Prologue
Spreading Your Podcast – What Would Mother Nature Do?
My wife and I went for a hike in a forest last week. It's an arboretum, which means there are a lot of different types of trees.
Trees are very clever as far as being able to replicate – they use what's available to them, such as other animals (or nature) to do the job, sometimes without those things even knowing it.
For example, badgers help spread the seeds of yew trees via their poop. They swallow the yew berries, but only digest the fruit pulp, leaving the seeds to pass through their digestive system intact and grow into new trees.
Clever indeed.
There's a lesson for podcasters here. If you want somebody to spread what you do, you have to make it beneficial for them to do so.
How are you getting people to spread the word about your podcast? I've love to include your story in the audio version of this issue.
Reach out on Pebble, Bluesky, or Mastodon and let me know what you're doing.
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Steal This Idea
DIY Podcast Touring – A Great Way to Build an Audience
One of the best ways to build a dedicated audience is to get in front of people with what you do. And the best way to do this is an in-person event.
This is a tour diary and the behind-the-scenes story of how "The Wind" toured the US, Canada, and the UK.
What do these events look like? What kind of "presentation" is involved? Watch this video.
Any live event, especially a string of them in different places, takes effort to book, organize, and promote. But if you can pull it off, which you can with the right work, you will get back more than you put in.
Nothing develops relationships and brings people together like a live event.
RELATED: Looking for a live event about podcasting? PodIndy is November 4 in Indianapolis.
Podcast Hosting Skills
Feign Ignorance (and other interviewing tips from NPR)
I had a conversation with a friend at NPR a few weeks ago that, while it sounds obvious, is something I hadn't really thought about until I asked her a question about a documentary-style project I was working on.
Most of the interviews I do are with the same people. Not the exact same people, but the same type of people.
So I pretty much know what I'm getting into when I do an interview.
And that was completely thrown off when I did interviews for this documentary project, talking to people living on the edge of society, many of them very nervous about the prospect of being recorded and more than a couple living a life that seemed literally minute-by-minute, dropping our plans to do something else after I'd already arrived and set up my equipment.
It's easy to interview people with media training. It's easy to find people who want to talk to you when they have something to sell.
But what about "normal" people? You're probably going to have to work a bit harder to get the tape you want ...
I've got more stories about being stood up in the audio version of this issue. And I'd love to hear more about your experiences with guests. Reach out on Pebble, Bluesky, or Mastodon to share them.
Podcast Production
How to decide what to cut (or not) in an interview ...
I had an interview with a guy this week who owns a vinyl record pressing plant. Yes, they still exist.
Something interesting about vinyl records... You've got about 20-24 minutes of space per side on a 33 1/3 RPM record. Yeah, you can squeeze on a bit more, but the grooves will be so close together you won't get high-quality sound.
This limitation forces you to make choices about what goes in and what's left out.
Are you being this aggressive with your podcast editing? Maybe you should be.
More thoughts here, including opinions on what you should never cut and the ethics of rearranging content.
RELATED – This song was cut from the best-selling music album of all time. Mechanical royalties alone would have been over $6,000,000!
Podcast Humor
Podcast "Bait and Switch"
There are two common "bait and switch" approaches in podcasting.
- Fake Podcasts
- Fake Guests
Fake podcasts work in a couple of ways. One is to get guests in for an "interview" and try to sell them on something other than the podcast. And the other is to sell potential guests, ahead of time, on the podcast itself.
I've met a few hosts who charge people for interviews and they're not evil. They just think that "everybody else is making money, so I should too."
I've got a lot more thoughts on "pay to play" podcasting in the audio version of this issue. Sometimes it can be a good business model, but that's really more of an "audio production" business than a podcasting one. Subtle, I know ... which is why I'm covering it more in the audio version.
What's been your experience with "bait and switch" podcasts? Reach out on Pebble, Bluesky, or Mastodon to share them.
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The Wrap Up
When you're ready, here's how I can help you even more ...
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