austin kleon – Tech in the Trenches

Work, family, scene. Pick two.

Work—that is your creative output.
Family—that’s a spouse, kids, or any close personal relationships.
Scene—that’s the fun stuff that comes along with success. Parties. Fancy dinners. Important friends. This is the stuff that looks good on Instagram, that you can brag about, that falls into your lap like a wonderful surprise. Offers, invitations, perks.
Work, Family, Scene: You Can Only Pick Two – Ryan Holiday

I love this advice from Austin Klein, via Ryan Holiday. You can’t have it all. You burnout. You’re miserable. You’re robbing someone of time or attention or love or presence.

The two you pick can change as your life does. Your balance may shift from work to family or scene to work. As they all feed each other.

Picking two is important as remembering you can switch the two at any time. It’s not a lifelong choice.

I’ve always found family and work (as its meant here) to be the most rewarding. Sure the scene can be fun. But that’s the part I most readily give up. That’s what works for you. You follow your path and find what works for you.

Austin Kleon posted about his Blogger’s Press Kit that he has put together for his books. Once he finishes a book, he wants to be sure people can share his work easily and with good-looking artwork. This is what spurred him into action. He writes:

Everybody’s heard of press kits, but the aim of a Blogger’s Kit is spreadability—images and videos that are easy to embed, post, and disseminate on the web.

Austin recommends a Blogger’s Kit should include:

author photos
the book cover (front and back)
“3-D” shots of the book in space
excerpt shots of the book spreads
a video of someone flipping through the book

This is a great idea for authors. In my recent writing about podcasts I run into the problem of not having good artwork for the show. It’s hard to find good artwork. I’ve resorted to screenshotting the album art from my podcatcher to use. Promoting something should be easy and podcasts are no different. With that in mind I now present you…

The Podcaster Blogger Press Kit.

Podcasters, I love your shows. You put a lot of work into them. I want to share them with the world! I want to help you get those coveted stars in iTunes.

Here is what you need for your Blogger’s Press Kit for Podcasters.

A decently sized copy of your cover art
You know, that beautiful art you spent so much time on to for iTunes and podcatchers. I’d like a copy of that too.
Podcaster’s photo
We’ve all heard your lovely voice. Now let’s see your beautiful face. This can be an “action shot* of you talking into the mic or editing tracks. It could be you looking goofy/serious/whatever with headphones on looking contemplative. A good example is imyke’s photo. It’s fun. It’s memorable. It gives the post about your show something visual to grab readers.
Photo of your podcast in your player of choice.
Show your podcast, with cover art clearly visible open in your favorite podcatcher in the wild. Josh Ginter has some beautiful shots from his Overcast review.
Recommended episode(s)
If your podcast episodes reach into the triple digits, it can be daunting to start listening. Do I need to start from 1? Can I listen to any of them and it won’t matter? Give the blogger a starting point to recommend to their readers.
This is a tough problem and it’s one Merlin Mann asked his listeners for help with. The result was this list by Supertrainee on Huffduffer.
For bonus points, include some clips of your show.
Give a new listener a taste of what they’re getting themselves into. Find 60 seconds of something interesting. Snag a 5 minute clip of an interesting discussion, or funny bit. Make a trailer for your podcast.

Cover image: Overcast podcast app by Kārlis Dambrāns

Carl T. Holscher fights for the customers.

Tag: austin kleon

Work. Family. Scene. Pick Two.

The Podcaster’s Blogger Press Kit

The Podcaster Blogger Press Kit.