Get Known Before the Book Deal

Podcasting 101: Selecting A Host Provider

By Kati Neville                                                                                                    

You've been busy planning and practicing your podcast. Now, it's time to shop for a provider that will host your audio files.
 
Creating a table chart will help you keep track of differences among providers. Start with a plain piece of paper and draw 6-8 columns across the top. List the host's name and website in the first column. Other columns come next: cost per month, bandwidth, storage, statistics, years in business, online help resources, and directory listings.
 
Write your wish list in the first row of your table. Some categories may be obvious, like unmetered bandwidth and robust statistics. But the rest of the categories may take some homework. Here are a few ideas to guide your thinking.
 
Fees. Most hosting providers charge $3.00 to $60.00 monthly. Free hosting is another option. However, they reserve the right to attach paid advertisements to your podcasts. So if you want complete control over your finished audio products, set a monthly budget.
 
Storage. Estimate your space needs by multiplying the average size of your practice podcasts and your publishing frequency. Also, consider the number of podcasts you want available to listeners at any one time and your bitrate. If you find the space you need surpasses your budget, you can revise your publishing schedule, develop an archival system, shorten your show, or reduce your bitrate.
 
Business Experience. Since podcasting is relatively new, most host providers are too. And the younger they are, the more cautious you need to be. Take care to understand your contract, particularly the procedures and costs associated with retrieving your podcasts.
 
Online support. Note the type of online support services offered. Busy user forums and wikis indicate a healthy user community. E-mail support and FAQ pages also are good. Some podcast host providers even publish their own podcast to announce upgrades, answer common technical questions, or feature new shows.
 
Directories. Check to see if the host provider automatically distributes your feed to podcast directories, such as iTunes or Podcast Alley. If not, use your feed address to advertise your podcast in these directories yourself.
 
Your choice of podcast hosting provider is an important, long-term commitment because moving your show could easily disrupt your audience and posting rhythm. Use your one-page table to make the best decision. 
 
 

Kati Neville is coauthor of the best selling cookbook, Fix, Freeze, Feast. She is a contributing editor for The Saver's Kitchen podcast and regularly blogs on The Forklift. Kati teaches cooking classes in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. When not online or teaching, Kati enjoys writing and tasting new recipes in her kitchen.

You Wanna Start Something?

By Christina Katz

I certainly hope so.
 
Of the thirty-eight chapters in Get Known, one of the most popular as indicated by feedback and questions has clearly been chapter twenty-two, where I discuss steps for starting up a local event.
 
The local event I started, The Northwest Author Series, is a natural extension of what I do to help writers make the most of what they have to offer. At the NAS, we all learn something about professional writing from the best examples I can find.
 
But your event doesn't have to be literary; it can be any kind of experience you can dream up, as long as it's in alignment with the unique services that you offer.
 
In Wilsonville, where I live, I have struck up a partnership with some local organizations that support my work here. How about in your hometown? So long as where you live is not an impediment to what you plan to offer, why not to carve out a presence close to home?
 
Here's some tips that have come up in response to questions I've been asked since Get Known came out:
 
Should you affiliate with others, and if so, with how many others? The less well known you are, the more important it is to affiliate with others. And, even if you are well known, if you are not well known locally, that's another reason to look for local affiliations. So if you are not at all known in your area for the topic your event will promote, then look to affiliate with one or two other organizations that can offer you free publicity and possibly even provide help with the mechanics of planning and promoting your event.
 
Somebody has to steer the ship: No matter how many other individuals or organizations you team up with, somebody has to be in charge of your event or nothing will get done (or it won't get done when it needs to get done). So, if you are planning to be in charge, and you want to make the final call on what's what and who's who, decide that in the beginning and stick to your guns. If that's a deal-breaker for some of your partners, you'll want to partner with the folks who don't mind letting you run the show. Conversely, if you are more collaborative and you want to solicit more input and help in your event, partner with like-minded folks.
 
Consider how to reach your niche audience: If you live in a small town of less than 20,000 people, like me, there's a strong chance you will be inviting people from elsewhere to come on over and enjoy your event. The best way to find your peeps is to advertise in all of the usual media outlets as well as through specific associations or news lists that reach your audience regionally. For example, for the Northwest Author series, we advertise through the local and regional media as well as writing associations like Willamette Writers. As a result, audience members come from as far as an hour away because they can't find anything locally like what we offer.
 
Let it grow: Ideally, you will create a local event that grows into something bigger and better over time. The key is to start somewhere with whatever you've got and grow it from there. If you try to do too much right out of the gate and you don't have enough help and resources, nobody is going to enjoy your event, especially you. Instead, start small and grow the event in accordance with the audience's wants and needs rather than try to start with a bang...and possibly fall flat. Grow your event over time in accordance with audience direction and your event is sure to be a hit!
 
 
Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Build an Author Platform and Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (both for Writer's Digest Books). A platform development coach and consultant, she teaches writing career development, hosts the Northwest Author Series, and is the publisher of several e-zines including Writers on the Rise. Christina blogs at The Writer Mama Riffs and Get Known Before the Book Deal, and speaks at MFA programs, literary events, and conferences around the country.

Classes with Christina Katz and Jennifer Applin

EARLY FALL CLASSES BEGIN ON AUGUST 12th

Last chance for reduced prices when you register for fall classes by June 30th.
New prices effective on July 1st!

Writing and Publishing The Short Stuff
Especially For Moms (But Not Only for Moms!)
With Christina Katz
Class Begins August 12th
Prerequisites: None
Finally, a writing workshop that fits into the busy lives of moms! You will learn how to create short, easy-to-write articles-a skill that will make it easier to move up to longer, more time-consuming articles when you're ready. Try your pen at tips, fillers, short interviews, list articles, how-tos, and short personal essays-all within six weeks. Now includes markets!
Cost: $199.00.
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Platform Building 101: Discover your Specialty
With Christina Katz
Class Begins on August 12th
Prerequisites: None
Identifying your writing specialty is one of the trickiest and most necessary steps in launching a writing career today. This class will help you find your best audiences, cultivate your expertise, manage your ideas, develop marketing skills, claim your path, serve editors and become portfolio-minded. You'll learn how to become the professional you've always wanted to be and, most importantly, how to take your writing career more seriously.
Cost: $199.00.
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Writing for the Web
With Jennifer Applin
Class Begins August 12th
Prerequisites: None
These days virtually every business and industry needs to have an online presence. With a growing trend in Internet marketing, e-commerce and online publications, the need for creating well-written web content is more important than ever. If you are looking to make a name for yourself, and a living, writing for the web, then this course can help you. Students will learn how to develop a writing style that is suitable for the web; provide a variety of services (online articles, website content, blogging, editing, etc.); establish a fair rate and avoid scams; find paying assignments and secure steady accounts.
Cost: $199.00.
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Invest In Your Writing Career Today
& Reap Greater Rewards Tomorrow.

No #Platformchat this Friday, June 19th, Yes #Platformchat on Friday, June 26th: Happy Summer, Everyone!

I decided to cancel #platformchat this Friday, June 19th, because I'm setting up a killer chat for next week on Friday, June 26 (and I want to take a long weekend to kick summer off!).

While I'm busy canceling things, I may as well go ahead and cancel July 3rd in honor of Fourth of July weekend. Because we writers deserve some time to play!

Here are the all new and improved chat guidelines, if you would like to join us. I hope you will.

Our guests for Friday, June 26th are:

Jane Friedman is the editor of the nonfiction book, The Beginning Writer’s Answer Book. She is Publisher & Editorial Director at Writer’s Digest. Jane speaks regularly at writing conferences across the country and has been writing and publishing ever since graduating with a BFA in creative writing from the University of Evansville. Her blog is There are no rules.

Therese was a freelance health writer before she turned to fiction. She’s the co-mama of the popular writers’ blog Writer Unboxed and will have her first novel in a two-book deal published with Random House on October 13th. You can learn more about her book, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, at her website: www.ThereseWalsh.com or her blog, www.WriterUnboxed.com.

[One more guest TBA]

Moderators are:

Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Build an Author Platform and Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (both for Writer’s Digest Books). A platform development coach and consultant, she teaches writing career development, hosts the Northwest Author Series, and is the publisher of several e-zines including Writers on the Rise. Christina blogs at The Writer Mama Riffs and Get Known Before the Book Deal, and speaks at MFA programs, literary events, and conferences around the country.

Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Just wanted everyone to know to take the chat off your calendar this week and put it back on for next week!

Thanks! And happy official first weekend of summer!

The New & Improved #Platformchat: Da Rules

Well, let's just say that #platformchat has been in Beta. I tried it a couple of times without really thinking ahead too much about what I was doing. And sometimes it went well and was exciting and easy. And other times, I actually had the thought, "Oh dear God, what have I done?"

After some reflection, I realized that this chat is like everything writers do. If you don't take charge of it, clarify what you doing, and ask for what you hope for, then you are stuck with what you get. And if you don't like the results, well, what did you expect? You will get back exactly what you put out.

So, from here on out, #platformchat has a description, rules, and guest panelists. And anyone who has a problem with the description, the rules or me, should...I don't know, find something else to do, I guess.

I'm an author and a teacher, and my intention in starting #platformchat was that it would like a quickie helpdesk for those who are platform-ready. It's okay to come and watch. Nobody says you have to jump into the fray. But expect a certain amount of intensity as people can get kind of frustrated when it comes to platform development.

And who can blame them? There isn't a ton of good clear information out there on the topic. That's what #platformchat is for: getting answers to your platform questions (all in short form, of course).

What Is #platformchat?

• The length of the chat is one hour. So only the quick and the brave should expect to get their questions answered.
• There will be a focus topic each week that we will keep circling back to (because I'm a teacher and I'm not about to pass up a "teaching moment").

Who will like #platformchat?

• Anyone who is ready to work on their writer platform. Anyone who is not yet working on their platform but is willing to start working on it. Anyone who is already working a platform but has questions. Anyone who is thinking about platform but is confused about what the heck platform is.

What's the format of #platformchat?

• Christina Katz is the host of #platformchat (that's me). I will invite three guests to speak to participants questions. I will also answer questions. You can expect my responses to be fairly prescriptive because I'm a how-to author. But I'm sure my guests will be much more tactful.
• The guests will be introduced in the first five-ten minutes of the chat. This is about as close to a panel discussion format as you can get on Twitter. Thanks for being respectful towards our guests.
• When time is up, the chat is over. People are busy and I don't want to hold anybody up from everything else they have to do. If you don't get your questions answered during the hour, feel free to send me a tweet either privately or openly, but leave the #platformchat tag off. Otherwise our "hour" will last forever.

When is #platformchat?

• The discussion takes place each Friday morning from 11 a.m. - noon Pacific Time (which is 12 MT, 1 CT, and 2 ET). I hope that's a convenient time for the summer. We'll revisit the time slot in the fall.

Where is #platformchat?

• We're on Twitter, so if you want to participate, you'll need to be on Twitter too. You'll also want to follow me. On Twitter, I'm @thewritermama. If you follow me, I'll follow you.
• You can direct your questions to me, to everyone, or to a specific person on the panel, but please always use the hash tag #platformchat so everyone can follow the stream of conversation.
• To see an example of a hashtag stream, go to www.hashtags.org and type in platformchat. You'll see our last chat in reverse order. Scroll back in time and read it going forward, if you have the patience for that kind of thing. Otherwise just show up next time and join in.
• There is no membership, cost, or any other kind of commitment you make by showing up for #platformchat. Don't feel like you have to apologize if you can't make it. I realize that everyone won't come every time. You don't even need to RSVP. Just show up!

How do I follow #platformchat?

• Okay, this part is not perfect. Okay, actually, no part of this is perfect, so let's just do the best we can.  I welcome any input on how you follow chats, if you have better methods than what you see here:
• Download Adobe Tweetdeck. It's free and it allows you to display multiple columns like "All Friends," "Replies," "Direct Messages," etc. Search for platformchat to follow along with the group discussion, while also fielding tweets aimed just at you, etc.There are often delays on Tweetdeck but it's the easiest way to create a column on your screen. If it seems stuck, just relaunch it. That's what I do.
• If you prefer to go old-school, it might actually keep up better. From your Twitter "home" page, search for "#platformchat." You'll likely have to keep refreshing to see the latest tweets.
• Other ideas? I'm all ears.

Why are you hosting #platformchat?

• I know a bit about platform after speaking and writing on the topic for the past several years. I have been working closely with writers on platform development in addition to growing my own over the past decade. What I bring to the table is insight into what it's actually like for writers to grow a platform, from the writer's point of view, as opposed to the nice, neat tidy picture everyone hopes to create in the end.
• Make no mistake, it takes a lot of time and energy for writers to create a strong, book-ready platform. I hope to save folks a lot of time, energy, and frustration in getting from where they are to where they'd like to be platform-wise.
• I also wrote a book on the topic for Writer's Digest called, Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform. Anyone who has read it is welcome to bring his or her questions to #platformchat.
• Keep in mind that this chat is not going to replace all the due diligence you really need to do BEFORE you launch your platform, but we will answer a bunch of questions, for sure.

A couple of requests:

• Please don't come to #platformchat with the expectation that we will all be off to visit your websites and blogs and will give you an instant evaluation. That's beyond the scope of our chat. The conversation needs to stay in the chat, since we have limited time. If you have a platform going already, please be prepared to describe it and you in 140 characters or less, so you can bring us all quickly up to speed.
• Be prepared to be asked questions. This is actually helpful for everyone, including you. If I am not "getting" your platform from what you say during the chat, I will keep asking you questions until we all get it. (If you don't want to be asked questions, you don't have to answer. It's always your choice how much you want to participate.)
• Finally, if you have feedback about the chat, please save it for after our hour is up. An hour isn't much time and I'm sure that the folks who come with questions will appreciate it if we stay on topic.
• If you have constructive suggestions, please e-mail me at christina katz at earthlink dot net.

Hope to see you Friday at 11 a.m. Pacific Time for the next #platformchat!

Get Known Groove Mentioned in The New York Times!

Meryl Evans mentions the Get Known Groove in her recent article in the New York Times, "Web Worker Careers: Writers and Editors."

Here's a taste:

Ninety-nine percent of authors don’t make money on their book projects, 99 percent of publishers lose money and 1,500 books are published every day, reports Clint Greenleaf. With those stats, why does anyone consider a career as a writer or editor?

Because even with those stats, it is possible to make a good living. Especially now, as the growing number of online publications means there are many writing and editing opportunities that go beyond traditional books, newspaper and magazines.

Could you consider writing or editing as a career?

More in the NYT...

Dear Groovers (June Issue Begins...),

Even though I told the readers of my other newsletter (The Writer Mama) that I'm taking things down a few notches this summer, I'm actually still accomplishing a lot. Summer may be here, but I won't be taking the summer off by any means.

I'll just be working more efficiently than I have in a long time, while taking advantage of some extra R&R opportunities.
 
Here's what I am currently up to:

• Planning the Northwest Author Series for the 2009-2010 season (see my article below: "You Wanna Start Something?").

• Featured in a podcast interview with Deb Schneider for King County Library System (Shh! Don't tell Kati I didn't do it myself).

• Sharing a summer blog tour interview that helps me overcome writers' resistance to platform development (I think Sage will approve. Feel free to contact me if you are interested!)

• Working on a distribution plan for the book trailer for Get Known Before the Book Deal (Gregory! Look at me!).

• Gearing up to apply for a RACC grant this summer (Gigi is going to be very proud of me, I just know it!).

• All over Facebook (as evidenced by my quote in Meryl's article).

• A long-time Kelly James-Enger fan. In fact, she is referenced in both of my books because she sets such a great example for writers (Hi, Kelly!).

This platform stuff gets easier and more fun the longer you do it!
 
Make good things happen, writers!
 
Christina Katz
Publisher & Editor

Friend me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter

I Just Started #Platformchat on Twitter

If you would like to see the complete thread from the first-ever platformchat on Twitter. Just go to Twittersearch and plug in:

#platformchat

Then, scroll down to the beginning of the chat (click through a few screens that say "Older" to accomplish this).

And follow our discussion. It's something of a rollicking ride bc I'm talking to individuals and everyone at the same time. And then Cheryl Strayed showed up and gave some great advice for fiction writers.

What fun, what fun! I love experimenting with online technology. It's always an educational process.

Hope you can join #platformchat next Friday, June 12th, at 11 a.m. PT. We'll be chatting for just one hour.

Hope to see you then!

Can You Hear Me Now? Podcast with Deb Schneider

Here's a podcast on getting known before the book deal with Deb Schneider, Program Coordinator from King County Library.

If you listen long enough you can hear me lose my train of thought. :)

Date Change: "Are You A Specialist or a Generalist" Webinar

Catch my first Writer's Digest Webinar!

Please Note: Date Change Tuesday, October 13th

Author Webinar Are You a Specialist or a Generalist?

Evaluating Your Skill Set to Get Published in the New "Gig Economy" by Christina Katz (60 minutes)

What are your skill sets as a writer, and how do you evaluate them? How do you decide whether to specialize or generalize? You need to establish a strong direction for your development as a writer to survive in the changing times of publishing. All registrants will take a pre-quiz called "What's Your Specialty?" designed to help you start identifying your strongest sources of expertise. This live event will offer:

• Tips and paths for both specialists and generalists, and how to get started
• Examples of writers' websites (both specialist and generalist)
• How to combine a specialist and generalist approach
• Your chance to jump-start your career using the same strategies as the pros
• Opportunity to ask Christina Katz your questions about platform development

Bonus: All attendees receive a copy of Get Known Before the Book Deal by Christina Katz. I bet many of you have not done a webinar before but there is really nothing to it. You just show up in front of your computer at the scheduled date and time and watch the images I display on your computer screen while listening to my voice in real time. You can even type in questions for me to answer during the Q&A period. More info.