Sonic Toad Consulting: Hop to Your Success Today, So You Can Chill on Your Pad Tomorrow!
Sonic Toad Consulting isn't just any old business consultant or games industry consultancy: it's where you can be coached to make a living and a life by your design.
Marketing and professional development for indie game developers, freelance writers, aspiring entrepreneurs and free agents doesn't have to be a one-and-done deal: what are your long-term goals and how do you want to build up your pad of choice?
Whether you're aiming for the humble spring peeper or the mighty cane toad, Sonic Toad is here to help you hop to your success today, so you can chill on your pad tomorrow! ®
Business Education
Known in the gaming industry for her business expertise, Rachel’s adult education experience can make tough topics easy to understand whether the audience is students, employees, or strategic partners.
More infoKeynote & Motivational Speaker
Rachel is an engaging and humorous keynote speaker and convention speaker who can bring life to your event and drive your message home.
More infoContent Strategy & Creation
Need a writer to tell your story, or build up your website or professional positioning? Look no further for world-class content strategy and creation services.
More infoConsulting
Indie developers, freelance writers, prospective business owners and other free agents in need of professional development advice and problem-solving can get their burning questions answered.
More infoAre you a starving indie developer? Struggling freelancer? Get your FREE E-BOOK on crushing it as a creative professional!
You'll also get exclusive rants and toad pictures you can't get anywhere else!

Travel Depression, Vacation Depression, and Coming Down From Long Journeys
Fall solstice is just around the corner and I'm gleefully looking at all the Halloween items popping up on store shelves and even on some doorways already. Piping hot ersatz squash beverages are out in full force. Unsurprisingly, people…

The Never-Ending Debate on Crowdfunding: Are Professionals Wrong for Using It?
Not terribly long ago on Twitter, I had an interesting conversation with an independent journalist I admire. (Linda Tirado, you should definitely check her work out and consider supporting her on Patreon.) It was about the importance of crowdfunding independent…

Why Moralizing About Fun and Partying is Stupid: Life is Too Short and Doesn’t Wait
Recently, I was making some updates to my LinkedIn profile and came across a post in my feed. It said: “To all the people partying on the weekend and blowing tons of cash who are not where they want…

Fandoms, Hopes and Dreams, Work-Life Balance, and Other Life-Shattering Realizations From a Late-Night Showing of The Devil Wears Prada
I've been finding myself at the movies a lot more lately. Maybe it's just because City Point is a convenient one-stop shop if I need groceries or other stuff in the same building where Alamo Drafthouse is which makes the…

The Virtues of Keeping It Small (Or, Why Endless Growth Isn’t This Be-All End-All)
Whether it’s a game studio, a pizza shop, or a design firm: explosive growth doesn’t *have to be* your end goal. In fact, there’s much to be said for keeping small business small on purpose. For the uninitiated, there's different…

Disasters, Dreams, and Risk-Taking: Thoughts on The Disaster Artist
At the time of writing, everyone's abuzz about The Disaster Artist, the screen adaptation of the book of the same name. I saw it recently and was glued to the screen the entire time. I've spoken and written about my love…

Finding Motivation When You’re Overwhelmed as F#&*
“Oh great, another one of those overly perky motivational blog posts!” That might’ve been what you were thinking. It DOES get kinda tiring seeing the same old points reiterated, doesn’t it? Inspiration can be easy, but finding motivation is…

Why Indie Game Developers Are the New Face of Change Management
Yikes, I did a pretty bad job at resurrecting this blog like I promised I would after GDC this year! Well, life more or less happened: I spoke at a lot of amazing events in 2017 ranging from my usual…

The Rebirth of a Blog
So yeah, I inadvertently killed the Sonic Toad blog for a while there. Life happened. Career stuff happened. Contently/The Freelance Writer actually has an interesting article about whether it's time to kill your blog or not, and I fell into most…

The Banana Bread Effect
One day, I had a bunch of bananas sitting out on the counter. I love bananas because they're versatile, cheap, portable, and if they fall on the floor I can still eat them because they have a tough natural wrapper.…


