My Favourite Game Changer Quotes In No Particular Order:

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony

- Jill Thomas Doyle

video essays about horror, fear and dread

Films That Feel Like Bad Dreams

The Nightmare Artist

Fear of Big Things Underwater

Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House

House of Leaves: The Horror Of Fiction

Monsters in the Closet: A History of LGBT Representation in Horror Cinema

The History of Insane Asylums and Horror Movies

The Saddest Horror Movie You’ve Never Seen

Fear of Forgetting

Slender Man: Misunderstanding Ten Years Of The Internet

The Real Reason The Thing (1982) is Better than The Thing (2011)

The Bizarre Clown Painting No One Fully Understands

The Little Book of Cosmic Horrors

The Disturbing Art of A.I.

Fear of Depths

Goya’s Witches

David Lynch: The Treachery of Language

The True History That Created Folk Horror

The Existential Horror of David Cronenberg’s Camera

a few more and the youtube playlist are below the cut. as always feel free to share your recs as well!

Keep reading

On a scale...

from Saoirse Ronan

to Saoirse Ronan

How successful were you in drowning your sister?

"There seems to have been a murder."

Pasta is great. It’s like hey, let me take delicious things like butter,or meat, or tomatoes or basil and then let me just fuckin mix whatever the fuck i want in and combine it with some random ass noodles.  That’s basically pasta.  BUT, there’s a big difference between “basically pasta” and “holy shit food of the gods” pasta, and that is that the latter has some rules that must be followed.  10 PASTA COMMANDMENTS COMIN UP:

Always boil pasta in boiling SALTED water. Ever had a dish where you forgot to salt it before cooking it, and no matter how much seasoning you did post saute/sear, it still sort of tasted bland on the inside? Same goes for pasta. Your sauce could be fuckin on point, but if you don’t salt dat pasta water, ya fugged, bruh. 

Always have your sauce ready BEFORE the pasta. Pestos, emulsified butter sauces, bolognese sauces, they should be in their respective sauce pans, heated and ready to go (unless we’re takin pesto or carbonarashit, as those go bad with heat). The worst thing you could do is fuck up and overcook your delicious pasta bc you were too busy making or finishing up your sauce. 

Always TASTE your pasta. I don’t care if the package says it’s ready in 1 minute or an hour, taste your pasta from the boiling water at least 2 minutes in, and every 2 minutes after that. Al dente’s usually the way to go, but you’ll never know when to take it out if you’re not constantly tasting. 

DO NOT strain your pasta, wasting your pasta water and allowing your pasta to cool. Use tongs to take pasta straight up form the boiling water (don’t dry it, nerds) and throw it in your sauce. A little pasta water gets in? no probs, and I’ll tell you why. 

If your sauce is reducing too much, or it’s too tight, add pasta water. It’s salted and hot and ready to go, it won’t dilute the flavor at all, you’re golden duude. golden. 

Finish your pasta in the sauce, allow it to become homogenous, let the sauce stick to the pasta, BECOME ONE WITH THE PASTA BRUH. 

Add cheese last, because cheese get’s weird and fucked up in hot pans, so it’s best to throw that on right before you’re ready to eat that shit up. 

4 oz is a normal serving size for pasta. If you don’t have a scale, that’s basically like the first pic above. If you hold the pasta like such, and the width of the bunch is a little smaller than an american quarter, then ur good 2 go bruh. 

Dry pastas are not better/worse than fresh pasta. They’re legit just made with different flours using different procedures. One isn’t ‘fancier’ than the other u pretentious buttrockets. 

PASTA IS NOT SCARY, IT’S DELICIOUS. These rules look tough, but honestly it’s not that bad bruh. I believe in u. 

and now, onto the recipe I used for my pasta. It’s a restaurant favorite, we always make it on the line because it’s simple, delicious and super filling. 

~

Caciopepe Pasta serves: 1 (lol like id share this with ppl lolol) -

Ingredients-

salt water for boiling (just salt some water, don’t fuckin travel to the beach in hopes of created the most bomb pasta ever)

1 bunch of pasta

2 bay leaves

1 sprig thyme

cold butter (approximately 2/3 cups cut into small pads

parmesan cheese to taste

a shit ton of black pepper to taste

-

Procedure-

Throw some pasta into some boiling water and do that thing where you constantly taste test the pasta to see if it’s ready. In the meantime, make ur sauce u lazy bumbum.

Add a little boiling pasta water to a saute pan over low heat, and whisk/mix in the butter quickly till it’s creamy and emulsified. If it’s too thick, just whisk in a teeny bit of pasta water. Add 2 bay leaves and a sprig of thyme for aroma, remove when pasta’s ready. 

Once the pasta’s ready to rock and roll, use tongs to scoop it up and place it in the sauce. Flip and mix using tongs. Add cheese and crack a lot of pepper. Add salt if it needs seasoning, add more pasta water if the sauce tightens.

and bam, ya ready to roll. 

~ I promise u if you use these pasta techniques, people will think ur literally a GOD. ur welcs. 

Journals, articles, books & texts, on folklore, mythology, occult, and related -to- general anthropology, history, archaeology. 

Some good and/or interesting (or hokey) ‘examples’ included for most resources. tryin to organize & share stuff that was floating around onenote.

Journals (open access) – Folklore, Occult, etc

Culutural Analysis - folklore, popular culture, anthropology – The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture

Folklore - folklore, anthropology, archaeology – The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative, Grecian Riddle Jokes

Incantatio - journal on charms, charmers, and charming – Verbal Charms from a 17th Century Manuscript

Oral Tradition – Jewish Folk Literature, Noises of Battle in Old English Poetry

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics – Nani Fairtyales about the Cruel Bride, Energy as the Mediator between Natural and Supernatural Realms

International Journal of Intangible Heritage 

Studia Mythologica Slavica (many articles not English) – Dragon and Hero, Fertility Rites in the Raining Cave, The Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography

Folklorica - Slavic & Eastern European folklore association – Ritual: The Role of Plant Characteristics in Slavic Folk Medicine, Animal Magic

Esoterica - The Journal of Esoteric Studies – The Curious Case of Hermetic Graffiti in Valladolid Cathedral 

The Esoteric Quarterly

Mythological Studies Journal

Luvah - Journal of the Creative Imagination – A More Poetical Character Than Satan

Transpersonal Studies – Shamanic Cosmology as an Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Dreamscapes

Beyond Borderlands  – tumblr

Paranthropology

GOLEM - Journal of Religion and Monsters – The Religious Functions of Pokemon, Anti-Semitism and Vampires in British Popular Culture 1875-1914

Correspondences - Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism – Kriegsmann’s Philological Quest for Ancient Wisdom 

– History, Archaeology

Adoranten - pre-historic rock art

Chitrolekha - India art & design history – Gomira Dance Mask

Silk Road – Centaurs on the Silk Road: Hellenistic Textiles in Western China

Sino-Platonic - East Asian languages and civilizations – Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions

MELA Notes - Middle East Librarians Association

Didaskalia - Journal for Ancient Performance

Ancient Narrative - Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions – The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel

Akroterion - Greek, Roman – The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies  – Erotic and Separation Spells, The Ancients’ One-Horned Ass

Roman Legal Tradition - medieval civil law – Between Slavery and Freedom 

Phronimon - South African society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities – Special Issue vol. 13 #2, Greek philosophy in dialogue with African+ philosophy

The Heroic Age - Early medieval Northwestern Europe – Icelandic Sword in the Stone

Peregrinations - Medieval Art and Architecture – Special Issue vol. 4 #1, Mappings 

Tiresas - Medieval and Classical – Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages

Essays in Medieval Studies  – The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances, The Sweet Song of Satan

Hortulus - Medieval studies – Courtliness & the Deployment of Sodomy in 12th-Century Histories of Britain, Monsters & Monstrosities issue, Magic & Witchcraft issue

Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU

Medieval Archaeology – Divided and Galleried Hall-Houses, The Hall of the Knights Templar at Temple Balsall

Medieval Feminist Forum  – multiculturalism issue; Gender, Skin Color and the Power of Place … Romance of Moriaen, Writing Novels About Medieval Women for Modern Readers, Amazons & Guerilleres

Quidditas - medieval and renaissance 

Medieval Warfare

The Viking Society - ridiculous amount of articles from 1895-2011

Journals (limited free/sub/institution access)

Al-Masaq - Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Piracy as Statecraft: The Policies of Taifa of Denia, free issue

Mythical Creatures of Europe - article + map

Folklore - limited free access – Volume 122 #3, On the Ambiguity of Elves

Digital Philology -  a journal of medieval cultures – Saracens & Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography

Pomegranate - International Journal for Pagan Studies

Transcultural Psychiatry

European Journal of English Studies  – Myths East of Venice issue, Esotericism issue

Books, Texts, Images etc. – Folklore, Occult etc.

Magical Gem Database - Greek/Egyptian gems & talismans [x] [x]

Biblioteca Aracana - (mostly) Greek pagan history, rituals, poetry etc. – Greater Tool Consecration, The Yew-Demon

Curse Tablets from Roman Britain - [x]

The Gnostic Society Library – The Corpus Hermeticum, Hymn of the Robe of Glory

Grimoar - vast occult text library – Grimoires, Greek & Roman Necromancy, Queer Theology, Ancient Christian Magic

Internet Sacred Text Archive - religion, occult, folklore, etc. ancient texts

Verse and Transmutation - A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry

– History

The Internet Classics Archive - mainly Greco-Roman, some Persian & Chinese translated texts

Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collection - [x] [x] [x]

Virtual Magic Bowl Archive - Jewish-Aramaic incantation bowl text and images [x] [x] 

Vindolanda Tablets - images and translations of tablets from 1st & 2nd c. [x]

Corsair - online catalog of the Piedmont Morgan library (manuscripts) [x] [x]

Beinecke rare book & manuscripts  – Wagstaff miscellany, al-Qur'ān–1813

LUNA - tonnes from Byzantine manuscripts to Arabic cartography

Maps on the web - Oxford Library [x] [x] [x]

Bodleian Library manuscripts - photographs of 11th-17th c. manuscripts – Treatises on Heraldry, The Worcester Fragments (polyphonic music), 12 c. misc medical and herbal texts

Early Manuscripts at Oxford U - very high quality photographs – (view through bottom left) Military texts by Athenaeus Mechanicus 16th c. [x] [x], MS Douce 195 Roman de la Rose [x] [x]

Trinity College digital manuscript library  – Mathematica Medica, 15th c.

eTOME - primary sources about Celtic peoples

Websites, Blogs – Folklore, Occult etc.

Demonthings - Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project 

Invocatio - (mostly) western esotericism

Heterodoxology - history, esotericism, science – Religion in the Age of Cyborgs

The Recipes Project - food, magic, science, medicine – The Medieval Invisible Man (invisibility recipes)

Morbid Anatomy - museum/library in Brooklyn

– History 

Islamic Philosophy Online - tonnes of texts, articles, links, utilities, this belongs in every section; mostly English

Medicina Antiqua - Graeco-Roman medicine

History of the Ancient World - news and resources – The So-called Galatae, Gauls, Celts in Early Hellenistic Balkans; Maidens, Matrons Magicians: Women & Personal Ritual Power in Late Antique Egypt

Διοτίμα - Women & Gender in Antiquity

Bodleian Library Exhibitions Online – Khusraw & Shirin, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures

Medievalists – folk studies, witchcraft, mythology, science tags

Atlas Obscura – Bats and Vampiric Lore of Pére Lachaise Cemetery 

had a minor crisis when 12ft.io went down yesterday and thankfully it's back now but this seems like a good opportunity to compile a list of similar paywall-evading tools in case 12ft ever gets canned for real:

12ft.io: the legend himself. definitely my favorite of the bunch by virtue of being the easiest to use (and the easiest url to remember), but it's configured to disable paywall evasion for a handful of popular sites like the new york times, so you'll have to go elsewhere for those.

printfriendly: works great; never had any issues with removing paywalls, even on domains that don't work with 12ft.io. since this site is literally designed to make sites print-friendly, it might simplify the overall formatting of the page you're trying to access, which can be a good or bad thing. my only real issue is that the "element zapper" (which lets you remove content blocks from the print-friendly preview) is a little sensitive if you're browsing on a touchscreen device, which means you might accidentally delete a paragraph when you're just trying to scroll. but if that happens you can reload the page and it'll revert everything back to its original state.

fifteen feet: basically a 12ft clone, minus 12ft's restrictions. haven't used it much since I only discovered it yesterday in the wake of 12ft's 451 error but it seems to do the trick.

archive.today: an archival tool very similar to the wayback machine, but it also works as a de facto paywall removal tool. (the wayback machine seems to remove paywalls as well, but archive.today has better UX imo and is way faster to use.)

and an honorable mention for sci-hub: only works for scientific/academic journals, not random news articles, but the other sites listed above only work for random news articles and not academic publications so you gotta have this one in your toolbelt for full coverage. pubmed is your oyster.

So you want to start a podcast: a collection of resources

So @borinquenaqueer requested resources for podcasters, and I started collecting mine and typing up info about them and then it turned into a Whole Thing, so I decided to just make it its own post in case other people also find it helpful. Below the cut, we're gonna cover:

Microphones (what types are out there + personal recommendations)

Recording your show

Editing your show

Audio hosting (what is it + how much does it cost + personal recommendations)

Website hosting (why I recommend having a website + cost + recs)

Music

Cover art

Transcripts

Press kits (what are they + why you might want to have one + how to make one)

Other resources (a collection of articles about podcasting that people might find helpful)

(Quick note: this is all geared towards a general audience, so any “you” in this post should be taken to mean a vague “you, any podcaster reading this” rather than a particular person!)

Microphones

There are two types of microphones commonly used in podcasting: XLR and USB.

XLR microphones connect to an audio interface with an XLR cable; the audio interface then connects to your computer with a USB cable.

USB microphones connect directly to your computer with a USB cable.

Here's a quick rundown of how they compare:

XLR Microphones

Cost: Cost varies depending on what you get, but all of the pieces together will probably come out to around $100 minimum

Audio Quality: Reliably crisp and clear even on the lower end of the budget

Background Noise: Generally good at picking up only your voice and filtering out background noise

Components: You'll need a microphone, mic stand, audio interface, XLR cable, and USB cable

Replacing/Upgrading: While the whole kit and kaboodle will probably come out to around $100, each individual piece can be found in the $20-40 range, which makes them easier to replace if one of them breaks. You can also upgrade your equipment one piece at a time (e.g. I started with a $20 mic and later upgraded to a $100 mic without changing any of my other equipment)

Set-Up: Can take slightly longer to set up, especially when you're just getting used to it. None of the set up is particularly hard (it's really just plugging things into other things and fiddling with knobs), but it can take a few minutes

Portability: Can be taken out of the house if you get a portable audio interface

USB Microphones

Cost: Starts around $25, with most falling in the $50-100 range. Most don’t come with a pop filter, which will cost an extra $5-15 depending on the type you get

Audio Quality: The $25-40 range will probably be a little grainy/poppy, but that’s not a huge deal if you don’t mind that it might cost you some listeners (there are some people who are just picky about what quality of audio they listen to and others who have hearing issues that means they genuinely need high-quality audio to understand anything). You’ll get more reliable audio quality once you hit the $50-100 range

Background Noise: Can pick up a lot of background noise, which can be an issue if you live somewhere with a lot of ambient sounds (like near a highway or in an apartment with a toddler above you)

Components: You just need the microphone and a USB cable, which are generally sold together

Replacing/Upgrading: There’s really just one main component to this set-up (the microphone), so if it breaks, you’ll have to replace your whole set-up. Same with upgrading—if you want to upgrade to a better mic at some point, you’ll probably be looking at replacing your set-up entirely (though this can also be an upside if you’re able to sell your old mic, since that can offset the cost of getting a new one)

Set-Up: Very quick—you just plug in, adjust the knobs, and go

Portability: You can generally only use it if you have a computer to plug it into, so it’s about as portable as your computer happens to be (and, of course, is reliant on your computer’s battery life)

Bonus: Pop Filters

No matter which kind of microphone you use, you’ll probably want a pop filter. There are two kinds: one looks like a piece of very thin fabric stretched over a plastic hoop that’s attached to a long, flexible neck; you attach the neck to either your microphone or the table you’re recording on, then move the screen so it’s between your mouth and the microphone. The other kind looks like a foam ball with a hole cut through one side; you just put it over your microphone. The first kind usually runs around $15, the second around $2-5. You can use either or both, but I highly recommend using at least one.

This is because of plosives. A plosive is a kind of sound you make by stopping your airflow, followed by a sudden release of air—like the p or b sounds in English. When you record yourself saying those sounds (and you’ll be saying them a lot), the microphone picks up the burst of air as a sudden spike in noise, which can be really unpleasant and jarring to listen to. When you use a pop filter, it dampens the burst of air and stops the audio from spiking. If you don’t have the money to buy one, you can find tutorials for making your own online!

Microphone Recommendations

XLR: I started out using a Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 microphone ($25) connected to a Behringer U-Phoria UM2 Audio Interface ($50). After buying cords, a pop filter, and a mic stand, the set-up came out to a bit over $100.

USB: The Blue Yeti is considered somewhat of a gold standard for USB mics in podcasting (I believe Welcome to Night Vale is/was recorded on a Yeti, though I could be wrong). It’s about $100-140 depending on where you buy. For a more budget-friendly option, I know people who have gotten great results from the Blue Snowball, which can be found online for around $45-50.

Tip: Buy Extra Cords

Whatever kind of microphone you buy, I highly recommend getting an extra of each kind of cord you need. Cords have this habit of breaking right before (or in the middle of) recording sessions and that is much easier to deal with if you have an extra on hand!

Resources

30 of the Best Podcast Microphones (For Any Budget)

21 of the Best USB Microphones for Podcasts (That Won’t Break the Bank)

Recording Your Show

To record your show, you’ll need some kind of program on your computer that can record sound. My go-to is Audacity: it’s totally free, has a pretty robust toolset, and is (at least in my opinion) pretty user-friendly. It’s also been around for ages and is super popular, so it’s really easy to find how-to guides online (both general “how do I use this program at all?” and more specific questions like “how do I reduce noise?”). You can also just play around with whatever recording program came pre-installed on your computer. 

If you have multiple people on your show and you’re recording together online (e.g. over a Discord call), I extremely extremely recommend having everyone record their audio individually and then stitching them together rather than just recording the call. It’s more work, but it will sound worlds better. 

Editing Your Show

So, I have done editing before. I’m not going to pretend I’m particularly skilled at it, and I would feel bad passing on advice that could be bad, so instead I’m gonna skip right to the Resources part of this section and pass you on to people who know more than me.

Resources

Why I Edit Actual Play Podcasts on an iPad

A Massively Oversimplified Guide to Loudness

Podcast Problems: The Love and Fear of Silence

Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters: How to Setup, Record, and Edit a Podcast

That last one is obviously geared specifically towards Audacity, but if you use a different program, just Googling “how to edit a podcast in [program]” can usually get you some great in-depth tutorials.

Audio Hosting

To submit your podcast to podcatchers like Apple/Google Play/Spotify, you need to have an RSS feed. To get an RSS feed, you need to use a hosting service, like Libsyn or Pinecast. Many of these (though not all of them!) cost money, but they can be pretty cheap—I started out using Libsyn, which starts at $5/mo per podcast. As a heads up, at least with the paid services I’m familiar with, you don’t just pay for the service while you’re actively uploading your podcast; you’ll have to keep paying for as long as you want your feed to remain active (meaning that people can still listen to your show). 

I currently use Pinecast, which I highly recommend if you’re going to do multiple shows, because you can have multiple shows on the same $10/mo plan (vs services like Libsyn which charge per show).

Resources

The 9 Best Free Podcast Hosting Services in 2022

The 10 Best Podcast Hosting Services (for new & experienced podcasters)

Website Hosting

I extremely recommend having a website. This will provide a handy dandy place for people who interested in your show to find out things like when/where your show releases, who makes it and where they can be found, and how people can contact you. If you have a Patreon/ko-fi/other way for people to pay you, you can also link it here. Same with transcripts. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy or even cost you any money—I’ve seen great websites that are just based on Tumblr or Carrd, which you can make totally for free.

Here are some examples of podcasting websites on a variety of different platforms:

Re: Dracula (Tumblr, free—I believe they do have another website, but this is a great example of a Tumblr blog for a podcast)

Starlight Audio Productions (Squarespace, $17/mo—this one is mine!)

Sidequesting (Carrd, free—though I believe you have to pay extra for a custom domain, like this website has)

Hug House Productions (Wordpress, which has a range of costs starting around $4/mo; this particular website plan is $25/mo, which allows them to have a store on their site)

Zebulon Podcasts (Wix, free—though you can pay money to remove the banner at the top and get a custom domain)

You may also consider getting a custom domain name, which is how the Starlight Audio website is starlightaudio.com instead of starlightaudio.squarespace.com. You can hook a custom domain up to a lot of different website builders, including Tumblr blogs, though some of them (like Wix) will charge extra for it. Custom domain names do cost money, though usually not a ton—I pay $10/year for the Starlight Audio domain and Hug House pays $20/year for theirs (thank you to Anne at Hug House for answering my questions!).

Music

For music, you have a few options:

Find music online that’s free to use—just make sure that it’s free to use, not just free to download; and if you plan on running ads at any point, make sure that it’s free to use for commercial rather than personal use. My old queer history podcast (RIP) used a Jonathan Coulton song because he, bless him, releases his music for free non-commercial use with attribution 

Find music you like from an independent artist and ask their permission to use it—not every artist will let you use their stuff for free, but many will, especially if you credit them in every episode

Commission an artist to make a custom song for you—this will have a huge range of costs depending on who you get and how much they charge; in my experience it’ll usually be in the $100-400 range. If you plan on having ads on your show, make sure that the artist knows that and is okay with it!

If you’re a composer, you can also make your own song and use it however the heck you want. You make the rules now.

Whatever you do, I do recommend having some kind of opening music, because it’s a great way to set the tone for your show and make it more distinctive (think about how the light, bouncy Parks & Recreation theme song sets up the show as a lighthearted comedy while the dark, eerie Hannibal theme song sets up the show as a bloody horror show). If you can’t afford to pay any money for your opening song, that’s totally fine—you can find tons of music online that’s free to use and will sound great!

Resources

Where to Get Music for Podcasts Free of Royalty Issues

Cover Art

We’ve got two main options here:

Do it yourself. I tend to make my covers in Photoshop, but Canva is a very popular and user-friendly option. Canva is free to use and has tons of free assets available, though you can also pay $10/mo to have an expanded asset catalog. There are also tons of free tutorials on Youtube for how to make good art in Canva!

Commission someone to make it for you. Cost for this will vary wildly depending on who you go with (anywhere from $50-400 or more), and will also vary according to whether you plan to sell merch with your show art on it (if you plan on making a profit from it, you’ll probably need to pay more to the artist you commission it from, though some will also be open to you paying less upfront if you give them a cut of merchandise profits)

Resources

The Sound Barrier: Does Cover Art Matter?

Canva podcast templates

Fiverr and Upwork (websites for hiring freelancers)

Transcripts

Transcripts can be used to make your podcast accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, like me! I’m not going to spend tons of time in this post going into why you should have podcasts and how to edit/host/format them—I’ve already written a pretty extensive article that covers those things, which I’ll link under Resources below. 

However, that article is geared mostly towards turning recording scripts for fiction podcasts into transcripts, which is a bit of a different process than getting transcripts for an unscripted show. If your show is unscripted and you want to provide transcripts, there are three main ways to do it:

Hire a transcriber. You can find transcribers on Fiverr and Upwork (linked above). Usual rates are around $0.30-2.00 per minute of audio

Transcribe it yourself. This is a huge amount of work and I don’t really recommend it if you’re not an experienced transcriber with a bunch of time on your hands. Instead, if you can’t afford someone to transcribe your show from scratch, try…

Generating an auto-transcript using a service like Otter.ai. This can be a great budget option if you can’t afford a transcriber. However, if you do this, please edit your transcripts. You know how Youtube autocaptions are infamously bad? Services like Otter have come a long way, but they’re still going to have those same issues. Most of them also only reference English dictionaries and will massively fuck up non-English words and names. Please edit your transcript to make sure it’s actually accurate

A lot of people will say that you absolutely have to have a transcript for your show—that if you don't, you're Evil and Personally Hate Accessibility. I actually disagree with that, because at the end of the day, having transcripts does take require either time or money, and I know a lot of podcasters just don’t have either of those. But if you’re able to have transcripts, it means your podcast is accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people (as well as people with audio processing issues), which is a really kind thing to do and helps make the world a more accessible place.

Resources

How to Make Your Podcast More Accessible Using Transcripts (written by me!)

I don’t currently know of any how-to guides for editing auto transcripts, but I’m asking around and will update if I find one

Press Kits

A press kit is essentially a handy little packet that people can view or download that includes a bunch of info about your show all in one easily-accessible place—think things like your cast/crew, what your show is about, how it started, when and how to listen to it, your cover art, that kind of thing. It’s called a “press kit” because it’s most commonly used by journalists (press) to make it easier for us to write about your show. This isn’t a requirement to have a podcast or anything, but it makes it easier for people to give your show free publicity, which is a very useful thing!

Here are some examples of podcast press kits:

Love and Luck (Squarespace)

Twilight Over Midgard (Squarespace, with a bit of a different format—this is my upcoming show)

Sidequesting (Carrd)

VALENCE (Wordpress) 

Zebulon Podcasts (Wix; click on “Menu” then “Press Kit”)

I can’t explain how to make a press kit better than my friend Elena Fernández Collins already has, so I’ll just link that below—give it a look!

Resources

Press Play on a Podcast Press Kit

Other Resources

Finally, here are some general podcasting resources that didn’t fit into any of the above categories:

Discover Pods (disclaimer: I used to write for them)

How To Start A Podcast The Right Way (The Definitive Complete Guide for 2022)

Podcaster Resources

Simplecast blog (disclaimer: I currently write for them)

Less is More: Refining the Scope of your Audio Drama

How to Tumblr as a Fiction Podcaster

“As You Know, Bob…”: Creating Natural-Sounding Dialogue in Audio

Bello Collective

The blogs of Wil Williams and Elena Fernández Collins and the “Podcasting Resources” page of Tal Minear (disclaimer: I’m friends with these people, but I do genuinely think their writing is great and I’d be recommending it even if I didn’t love them as people)

 I’ve also written several articles on podcasting; here’s links to a few of my favorites

I Have a Podcast—Now What the Heck Do I Call It?

Avoiding Podcasting Burnout When Your Love Your Work

Writing Mentally Ill Characters in Horror (Without the Ableism)

Thanks for reading this massive post! I hope at least a few people find it helpful. If you liked this post, reblogs are super appreciated. If you like how I write, you can find more in my writing portfolio and on the blog on my website, where I’m currently chronicling my journey trying to get a book published.

If anyone has questions, feel free to ask and I’ll respond as best as I can!

We're f-f-flying in a CAR Ron, Owl, Harry and his SCAR Pass the mic right over to THE WHOMPING WILLOW

Lemony Snicket's Calendar of Unfortunate Events

Jan 12: Birthday of Jacques Snicket, as well as that of his sister.

Feb 26: Jacques Snicket “taken” and initiated into V.F.D.

Mar 18: Jacques Snicket, given his first assignment, disguises himself accordingly.

Mar 31: Alleged date the alleged Baudelaire mansion allegedly burned down.

Apr 8: Isadora Quagmire’s whereabouts unknown.

Apr 17: Jacques Snicket disguise discovered. Alternate disguise employed.

May 13: Nine cows arrested by the authorities under the suspicion of involvement with V.F.D. Jacques Snicket, disguised as the tenth cow, escapes on a stolen tractor.

Jun 26: Jacques Snicket arrives in Paltryville to continue Baudelaire investigation.

Jul 6: Jacques Snicket reports his findings to The Daily Punctilio.

Jul 7: The Daily Punctilio does not publish Jacques Snicket’s report.

Aug 9: V.F.D. declares Jacques Snicket “either missing or on vacation.”

Sep 23: Summer is dead and Jacques Snicket does not return. V.F.D. changes his status to “missing.”

Oct 10: The remaining Snicket siblings open their investigation into Jacques Snicket’s disappearance.

Nov 7: Jacques Snicket reported murdered.

Dec 2: Jacques Snicket reported ill.

Jan 4: Director and screenwriter Gustav Sebald reported missing.

Jan 10: Gustav Sebald found murdered.

Jan 27: V.F.D. declares remaining Snicket siblings “either missing or on vacation.” Very few vacations are scheduled in January.