Go to their websites. Both writers. Both published.
Both want to and do help people write and be creative.
Both have online businesses.
Both making, if not a lot of money, enough to live, I'm assuming.
Both have their audience as writers. That seems like such a small niche. Both getting into writing about creativity.
https://austinkleon.com/
https://goinswriter.com/
The two websites have different vibes, that I understand with an insight from Goins. Goins has a fantastic article, insight, which I have not seen anywhere else which describes the different 'voices' of a blog author.
One is like an artist, a real person online and another is focused on his course and teaching aka professor or journalist.
In the following, when I say 'sell' I mean connect.
An artist 'sells' on creative expression, curation, poetry.
A professor 'sells' on insight, ability to help you solve a 'problem'. What is fascinating is that they are both, ostensibly, talking about the same topic: being a writer and creative online.
However, even if wrote a book on the same content, people would call one person's book a 'manifesto' and the other a 'in-depth guide' or 'course'.
One primarily says, here I am, here are things I see and think about, and the business model is oh by the way here are things I made.
The other primarily says, here I am, if you want to do this thing, let me help you, I can show you, here is how you can do it, and the business model is oh by the way, you can hire me to teach you.
They both are skilled writers, communicators, and have huge impact online.
I feel like I am forcing a distinction where there is no difference. They are both successful because they both provide both. "Knowledge entertainment" is a phrase that has been coming into my mind a lot. Neither is superior, but different and I am trying to figure out why. Like while they are both interesting, one comes across as a interesting conversation at a bar and another as a skilled business partner.
One I would go to for 'inspiration' and the other for 'nuts and bolts'.
Taken to a disingenuous extreme: one provides inspiration to people who are too boring to make anything interesting, and one provides structure to people who too disorganized to make anything interesting.
If art were creating a building, one focuses on raw materials and the other a building plan?
They both provide entertainment and knowledge.
How to be an artist? How to make it work as a business?
No, one provides inspiration and some insight on how to do it yourself, the other is providing how to do it yourself and inspiring people to do it.
I am not sure what I am talking about here, but I think it is important for me at this moment.
Edit: Wanted to add an insight here that I have not included above in order to preserve the original tone of the article (aka I do not know how to put this in there without destroying the original article, and I likely should rework the article, but I want to hit publish today and so anyway here it is in an admittedly obtrusive, but the least obtrusive way I could manage without making the original article incomprehensible in the meantime). The goal is to make interesting work. Some people are organized, but too boring so they only make work. And some people are interesting, but too disorganized so they only make interesting. One is a wild ranging conversation at a bar that does not get you anywhere, another is a business partner who does not get invited to the bar. To be clear, I am not talking about qualities of particular individuals, but to an idea of two extreme hypothetical versions. The particular individuals mentioned above both are fantastic creators and provide huge help to people online.
Edit 2: What is your mission? What do you need?
Structure to the interesting, but disorganized. Interesting to the structured, but boring.