No, the publishing market was great while it was great. And then it wasn't. I got on the early end of like Amazon print on demand stuff. So I wrote that for quite a while and thought that that's what I was going to do.

But then everyone figured out how easy it was. And it became easier to do to publish your own book. So everyone was just starting to flood the market. Yeah. And it just became, I mean, we were publishing some great fiction books. And they were just well written, well edited, great cover design. And we just put ad spend behind it. And there was just, there was just too much noise.

Wow. It's weird, man. It's kind of mean and nasty out there. You know what I mean? You get a hold of a good thing and then it starts to like fall through your fingers, right? But that's the nature of business. It is. That's the nature of capitalism, the nature of business.

You've got to stay adaptable for sure. Yeah. But you said you were going to consider putting out your own books. Yeah. So yeah, that would be my own books. Just the core sort of water, food. communication, security, those sorts of things. Like a stack.

Exactly, exactly. And I can get them all. Right. My challenge is I have perfectionist tendencies. So if I'm going to do a water book, for example, I mean, there's countless water of survival books on the market. But I know if I'm going to do it, I'm going to have to go every. thing in detail. So it would be like the book that has it all. And so, so then that requires a

whole lot of time. Right. So I'm sometimes my own worst enemy there rather than get something out that's good enough, it takes a lot longer to get something that's great. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, I completely understand, man. And it's, uh, you know, times a tick and that's the worst part about it. Right. Right. It's sitting on a fishing book like that. It's just too personal. and two, yeah, yeah, it's the same thing. It's one of those books that I, and the problem with it is I want to get it out before my dad dies. You know what I mean?

I want him to see it. So there's that pressure there, but I get it. I get it. I usually write, when I write a book, I always want to hate it by the time I'm done. I feel like if I really hate this, looking at this book, then it's probably pretty good, you know. So, that's kind of my metric. Have you, have you written fiction? A little bit.

Not, I don't think I've ever written like a novel. I've written some small, what they call? Novella? Yeah, like some novella stuff. So definitely anthology stuff, short story stuff. But I don't read preper fiction, do you? I don't. I don't read preper fiction.

I read post-apocalyptic fiction. And that's really, I'm working on a trilogy there. and that's really more my my my passion. Okay. It's just a great creative outlet for me. I've been working on that for years now. But, you know, whether that will resonate with my audience, I think probably for some people. Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah. I'm sure. I love it. What is it? What is the, if you can tell the catalyst or is it too much of a secret, you know? Don't, don't compromise it. No, I haven't really talked about it much at all. to anyone but family and friends.

It's post-apocalyptic New England. Cool. Good setting. And it's about... So, shit hit the fan years ago. So the main characters are of the first generation who doesn't remember the world before the collapse. Oh, cool. Very cool. So they're proceeding to preceding this generation were the folks who sort of will kind of describe the in-between generation.

Yeah. Who were young at the time of the collapse and transitioned into the post-apocalyptic world. Different societies broke off three different societies around Greater New England. And each society has had or developed their own idea on how to fix going forward from a sociable. economic perspective in a post-apocalyptic world. How do we rebuild society so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past? But they only have story and history to go off of because everybody who acts and seen it. Yes.

And they're all in competition for survival. Because there's definitely going to be, I would guess there's going to be some kind of territorial sort of situation that starts to happen. That would be sweet, man. Exactly. That'll be cool. That'll definitely be cool. yeah i don't know what it is like that if that were a movie i'd watch it in a heartbeat but something

about sitting down and reading a book about the apocalypse i just i don't know i read the road and i read the prepper by one of our hosts carl b and that's the max of all like that pepper related dystopia yeah i love the movie people that read fiction though i mean there aren't as many there's used to be but the people that read fiction like readers they devour the stuff and a lot of People are listening to audiobooks more and more. That's a great way to do it. I see the demand for that kind of fiction every year at Prepper Camp because Sarah Hathaway, one of my hosts and the creator of the Changing Earth series, which is a nine

book series, she gets people that come up to that thing and are like, yeah, I read three, four, and five, I need six, seven, and eight, you know what I mean? And they're not small books. I mean, yeah, they, and then some people buy the whole series. Did you buy all nine books? And they'll come the next year and be like, oh, it was great. Yeah, they read at a breakneck pace. Yeah.

Leisure reading. It's a thing. And I mean, if you're, if you're, I mean, a lot of people have long commutes too. So if you've got, you know, an hour long commute and you throw on audio books, it's a great way to hear stories. Yeah. Yeah, I tend to like lean into the sci-fi and comic world when it comes to audiobooks slash audio dramas. I don't know why.

If there were a superhero survivor or like a survivor who, I don't know, something about that archetype that I really like, maximal odds to overcome. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like that. That's kind of my deal. But yeah, man, bring it to life. That would be fun.

I'd love to read about that. I'd love the reforesting of New England, the buildings getting swallowed up and all that kind of stuff. And these three factions sort of eyeing each other from a distance. Like, look at these idiots. They don't know what they're doing. We know what we're doing. Yeah, that would be fun.

I would definitely dig that. Yeah, man. So I don't want to keep it under 30 so we can turn it into a reel, put it up on Instagram. I'll give it to you if you want to do something with it too. But what do you got coming outside of publishing? You've got any cool review stuff coming up soon. You've got to have something sitting in a box somewhere that's pretty cool. Yeah.

I mean, in creative world, we're heading into Q4, right? So this is all like pre-holiday season. Yeah, of course. Sales. So companies are starting to, like, I have to say no to a lot of them. So product-wise,

you know, more of the sort of high-end Nerf guns. Oh, because toy company, yeah, toy time holiday by a time. I mean, I've got a pile of, there's some pretty slick ones that I haven't even shown. I'm like, I don't understand.

And like, these are wild. I bet. And a hunting season's coming, so more hunting products that are going to review. Some of those, it's tricky to try and tie in the hunting blind into prepping. Yeah. But there is a crossover between the audiences. Oh, for sure. Yeah, outdoors and camping and prepping and all that kind of stuff.

You do a good job, man, of staying in the pocket. I'm always all you guys who do really well as content creators you have an uncanny ability to like focus and be like this is these are the lines I'm here and here you know what I mean and I'm going to stay in there I admire that I can't do it I'm not good at it now I bounce I bounce around but it's it's an illusion that I'm in any lines yeah but it's your your page is nice and orderly and it you know what I mean it's like you go to your page and you're like, oh, I know what's going on here. This is a separate situation. I see what's going on and I can get in with this content. It's good. I mean, it's cool. Yeah, I mean, part of the ground rule that I set for myself is, you know, it's easy to get into rants.

And that doesn't serve anyone but yourself. And it usually doesn't even serve yourself. And I usually try to go into it. Like, in the end, people really don't give a shit about me. You know, they want, you either. You're offering information or you're offering entertainment, and it's just people want, if you're going to deliver something, what are you creating of value? So that's kind of how I'd go into the videos. And so if it's, if I'm promoting broadheads on a bow and arrow, I'll talk about conceptually broadheads and bows and arrows for preppers.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Give it that crossover. Well, like I said, I will, you don't have a, well, Prepper Press, right? You want me to link to Prepper Press? So we'll have the link to Prepper Press down below, and you can find Derek on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. Is that it? YouTube.

And YouTube. And YouTube. All at Prepper Press-ish. Exactly, yeah. Searcher Pepper Press and any of them and I'll pop up. The squirrel will pop up. The squirrel will pop up, man. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to be with us today, man.

I know you got a million things to do. And yeah, I can only imagine boxes to unload and videos to make. So I appreciate you taking out almost 30. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, man, it's always a pledge. Always good to talk to you. All right, folks. Another day.

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