Speedy Spotlight: Live Hard

Live Hard will be featured in this week’s Media Updates. Author Joel Snape is also associate editor at Men’s Fitness. He spoke to Cision about living hard, good PR and sitting in a white room to have a little think.

Why should people read your blog?
Because hopefully it’ll highlight the connections between very disparate areas of expertise that most people won’t see. Plenty of people know about the Japanese tea ceremony, for instance, and a lot of people lift weights or cage fight – but what are the similarities between those activities? That’s the sort of stuff I try to point out, in an effort to show how putting effort into one area of your life can improve all the other areas, too. 

What makes your blog different?
There are lots of blogs about weightlifting, or being more productive at work, or having a better quality of life…or just getting drunk. Live Hard tries to tie all those things together. Lots of people think that being fit means living like a monk on chicken, broccoli and green tea, and that you have to make a choice between being healthy and having fun. I’m trying to get across the idea that all these goals can actually tie together – working out makes you better at work, getting good at one thing makes you better at the others, and you can party like hell on a Friday but still train at the weekend. Work hard, play hard, party hard: live hard. That’s the general idea, anyway. 

What’s your favourite blog post and why?
Of my own? Probably the White Room. It’s one of the few totally original ones I’ve done (the others are mostly amalgamations of ideas from elsewhere), and I think it’s something everyone should think about, since it can instantly have an impact on your quality of life. Short version: if you’re honest, are most things you do more worthwhile than sitting in a white room and having a little think? Probably not.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog?
Write about something you like, or it’ll never be sustainable. Set yourself a posting schedule that’s reasonable, or at least don’t commit to a ridiculous one (you might think you’ll post three times a week, but that’ll catch up with you quick). And try to have at least a months’ worth of posts worked out before you launch it. 

How does a good PR work with you?
Send me an email that shows you’ve at least read the blog. I get a lot of generic emails from companies that don’t even bother to address me by name, and I ignore them. I’m much more likely to read something that shows an understanding of what I do, or who I’m trying to write for. At the moment, the things I’m most likely to mention are books and documentaries: I get through a ton of athletic/self-help/cookery books, and continue to find fascinating nuggets of info in them. Recently I’ve loved Eldar Shafir’s Scarcity and David Walsh’s excellent book on Team Sky. 

92% of UK journalists are on Twitter, how important is it to bloggers?
To bloggers in general? Tough to say. I don’t follow the blogs I like on Twitter, I just go to them pretty regularly. On the other hand, I use Twitter like a fiend, and I’d say about, ooh, 40% of what I tweet is useful, and not me just drunk or ranting. 

Editorial information on Live Hard, Joel Snape and thousands of other media contacts and outlets, can be found in the CisionPoint Media Database.