This conversation explores Joseph Safdia’s journey, exploring the motivations behind his work, the lessons he has drawn from personal and professional experiences, and the values that continue to shape his path. By highlighting milestones, challenges, and future aspirations, the interview offers readers insights into building a life of meaning, resilience, and contribution.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this interview are the personal reflections and humor of the interviewee, and do not represent those of this platform or its affiliates.

Joseph, thank you for joining us. For those who may not know you yet, could you share a bit about yourself, what you do, and what drives your work?

I’m happy to be here. My name is Joseph Safdia, but I write and publish under the name TienSwitch. I’m a debut author as of March 2025, but I’ve been writing since high school. I won’t talk about my earliest novel attempts, because that was under twenty years ago and I still have the capacity to feel shame. Instead, I’ll say that I have been a fan of my primary genre, superheroes, since I was a 6-year-old Spider-Man fan. I used to be a walking Spider-Man encyclopedia for all of Volume 1 up to The Gathering of Five and Endgame, and I continue to be a big fan of The Boys, Invincible, and other works. I love superhero universes, and the TTRPG Masks awakened my desire to create my own expansive universe back in 2020, which you’re finally seeing the fruits of now.

When I’m not writing about people in capes and masks taking down fictional bad guys, I work in AML (Anti-Money Laundering) as an investigator taking down real bad guys. So I’m always taking down some sort of supervillain trying to build a doomsday weapon. No need to thank me, citizen. It’s what I do.

I’ve always been a creative person. As I said before, I’ve been writing in some capacity since I was in high school. I’ve always wanted to be an author so I can share all the various stories my wandering mind conjures up. I’ve always wanted to see my book on store shelves and to hold it in my hand and to have someone come up to me and ask if I’m the author of the book they love so much.

Also money. I want your money. I want all of your money.

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Looking back, what early experiences most influenced the direction you chose in your life or career?

I’m not sure if there was a single early experience. More of a combination of lifestyle and likes and dislikes.

I was never an outdoors kid. I played tag and hide-and-go-seek and all that, sure, but to this day, sports and the great outdoors were never my thing. The creative arts were my thing, specifically stories with colorful characters. I was 6 years old when I first read a comic book (Spider-Man Annual #1), and 5 years old when I played my first video game (Super Mario Bros on the NES). I loved cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mighty Max, and He-Man. As I aged into my teens, I fell in love with Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, and Kingdom Hearts. So I grew up surrounded by exciting stories and characters and wanted to be a part of them and create my own, even as I was told that I was “supposed” to want to run around outside or be interested in sports or cars or whatever.

I remember my earliest experience doing this was when I was maybe 7 or 8. I drew a comic that was pretty much a ripoff of the comic Doug and Skeeter drew in that one episode of Doug on Nickelodeon. I won’t talk about it because, again, that was under thirty years ago and I still have the capacity for shame.

I mean under thirty years ago. Under!

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How do you define success for yourself, and has that definition changed over time?

My definition of success? Money. You, reading this? I want your money. All of your money.

Oh, I already did that joke.

But seriously, I think success has definitely changed over time in terms of what I would categorize as “successful”. It hasn’t just evolved and shifted; it constantly jumps all over the place. There’s success I can quantify; book sales and Kindle Unlimited page reads and website visits and newsletter signups and, when I get there one day, Patreon subscriptions and merch sales. Then there’s the success I can’t quantify; reader engagement, the thought of seeing someone one day reading a copy of my book, the idea of people drawing fan art of my characters or having heated arguments online about who to ship with whom. Even now, just the fact that I can say I’m a [self-]published author is something I never thought I would ever be able to say throughout my life. I honestly thought that chapter of my life was dead years ago.

I can define success as “As long as I make $1,000/month from my whole writing career, I’ll be happy” or something like that, but I don’t feel it’s very satisfying as an answer. “Success” for me is something that jumps around like a strung out bunny on illegal catnip and adrenaline, impossible to pin down. It’s not even elusive so much as it just changes depending on what I’m measuring.

It’s Schrödinger’s Success. I’m both successful and not successful.

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Can you walk us through a milestone that felt especially meaningful to you, and what you learned from it?

A single milestone? Hmm, I’ll say finally publishing my first book, The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE, Vol. 1, on Amazon back in March. It’s when this all finally became real. That I was in the spot where people could—and would—pay real money for a “real” book that I wrote. I’ve published stories and articles before; I wrote in my college newspaper, and I used to publish stories and articles on various writing websites. Even the first eight episodes were available on Royal Road as far back as 2021, and I’ve written blogs before. But back then, I was at best a “writer”, which could mean anything and really means nothing. I put a thing online, or I was a blogger, or whatever. Cool. Anyone can do it, and those terms never really held much prestige to me. Maybe people in their teens or twenties would feel differently, but that’s just how I felt.

But as of this year, I am an “author”. And regardless of whether my books are bought by everyone, anyone, or no one, I can still say I am an author.

That feels amazing.

As for what I learned from it? Nothing I didn’t already know, but I’ll tell you what I experienced from that. Besides the nightmare that is book formatting, it’s that no one cares that you are an author unless you make them care. Unfortunately, “marketer” is not an identity I’ve ever held. So I guess I learned that a career in advertising is not in my future?

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In your work, what values or principles guide your decisions the most?

Values and principles are for the weak. I am here for the thrill of the hunt and the glory of the kill.

For my general writing career, I’d say transparency and openness are my two biggest things. If you ever look at my blog or read my newsletter, I’m generally pretty forthcoming about what I hope to achieve or what I need help with from my readers (reviews or recommendations, for example). When I announced the release of SWITCH and Blue Eagle, I let everyone know I was releasing the paperback edition for a dollar more than originally stated and gave my reason why. I don’t pretend I know more about the comics industry or superhero history than I actually do, I cite claims that I make as best I can, and I don’t do things like pretend I didn’t say something that I actually did. People who read my blog or buy my books or join my newsletter know that they are getting the real me, one way or another and for better or for worse.

In my works themselves, I don’t really preach a specific political ideology, but I do put the core values that lead to my beliefs being what they are front and center. I feel like the 2010s and the rise of anti-woke ideology, Gamer/ComicsGate, and general cynicism have been harmful and go against, dare I say, the “traditional” values that superhero fiction has always put front and center: openness, acceptance, decency, and selflessness. We’ve gotten stories of heroism, but I don’t think heroism is what people who consumed a lot of superhero media in the last decade or two really took away from it. I love anti-heroes, don’t get me wrong, but I think heroism and community are values that need a comeback. My superhero books generally strive to promote those things.

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How do you approach challenges or setbacks, and what practices have helped you grow through them?

I usually start by hurling swear words at my computer screen, then walking away and crawling into bed. I’m sure that will make me bigger than Stephen King pretty soon.

Beyond that, I’d say persistence has been my key to getting where I am right now, however far or not that far is. Most authors’ first books don’t sell. I made seventy cents total just a couple months ago. I wrote blogs that seemed to go into the void. I still do. I wrote on revenue-share writing sites and never saw a dime for my efforts. It would be easy to quit then and there when things are that bad.

But the people that do make it are the ones with persistence. They don’t make a million dollars on their first book. They have an entire library of books under their name and a decade of publication history.

Persistence and the ability to just write, write, write has got me from terrible fiction that has been lost to time and multiple computers to fiction good enough to have sold to readers in four countries.

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Many people look for balance between ambition and well-being. What has helped you find that balance personally?

Wait, you can balance those two!?

Not gonna lie, I’m still working on that. I write or work on my writing business during nights and weekends. I guess my big piece of advice (one that I do put into practice in my daily life) is not to be too worried if you didn’t accomplish anything today because there’s always tomorrow.

Alternatively, win the lotto and quit your job so you don’t have to manage your writing career around a full-time job.

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Collaboration often shapes achievements. Who or what kind of people have influenced your journey, and in what ways?

There’s never actually been any person or kind of person that influenced my writing journey. Instead, I’ve been generally influenced by other media. I could name creators and artists and all that, but I was never really influenced by THEM so much as what they produce.

If there are people in real life that I could say influenced my journey, it would be people whose names I never knew or can’t remember. It would be from jobs I’ve had long past that only strengthened my resolve to do anything but rely on a job for income and identity. I used to work in customer service, you see. I think that needs no further elaboration.

But there’s the shows on TV and the video games I’ve played that my mind tries to emulate in some way in an original setting. There’s the imagery my imagination conjures from music I listen to, namely metal from bands like Nightwish, Epica, and Within Temptation. I mentioned Masks before, and don’t forget all those comics I read between childhood and today. It’s that and my need to tell stories in a modern world that favors cold logic, self-help engagement, and AI slop over true creativity.

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What do you hope others can take away from your story or experiences that might help them in their own paths?

A few things, I guess.

SWITCH and Blue Eagle specifically talks about the difference between rehabilitation and understanding for those who fall into destructive lifestyles, and using force to enforce social and legal conformity. I tend to support the former, and hope that those who read this book at least reflect on that dichotomy of how we treat society’s “problem people”. There’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with those at the bottom rung of modern society, and an answer I hope every reader comes away with.

As for my superhero works as a whole, both those published and those yet to come, I want to bring heroism, compassion, and empathy to the forefront.