Interview with Todd Boss
At the beginning of 2026, Amelia Hruby, the founder of Softer Sounds talked about how to go analog with your podcast marketing.
Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by the events and activations podcasters put together to get their podcast to the right audience. When Tink friend and host of Weirdly Helpful Zak Rosen told me about a podcast fundraising event happening in Austin on Oct 24, I knew I needed to talk to the person behind it. Especially because the person is a poet, old-school marketer, and so many things we need more of now.
Todd Boss is the author of four poetry collections from W. W. Norton, a children’s book from Simon & Schuster, and has written lyrics for Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated projects.
On Oct 24 in Austin, Texas, Todd and his community are hosting the SECOND annual benefit for Todd’s podcast – There’s a Poem in That. On his podcast, Todd helps strangers find the poetry in their lives through retellings of intimate stories. The podcast is a creative haven, a labor of love that can’t be promoted in the usual marketing manners we discuss.
This is my conversation with Todd about how he grew his podcast through actual community activation, do these events help audiences grow, and does it even matter in the big picture.
Why did you start TAPIT?
I was telling a Los Angeles friend about my ten-year private practice of writing poems on commission — about the profound rewards, and tearful catharses that characterizes such “clinical poetry” work, and the ways in which I had perfected a model (three hours of intimate listening followed by three months of writing) — and she blurted out: “That would make an amazing podcast.” She became my producer, and now she’s my fianceé. There’s a Poem in That is our baby.
How did you market/promote it in the initial days?
I relied on my personal social media, newsletter, and word of mouth at first. I printed cool square rounded-cornered cards with the 808- studio number and prompts on it, to hand out to random strangers, stick to car windows, drop into mail slots, and leave at coffee shops. A few months later, I had a pop-up medical tent “Poetic Help 5¢ — The poet is IN” that drew people on Venice Boardwalk and street fairs in Santa Monica, at which a live mic captured people’s responses to the question: “Is there an unwritten poem in your life story?”
There’s a Poem in That has always been supported by your community, spiritually and financially. How did you activate your community to help support you?
You could say my first supporters were the people who commissioned me during those ten years of private practice, paying between $1,000 and $1500 for a custom poem. That was validating, and the results were deeply rewarding, and I knew I had something special. When it became a podcast, I dropped my fee to democratize the opportunity, and funded it out of pocket for a couple of years, just to get it off the ground. TAPIT is unusually high-concept, and I knew it would have to prove itself first. I was simply documenting my work by releasing it, I suppose, but I was also demonstrating its value as a combination documentary, narrative, art, and reality show. A move to Austin, Texas, introduced me to a community of arts lovers, a few of whom fell hard for the show and volunteered to co-host a benefit. I didn’t activate them, they activated me. They raised $37,900 at a single event last year. This year, we hope to double attendance.
You say your community activated you. How did they do that? Can you share one act of community that made you pause and think – wow, I've really found my place in this anthropocene?
After binge-listening, Ying Tang cornered me at a concert and peppered me with questions: How do you get your guests to share so much about their private lives? Where do you get the confidence to know you can write something for each one in turn? How much time does it take to produce an episode? … Her questions grew increasingly tactical, until it was clear she could help. A longtime board member in Austin's arts ecosystem, she knew just who to call. Linda. Marvin. before I knew it, they had a date on the calendar and a small art gallery venue rented. Capacity was 50. I thought, wow, this is happening, this is catching fire. Austin gets it.
What did promoting your podcast analog style teach you about online promotion? Would you say they've got anything in common?
That’s a tricky question for this 57-year-old farm kid whose robust skepticism about all things virtual has animated most of the choices I’ve made in my life. When people are handing you their money, you think twice about giving it to Meta. Eavesdropping on twentysomethings at BookPeople the other day, I kept hearing this slangy phrase “that’s so real.” Kids these days? They love the analog—vinyl, SLRs, binoculars—and I feel (I don’t have the data, I just feel it, don’t you?) there’s appreciating currency in slow-release, face-to-face, human interactions steeped in gift-economy thinking. Has TAPIT got an Insta, FB, Patreon? Sure. Do I use an e-vite platform? I guess. But are these relationships happening? They’re happening in shoe leather on real dirt — the best social platform there ever was. And that’s on brand for me.
When I put my marketing lens on, I see that you've reached out to a potential listener in different ways. How important is that in overall podcast growth?
I don’t have any way to measure that, except for a few anecdotes. I was sitting in my pop-up “clinic” at a Poetry Therapy conference (yes, there’s an association of therapists who use poetry to heal!), and Lisa, a woman with a cane, took advantage of my other chair and started (barely) talking. I say barely because Lisa suffers aphasia from a paralyzing stroke, which makes it almost impossible for her to complete a sentence, or even start one. But she had things to say, and, what’s more, she was convinced there was poetry in it. She became a guest, and darned if there wasn’t a poem in that. Other guests get word of the show by word of mouth. Others have my card pinned to the wall for months before they get up the courage to answer my random invitation. So, yes, my analog tactics work in concert. One listener at a time. There’s magic in that, I think. As if TAPIT taps you.
Did the fundraiser last year transfer to podcast growth? And does it matter?
I guess it depends what you mean by growth. No, audience growth doesn’t matter to me, not right now. What matters right now is the organic authenticity-gain of the show as a locus of real human interaction, listener engagement, healing, and art.
Tell me everything you want to tell me about the fundraisers. I'd love to know the moments that blew you away, the reason you're doing it for the second time, the things you're most proud of, and will you do it again?
Wine and catering was donated. The gallery (Art for the People—couldn’t be more on brand) gave us a rock-bottom hourly rate. A guitarist accompanied my producer Hila, who sang an art song. I read a poem. There were already people crying in the second row. Brooks, a former guest, took the mic to tell the crowd what it was like to learn, through increasingly intimate interviews, to trust me—and it was hilarious and touching. And then I just wished, out loud, into the year ahead, and invited these new friends to dream with me about a world in which poets are held up again, into the wellness space, as the seers they are. Linda led pledges at $5,000, hands were going up, and the money just started coming in.
And next month, at our “second annual” benefit? The gallery has a big new space with a baby grand in it. Kristen (who cried in the second row over a poem I read) commissioned an Art for the People artist to render the poem in acrylics—which we’ll unveil for everyone. Dan (Marvin’s son-in-law) will announce a new three-episode project with Shalom Austin he’s co-producing. Past guests are driving in from Dallas and North Carolina to testify. I’d say it's surreal, but, as the kids say, it’s so real. I can’t wait.
Will I do it again next year? Wild horses…