Creative Studio - podcasting experiments

Sarah St. John is an entrepreneur, podcaster, author, animal lover, and world traveler. Her goal is to show people how to launch and manage an online business on a budget. https://www.thesarahstjohn.com/about/ (https://www.thesarahstjohn.com/about/) Employee to Entrepreneur to Podcaster Sarah started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2008. She decided that she wanted to work for herself and realized that she liked taking photos of architectural landscapes and animals. She didn't like taking photos of people. But that's where the money was, so was doing portraits and weddings. Over time, she decided to do something online. She tried different things like drop shipping, affiliate, marketing, and all these different things. But it was in the process of trying these different things, she discovered many free or affordable tools and resources that can help you run a business on a budget.  Sarah got the idea to write a book called FrugalPreneur, where she would talk about the different types of online businesses and how you can run them affordably. She decided to start a short-term podcast to coincide with the book.  Sarah realized she was getting more traction leverage from the podcast than the book. So she kept doing podcasts and like just basically fell in love with the medium and the connections I was making.  As she kept podcasting, other people told her that she is pretty good at it. She figured why not get paid to do it for other people? That was the moment Sarah decided to launch a podcast production agency. Using Giveaways Strategically  Every month Sarah does a new giveaway on her podcast. Most often, the prize is a book that her audience would enjoy. She uses the same url each month, https://www.thesarahstjohn.com/giveaway/ (thesarahstjohn.com/giveaway )and uses a free tool called King Sumo for the giveaway. Sarah shares that it is important to giveaway something that's relevant to your audience. For example, if you were to give away an iPhone, well, everyone is going to want that. But as soon as the giveaway is over, like probably 99% of the people who signed up for the prize are going to drop off. So it really helps to giveaway something that your audience would actually like.   What Podcast Production Looks Like A lot of people might want to start a podcast, or they're thinking about starting a podcast. But many people may find it overwhelming due to technology and the post-production. So when Sarah is working with clients, the client records their podcast episode and then sends it to her. Sarah then does the editing, producing and the mixing.  She then uses a service called https://chartable.com (Chartable) To track podcast statistics. This service gives more information than most other podcast services and then each month she sends a report to each client.  Why Podcasting Is Important For Business Podcasting is great because it's a way to get your content out there. And Google transcribes podcasts now. So even if you're searching for something in Google, it's a possibility that a podcast might show up. Of course, every podcast directory is a search engine too. In addition, podcasting has a shareability or viral aspect to it, because people will actually share podcast episodes.  When you interview guests or being a guest on someone else’s podcast,  you're getting access to that person's audience and you can cross promote. You're reaching people you wouldn't otherwise. Sarah also says that she thinks podcasting is only going to continue to grow and get bigger. In the same way every business needs a website, Sarah says that every business is going to need a podcast at some point. A podcast can act as a business card, but it also forms relationships. You get to know the person, and people do business with people that they know, like and trust.  Consider These Things When Starting A Podcast It is important to niche down as much as...

Joschka Strakerjahn is the founder of the Launch Your Challenge Podcast and has built a successful business using launches. In this episode, he shares how you too can create a challenge.  Joschka’s StoryCOVID-19 changed everything for Joschka. Over the course of a few days, every one of his clients was gone. He went from running a successful business to having no business at all.  A year or so before Joschka lost his work, he discovered challenges. He saw an ad for  a challenge. Joscka signed up, and soon was fascinated with how fast he turned from a complete stranger into a fan. And then he realized the potential of a challenge for businesses to grow and scale.  Starting A ChallengeIn March of 2020, Joschka decided to do a challenge of his own, using paid ads. In just three weeks, he had 4,500 people sign up. That response completely blew him away, and it sold him on doing challenges as a way to create a business.  When Joschka started doing his challenge, he did not have a real online presence. He just has a very simple website, but he didn’t use it very much. He got all of his clients through personal connections. But for his challenge, he got all 4,500 people for his challenge through paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. So don’t overlook the power of paid advertising.  Challenges Faced And Lessons LearnedWhen creating a challenge, the first decision is whether it will be a free challenge or a paid challenge. When you run a free challenge, you can run it with a Facebook group. If it is a paid challenge, you need to create a sales funnel of sorts with a landing page. But it can be very simple.  Joschka says that one of his first mistakes was that he actually had nothing to offer the participants of the first challenge. To avoid this mistake, it is important to go to the offer first, then work backwards from there. If you already have an existing business, you want to base the challenge around a specific need your business already serves. This approach will help you create the right call to action.  Another common challenge is in how to structure the lessons you give to challenge attendees. Joschka shares that he learned you want to structure the lessons in a simple way that serves the needs of the attendees. In most cases, you don’t want to have lessons any longer than 20 minutes. When challenges are executed properly, you can actually create an entire business based on challenges. You can promote the challenge for three weeks and then on the fourth week do some lessons and at the end of the week, you get more customers. Joschka shared with this flexibility and the use of ads, you can even run multiple challenges at once.  Joscka also expands more on all of these concepts and more in this podcast. I highly recommend you listen to the full episode for more details. In addition, you can connect with him https://createyourchallenge.com/ (on his website) or you can join his https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengefunnelentrepreneurs/ (Facebook Group).

Today’s episode of the Podcast Experiment features David Hanscom. David has an entertainment company that provides DJs, photo booths and more for weddings and corporate events. David has also been featured on television, radio programs, industry magazines, as well as selecting the headlining talent at events such as Super Bowl XXXIX.  Getting StartedDavid started podcasting and creation online content because it was a natural extension of what he likes to do. He likes to talk, and he also loves to hear people's stories. He also loves to hear about the successes people have and how they accomplish those things.  While we all face  different struggles and challenges in life, when we engage in conversation, we learn more about each other. We can see that the challenges a DJ has are not very different from the challenges of a restaurant who suddenly has to cut their capacity of guests by half or down to 25%.   One of the things that David always wanted to do was to find a way to give back to the industry. He says a lot of amazing people mentored him and guided him especially in the early years. Even now, he still looks to these people for help and guidance. The Benefit Of Doing Live ShowsDavid says that sometimes when you do a podcast, it feels like being on a one-way street. Occasionally, you'll get comments on your podcast or somebody might reach out to you, but the communication is not instant. That’s one of the clear benefits of doing a live show. You can have direct interaction without delay. And that is quite powerful. Another one of the really cool benefits is having a different guest every week. That created a drive in me to keep going out and finding new, interesting people to bring on board.  And number two, I think it's helped me to, understand the importance of kind of this symbiotic relationship where one person is not doing all the talking all the time and make it more of a communication and less of a presentation, if  The Power of PivotingHistorically, we have seen big companies that have gone out of business because they did not pivot. For example, Blockbuster went out because they did not change their business model when Netflix came along. A modern business needs to be able to pivot and adapt to the wants and needs of the customers.  David has stayed relevant within his industry because of pivoting. Through content creation, David has been able to educate people and to engage in healthy conversations on a regular basis. Podcasting and live streaming has given him the opportunity to start laying the foundation and planting the seeds for the future. This concept is the same as if you were making investments. It's not always a direct line from making a podcast to money in your pocket. Rather, it's more of cultivating those relationships and being able to make those connections.  There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend you listen to it. You can connect with David at https://davidhanscom.com/ (his website) or on https://www.facebook.com/davidhanscom (Facebook), https://twitter.com/davidhanscom (Twitter) or https://www.instagram.com/davidhanscom/ (Instagram).  Thanks so much for listening to the Podcast Experiment and for being a part of this community. Special thanks to Richard for being a guest.

Mark Herschberg is the author of https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/ (The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You). From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. In this episode Mark shares his approach for podcasting and how he used podcasts as a way to build an audience for his upcoming book.  The Importance of Podcasts When Mark started writing his book he first reached out to his friend, Dorie Clark. Dorie has written a number of bestselling business books. She said, podcasts, podcasts, podcasts. If you think about when some big celebrity comes out and they've got a new movie, what do they do? They go on the late night talk show circuits. Podcasts are the standard for authors. Mark approached it very systematically and created a list of over 500 podcasts from the topics in his book. In the career toolkit, he covers 10 different skills. There's a chapter on networking, a chapter on negotiations, a chapter on leadership. So he had 10 different topics to choose from and then he just looked for top podcasts on each specific topic. And from there he looked on websites. Marketing on Podcasts Mark says that he thinks no podcast opportunity is bad. Think of it as follows. If you're doing traditional marketing, you’re likely using Facebook or Google. then you're paying a CPC cost per click. Only a few people might click out of a thousand. But when you're doing a podcast, even if that podcast only has 10 people listening to an episode, you have 10 people who are actively engaged with your content. That audience is actively listening to you. They hear about your book, your service, or your product. And it's going to register far more than just some ad that popped up in the corner of their screen. So even when there seems to be a tiny number of listeners for the investment of time, you're going to get just much more attention and much more engagement. Networking Through Podcasting Mark says that most people think about networking in a very transactional way. They think I need a job, so I have to go network. However, networking is relationship building. And so when you go out and network, don't think of it as I have to go network today to get a job. Build relationships with people so that down the road, when you need a job or something else, then you can reach out to your network. You're going to want to build that relationship over time. The way you think about doing that is by asking a few questions. What do we have in common? What might be of interest to this person as well as myself? Once you figure that out, you want to do some exploration to understand what is important to this other person. Then you can talk about topics of interest or find activities or common interests for both of you.  There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend listening to the entire episode. If you would like to learn more about Mark, you can visit his website https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com (here). If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone you think would also benefit.

Claire Winter has been a journalist and content creator for over 20 years. She is also passionate about helping business owners get rid of their writing blocks. Claire is also host of the https://clairewinter.info/cracking-content-podcast/ (Cracking Content podcast). In this episode, we will talk about launching podcasts, repurposing content, sharing your podcast, and the benefits of podcasting.  Launching A PodcastIn this interview, Claire shares that she had an engaged audience when she launched her podcast. She says that a lot of people got on board and helped share the show. Many people reviewed the podcast too. She actually held a competition, and her show charted in the UK marketing charts underneath Amy Porterfield. She took a screenshot and then shared it with her launch team to let them know what they achieved together. In most cases, there are a lot of people that start a podcast, but don't have an audience. And so they don't see the big results early on. And they get discouraged. So having an engaged audience really helps.  A Better Way To Promote Your ContentWhen many people promote their content, they say “Hey, subscribe to my podcast,” or “Hey, listen to my podcast.” But you’ve got to have some content available for people that might not be into podcasts. They might want to watch a video, read a blog, or look at your social posts. So it is important to get very clear about knowing your audience and how you connect with them. There are also many different hashtags you can use to build up your audience. Be sure to use those as well so you can reach as many people as possible.  Rethinking Podcast Show Notes And RepurposingClaire says that you can take one piece of what I would call a core piece of content and repurpose it into other things. For example, you can take a video, send it to rev.com, turn it into a blog and so on. Taking the blogs that are successful on my website and making them into podcast episodes. Sometimes Claire will do it the other way round for clients. A client they might create a great podcast, and then she will turn it into written content.  Benefits of Podcasting One of the benefits of podcasting is that it is another way for Claire to grow her audience. She says that it is another space for people to find her. In addition, having your own podcast also elevates you as an expert. You can put it in your bio that you have a show about a certain topic. And the more you do it, the more you establish yourself as an expert in that field.  Claire made the decision to do mostly solo episodes because she wants them to have her teaching. And she wants to showcase her skills. However, she is also doing a monthly interview once a month. She talks to men and women that have created amazing businesses through content marketing. For example, the last interview she shared was with a woman who has spoken at two TEDx talks. She's an expert in inclusivity. During this podcast episode, she talked about creating inclusive content, and she also shared about how she gave two TEDx talks. There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend you listen to the entire episode. If you would like to learn more about Claire Winter, you can visit her website and she also has a free Facebook group called https://www.facebook.com/groups/crackingcontent (Cracking Content). You can also find her on all social platforms at Claire Winter UK.

Richard Haiduck is a former life sciences executive and mentor, and is the author of the book, Shifting Gears. In this episode, We will talk about how we can utilize podcasting to help grow our business as well as how you can be a great podcast host and guest.  Go Where Your Audience Goes It is important to hang out wherever your audience hangs out. That’s a great way to meet them and interact with them. For example, Richard is a part of several Facebook groups for retirees or baby boomers. There are about a dozen different groups focused on this demographic and focused on the topic of what you to do during retirement. He is very active in those groups. Richard is also a guest blogger on websites that have about 200,000 subscribers. Using these opportunities, Richard’s content is broadly distributed.  The Book Writing Process Richard says that he interviewed about 75 retirees which gave him approximately 800 pages of transcript. He has a half a dozen interviews about someone who had a spiritual experience and  shared about it at a deep emotional level. There are others that are about physical conditioning. There was one individual who ran his 19th marathon and almost did it. And he almost collapsed over the finish line. Others interviews focused on business, leadership and social impact. Others were about volunteering for organizations. Through the process, Richard was able to cover a lot of different stories and share a variety of perspectives.  Promotion through Podcasting Richard says that he views all promotion is good promotion. So the more different things he can do, the better. He doesn't want to be known as  just the Facebook guy or just the LinkedIn guy or just the podcast guy. Rather, he wants to have content available in multiple places simultaneously. It’s important to have a diverse content mix so people can find your content in a variety of ways.  A friend of Richard’s told him to get involved in podcasting. She told him that you just show up, and you tell them what you want to tell them. They take care of everything. She recommended he try it out. So a few months before his book launched, Richard started sending out requests to various podcasters. He also used some organizations that provide leads such as Poddit. The more podcasts you do, the more practice you get with storytelling. Podcasting is a learning experience. There is even more information included in this insightful episode about reaching your audience, writing a book and promoting a book. I highly recommend you listen to it. You can pick up Richard’s new book, Shifting Gears, here on Amazon.

Today’s episode of Podcasting Experiments features Case lane. Case is a speaker, entrepreneur and consultant. She also has a podcast called The Ready Entrepreneur and is  the author of the book Podcast Discoveries. We will talk about how we can utilize podcasting to help grow our business as well as how you can be a great podcast host and guest.  Getting Started With Podcasting Case decided to interview entrepreneurs and started out as a podcast host. Being a host allows you to have great conversations with other people, and, in many cases, they will tell you valuable insights you often would not normally hear. After a couple of years of hosting her own podcast, she decided to start being a guest on podcasts. She started promoting her book and as well as the services she provides.  Hosting a Podcast Case says she is at the very beginning of her entrepreneurship journey. So when she talks to entrepreneurs, that's where I want to focus. She often asks, “How did you get started?” because it often seems that most entrepreneurs go from poverty to making a million dollars overnight. So she tries to emphasize the beginning of the entrepreneurial process.  Growing Your Business With A Podcast The biggest thing Case does to grow her business is using content in as many ways as possible. She says it is really important to not just use the podcast episode as a one time thing. If you happen to be a blogger or you can write it, or you could even transcribe the podcast script and make it also an article. And then you could also do a video on YouTube, and you can just put the podcast up itself. A lot of people listen to podcasts on YouTube, so you could put it up there.   Being a Guest On Podcasts When you decide that you want to be a guest on a podcast, it's very important that you find an active show. Case searches podcast directories to find places where she thinks she will be a really good fit. After listening to the podcast, she finds the contact information for the podcast. Then she prepares a compelling email that clearly demonstrates the value she wants to give to the audience of the podcast.  Prepare To Be a Great Podcast Guest Case says that you want to have a good professional picture of yourself that you can send to shows for promotion. You also want to have a short bio. If you're going to be offering anything for the listeners, make sure you've got a link ready for a landing page or something where people can go. Many podcasts are also recording video and posting the podcast on YouTube, so it is important to make sure that you are camera ready.  The two most important things with video are lighting and audio. And so if you have bad audio, people aren't going to want to listen to it. If the lighting is bad, they're not going to want to watch it.   You can reach Case at her website readyentrepreneur.com and she also has a community you can join by scrolling to the bottom of the page and entering your email and clicking the “Join Us” button.  Special thanks to Case for being a guest on Podcasting Experiments. 

Today’s episode of Podcast Experiments features Robbie Samuels. Robbie is a virtual event design consultant and executive producer. Robbie is best known for his ability to network. He is a speaker, author and even had his own TEDx talk on networking.    Insights From Robbie’s Story Robbie had been focused on networking for over a decade. And then come March 9, 2020. All of the things that Robbie was known for seemed to have no value in the world. Things such as having eye contact, shaking hands, business cards, and body language. Suddenly, these skills were not super relevant. On March 11, Robbie was trying to figure out how to show up and add value. The next day, he wrote an article 9 Ways To Network During A Pandemic. One of those ways was to do a virtual happy hour. Robbie decided he was going to do it the next day. He did the first one on March 13, which was the day the world hit pause.  And he’s been hosting a virtual happy hour every week since. And from that he has launched an entirely new business. He has several new ways that he creates revenue, such as a four week certification program for people who are interested in getting better at Zoom. And he also helps events go online working with different organizations. He also still has a podcast. He has been doing a podcast for over four years, and is currently at over 200 episodes.    Using A Podcast To Market A Business Robbie’s business has always been served by the podcast, but it is not directly how he makes money. He says that he is the sponsor of his podcast. He has his process streamlined by having a clear intro and outro that he writes out. Every episode actually starts with that. And that's part of his marketing.  Robbie also has a VA, to help with the production of the show, like getting it onto libsyn. Then he had his VA  start using Meet Edgar and getting it posted on social media. Then he hired someone to do my show notes too.  His main focus is on lining up the guests and interviewing them. Robbie knows if he was in charge of all these other pieces, the podcast wouldn't happen. And he wants his show to come out every single Tuesday.     Benefits of Podcasting Robbie says that one of the best benefits of podcasting is the networking aspect with the guests. He says that he has had amazing people on my show who normally wouldn't take time to talk to him. Geography no longer matters. There is no commute at all when recording a podcast. He also says that he can then nurture those relationships so they are ongoing.  The second amazing benefit is that you can share your content. When you have regular content that you are able to share with your network that's another really great benefit. Lastly, there's the fact that he gets business, from his podcast.    A Final Word Robbie would like to invite you to join him at the Virtual Happy Hour every Friday at 5 EST at nomorebadzoom.com You can find Robbie’s podcast On The Schmooze here. His website is robbiesamuels.com. Special thanks to Robbie for sharing about his podcasting journey. I hope you learned as much from this interview as I did. Thanks for listening. 

Today’s episode of the Podcast Experiment features Emilie Aries. Emily is the CEO of Bossed Up, an author, a speaker, and also the host of the Bossed Up Podcast. We discuss pivoting during times of crisis, using a podcast as part of your marketing mix, having an advertiser on your podcast and also the unexpected opportunities that can come your way from podcasting.    Insights From Emilie’s Story Emilie started as a professional advocate for political campaigns and elections, where she became good at advocating for other people. However, one day realized how hard it is, especially as a woman, to advocate unapologetically on your own behalf. She started Bossed Up where her company has created coaching programs, leadership accelerators, in person training programs. She now works with companies who believe in gender equality to really help further develop their women leaders. Pivoting During Crisis The Bossed Up business model was based primarily on live events and workshops. So during 2020 they had to change their business model. All of Emilie’s in-person speaking contracts evaporated. All of the Bossed Up events we had planned for across the country went away and her company had to scrap everything.   Emilie realized that her company had to figure their own way out of these problems. She started to ask questions such as: “How can we offer these services online?” The answer to this question led to the creation of new online offerings. On the whole, Emilies says her business is actually going to be stronger because of Covid-19 forcing rapid innovation into the digital space.  Using A Podcast To Market A Business Emily was originally recruited by a very big podcasting network called HowStuffWorks. She was offered the position as host for a major podcast. Then the podcasting network was sold and she found herself out of a job. However, by that point, she already had fallen in love with the medium.    At that time, podcasting really wasn't used for marketing. She decided to create her own podcast: Bossed Up. She thought it was an opportunity to be generous and to serve others well. For anyone who wanted more content or services, she would sell products and services to those individuals.    Creating a Podcast For Marketing Purposes Emilie views using podcasting as marketing as a compromise between her artistic desires and her business requirements. Emilie has a marketing director Kirby. Together they look at the calendar as it relates to their sales goals. When creating the new podcasts, Emilie and Kirby ask, “What kinds of episodes would attract that client? How can we create fun, interesting, informative and high value episodes that also happen to attract the client we're looking for?”   Once they come to a conclusion, then that's the topic that we hammer home for a couple of weeks. There are some exceptions. For example, something might happen in the news that calls for our attention, we kind of stop the presses and focus on those current topics.  Finding Advertisers For Your Podcast  Emilie works with an advertising agency, because she is not a full time podcaster. Her role is that of CEO. An advertising agency does the work for her. Emilie admits that she is not sure if it's worth the time. It takes time to research brands and to figure out if they're a great partner for the show. Then they have to read the copy that they send over and then record it, edit it, upload it, and insert it into the podcast. And for all of this work, Emilie says that the company does not make much money. Finding Opportunities Through Podcasts Emilie got her book deal, because her editor at Hachette is a huge podcast fan. So she's just one of those people who is constantly poaching podcasters, to become authors. And it was a very organic partnership.   If you have a great relationship with thousands of people who have tuned into your podcast, some of them are going to buy your book. Podcasting can lead to many great opportunities as you form relationships with the listeners.    A Final Word You can find Emilie’s Bossed Up podcast here. In addition, here’s a link to her book: Bossed Up.  Thanks to Emilie for sharing about her podcasting journey. I hope you learned as much from this interview as I did. Thanks for listening.

Podcasting is a great way to both showcase your expertise and bring inspiring stories to your potential customers. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar business, sell digital products, or offer services to clients - you can use podcasting to help you reach your customers and grow your business. But it takes both planning and persistence because podcasting is a long-game, not a get-rich-quick scheme.   Today’s episode of the Podcast Experiment features Tammy Gooler-Loeb, host of the weekly podcast Work From The Inside Out. Tammy interviews individuals who have experienced a major career transition. But today’s show focus is all about starting a podcast. Tammy is a client of mine, and she shares what she has learned in creating near 100 podcasts.    The Two Groups Of Podcasters There are often two groups of podcasters. First is the group of people who dive into podcasting. It seems so simple to them. They just buy a microphone and start podcasting.   But there is another group of people who need more help. Some people are overwhelmed with the technology or recording audio. There are even occasions where some people start podcasting and then randomly stop creating new podcast episodes.    But no matter where you are, you likely need some form of help with podcasting. The great news is it is really easy today to reach out to other podcasters. Through social media, such as Facebook Groups, you can ask questions and find information from many well-established podcasters.   And that’s what Tammy did. She did her research and was ready for the launch of her podcast.    The Importance Of Having A Plan Tammy knew that many people start a show and then stop podcasting. Early on, she made the decision that this would not happen to her. She got some great advice from other more seasoned podcasters and crafted a plan. She learned first hand that it is easy to learn the foundational information about podcasting before you dive in.  How To Share The Podcast Tammy shared that she uses social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter to get more listeners for her podcast. She outsources this task as well. Every time an episode goes up, there's artwork for each episode, and then she posts the podcast on her website. She has show notes that she writes, and she also sends out a weekly email. Tammy has a simple system in place that allows her to share her podcast with as many people as possible.  A Surprising Benefit of Podcasting  Tammy shared that she received some emails from listeners saying, “I like your writing, I love the way you tell the story. You're a great storyteller.” So she realized she is a writer, and she never thought of herself in that way. She decided to write a book based on the content and topics from the podcast. She has used the stories of guests on the show. The book will shine a light on her podcast as well as her coaching services.  Taking Ownership And Booking Guests At one point, Tammy realized that she never used the word podcast host on her LinkedIn profile. She decided to take ownership and added podcast host right there under her name on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is very keyword sensitive, so Tammy started receiving LinkedIn invitations to connect with people. This change led Tammy to create a system that changed how she booked podcast guests. For example, to be a guest on her show, she requests that a potential guest listen to a few episodes and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts. Then, she asks for the individual to send a pitch about what value he or she could bring to the podcast.    Tammy also does a pre-interview for about thirty minutes before she records her podcast. The pre-interview is a time to go over questions and talking points to ensure that the interview goes smoothly. The pre-interview also helps develop a relationship with the guest. These systems help ensure that guests are engaged and provide a lot of value for the listeners.  A Final Word I hope you enjoyed this episode with Tammy as she shared many valuable insights about podcasting. Tammy demonstrated the power of having a simple systems in place to improve the listener experience and create a high-quality show. Thanks to Tammy for being on the Podcast Experiment.   You can get in touch with Tammy by visiting her website tammygolerloeb.com or listening to her podcast Work From The Inside Out. Her book will be out in the first few months of 2021. 

Today’s episode of the Podcast Experiment features Dave Jackson. He’s the host of the School of Podcasting podcast, a podcast consultant, coach, and speaker. You can connect with Dave Jackson on Twitter @davejackson or on his website schoolofpodcasting.com   What Does It Mean To Profit From Your Podcast?   Most people think it's about money, but there is more than one way to profit from your podcast. Dave mentions that he spoke to someone recently who was super introverted when they started podcasting. And now this same person is doing their podcasts via Livestream. This person now has more confidence. While that's not a form of money, that’s an example of a way to profit from a podcast. You can also grow your network and  share your message with others. You can also helping other people through podcasting. For example, you could provide information that other people find useful, such as self-improvement, losing weight or getting out of debt.  The Most Common Question About Podcasting Dave says that the most common question he gets is “How do I get a sponsor?” He says because we are used to hearing ads on the radio, most people think getting a sponsor is a good idea for a podcast too. However, the payment for ads is very low such as $10 for 1000 downloads. In addition, having ads on a podcast can lead to a poor listener experience for what equates to just a few dollars of income. Instead, a better idea--and more profitable idea--to sell podcast listeners your own products such as coaching, a book, or some other product that the audience wants.  The Most Profitable Step For All Podcasters One thing Dave recommends is for everyone is to start an email list. No matter what you’re doing, at some point you want to have people to take action by clicking on something. Email invites people to take action. A podcast is just audio, so email is a great way to engage even further with your audience.    Dave built a portion of his email list using lead magnets. His approach was going to Google Analytics and finding the most popular pages on his website. In exchange for an email address, he offered a printable PDF that would be useful to the website visitor. So if you’re just starting out, this is a great way to start building your email list for you too.   The Number One Way To Market A Podcast According to Jacobs Media, 70% of people that find a podcast find it through word of mouth. So if you can get on other podcasts as a guest or things like that or have other people on your show those are good ideas. Build your network one person at a time. Have a link to your your podcast when you send out email to your email list. And don’t forget to have links to your podcast on your website. Don’t rely on Apple podcast search or Spotify search.  Figure Out Where Your Listeners Are It’s important to find where your listeners are. For example, Dave went to a LinkedIn event at a library, because the people attending were trying to grow their network. He knew he could help because a great way to grow your network is through podcasting. Dave   also goes to events for authors that are trying to grow their listeners or their readers. So figure out who your audience is, and then go where they are. Make friends with those people. Then, at a later point, you can tell them about your podcast.  A Final Word If you’re looking to profit from your podcast, Dave recently wrote a book titled Profit From Your Podcast. I personally have been a member of the School of Podcasting (affiliate link) for almost seven years. I really love the community there.    Special thanks to Dave for being on the podcast. 

We're are getting ready to launch Season 7, where we will be covering everything about how to use podcasting as a marketing tool. Whether that is as a podcast host with your own podcast or going on other podcasts as a guest, this season will provide all the answers you need! If you'd like to get specific or individual help with your podcast, simply contact me joshua@podcastguymedia.com and I'd love to see how I can help!

I'm sharing a special announcement that I'm going to be experimenting with some other podcasts. I plan to come back and share my results here, but I can't guarantee a specific time.   If you are looking for some help with your podcast(s), reach out to me personally at joshua@podcastguymedia.com or go to PodcastGuyMedia.com.

Due to an increasing urge to get out of their office and talk about something other than horses on their podcast, Jaime and Glenn went from running Horse Radio Network to traveling across the state of Florida, developing valuable associations, gaining maximum exposure to the local community, establishing partnerships with the local media, and founding a popular local travel show called the Florida Podcast Network. As they moved about interacting with multiple communities in Florida, recording everything from the background noises like the wind blowing and the birds chirping to knowledgeable discussions with diverse personalities – the Florida Podcast Network expanded and continuously gained popularity across the state. Today, the independently run show has transformed into an association and a network of an increasing number of podcasts on different topics – from Beach Talk Radios and a Beer Podcast to the Florida Podcasting News. It continues to grow and gain more fame across varying communities. What helped their network establish itself dynamically were their tireless efforts to support it while developing valuable and productive relationships with the local organizations and businesses. Both Glenn and Jaime have valuable advice to offer to other shows, and they have highlighted and emphasized the importance of relationship building as well as exposure to the community in making a podcast popular. ----- Find out how Florida Podcast Network started and progressed as a local travel show, the efforts, struggles, and investment it took to start such a podcast, and how travelling around helped them collaborate with the local community, develop valuable relationships, associations, and partnerships that formed the dynamic platform that they now possess. Get valuable insight on how the Florida Podcast Network expanded to include multiple shows on different topics and how they boosted their exposure as well as their popularity. Listen to the sincere and professional advice offered by Jaime and Glenn to all other local podcasts. Find out what makes a local podcast show successful, why it is important to get out of your office and collaborate with the community, and how relationship building can help you get more popularity. RESOURCES MENTIONED Florida Podcast Network Peach Talk Radio People of Palm Peach Florida Podcasting News People of Florida

Barrett Soop, together with his wife Leandra Soop, runs Be Seen Company which is a video and podcast production company. Hoping to improve his marketing skills, he ventured into podcasting. Now, Barrett is able to give people the opportunity to share their own stories through his podcast, Made In Monrovia. Aside from podcasting, Barrett also spends his time creating content for social media platforms and websites.   In this episode, Barrett shares great tips and insights for anyone who wants to start a local podcast. One of which is “In a local podcast, you need to have a view that really isn’t about you, it’s  about your community as a whole and bringing it together.” Tune in for more!   Episode Spotlights: Branching Out: Barrett’s Journey to Podcasting Business Evolution: From Using Simple Tech to Upgrading and Producing Podcasts If You Could Go Back In Time, What Would You Do Differently? Advice for Starting A Local Podcast Equipment for Starters: Go Big or Start Small? Biggest Struggle with Local Podcasting? How to Grow A Local Podcast Advertisements and Sponsorship on Local Podcasting Raw Conversations vs. Using A Script   Resources Mentioned In This Episode: Learn more about Barrett Soop here. Connect with Barrett: Facebook Instagram Be Seen Company Website Recommended Equipment and Software: Blue Yeti USB Microphone Zoom LiveTrak L-8 Reaper Audio Production Software Made in Monrovia - A podcast on the people and stories of Monrovia, California

Mark Bologna is the host of Beyond Bourbon Street, a local podcast about New Orleans. He actually talks regularly with Chris Hollifield from the I Am Salt Lake podcast, and they help each other to continue to grow in their podcasts. Today, we’ll hear: The best advice for someone starting a local podcast. The biggest struggle Mark has had on his podcasting journey. How to go about getting ads and sponsors for the podcast. And how you can grow a local podcast. Mark starts by telling you how he first started with podcasting.   Key Milestones of the Episode:  (01:20): Getting to know how our guest started his podcast  (04:02): Vital equipment for starting a podcast  (06:14): The best advice for someone starting a local podcast  (10:07): The biggest podcasting challenges our guest has had  (12:18): How can you grow a local podcast?  (16:08): Getting ads and sponsorship for a podcast (24:33): How do you know if you are ready to start a new podcast?   Key Quotes from the Episode: “Good doesn’t necessarily mean expensive.” “Any location in the country and the world is really interesting when you dig into it.” “People tend to compare numbers in ways that aren’t helpful.” “Don’t say my podcast is for everyone who wants to visit, say a city. That’s not a demographic.” “No matter what you think, you will learn by doing, and the feedback you’ll get as you build up listeners will help influence you.”   Resources Mentioned: I am Salt Lake Podcast Beyond Bourbon Street on Instagram Beyond Bourbon Street Podcast The Solopreneur Hour Podcast

Looking for local podcasting tips? Great! Sit back, relax and listen to this episode with Chris Hollifield. Chris Holifield is the host and producer of the I am Salt Lake podcast. Self taught in the podcasting world, he believes everyone should have an opportunity to share their story. Even though he was born and raised in California, he will always call Utah home. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, Krissie, and their daughter Lucy. In this episode, Chris shares some great tips for people who want to start a local podcast and most importantly, how to grow it. One notable advice he gives is to spend money on hiring a coach. Why? Tune in to learn more!   Episode Spotlights: Being Self Taught: Chris’s Journey to Podcasting (0:28) If You Could Go Back In Time, What Would You Do Differently? (4:10) Tips and Advice for Starting a Local Podcast (5:30) Recommended Equipment for Local Podcasting (8:30) Overcoming Obstacles (10:20) How to Grow Your Audience? (14:30) Advertisements on Local Podcasting (19:50)   Resources Mentioned In This Episode: Learn more about Chris Holifield here. Connect with Chris: Facebook Twitter Instagram Recommended Equipment: Zoom H6 Six-Track Portable Recorder Zoom H4n Tripod Boom Microphone Stand Audio-Technica ATR2100

If you are a podcaster, or a wannabe podcaster, this episode is definitely for you! Jason Norris of PodcastLocal.com joins us to talk about podcasting – from the startup, recommended equipment, obstacles to building a successful podcast.  Jason is a podcast producer, editor, consultant, and advocate. He shows the people how to use the concept of on-the-go learning to teach, train, tell stories, and change lives. Jason shares a lot of powerful and insightful messages. One of which is:  “The number 1 most important thing about local podcast is the people. People make up the community.”  Tune in for more!   Episode Spotlights: Jason’s Journey to Podcasting (1:25) If You Could Go Back In Time, What Would You Do Differently? (3:25) Tips and Advices for Wannabe Podcasters (5:45) Recommended Equipment for Local Podcasting (11:30) Biggest Struggle Local Podcasting (17:05) How to Grow Your Audience? (23:45) AND MUCH MORE!   Resources Mentioned In This Episode: Learn more about Jason Norris here. Get you FREE Guide about 10 ways to start (or enhance) your own local podcast. Listen to FM for free podcasting insights and advice Rules in Podcasting: Rule #1 – Freedom Mindset Rule #2 – Podcast Boundaries Rule #3 – Start with what you know and learn as you go. Rule #4 – Podcast Technology and Technique Rule #5 - Editing Recommended Podcasting Tools and Equipment: Audio Technica AT2005USB Handheld Dynamic Microphone Zoom H6 Six-Track Portable Recorder Auphonic - Automatic audio post production web service for podcasts, broadcasters, radio shows, movies, screencasts and more This is Richardson - A podcast for Richardson, Texas Alabama Public Radio - a network of public radio stations based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama  -----  Do you want to take your podcast to the next level, but just don’t have the time to make it happen? Is your time stretched to the max, struggling to get your podcast episode out? Do you need help just getting started? Podcast Guy Media can offer the solution to both recover your time and improve your podcast.

I'm preparing for Season 6 of Podcasting Experiments! The topic I plan to cover is Geographic Podcasting. This would be like any local (city/county), state, region (i.e. Rocky Mountains), etc. that focuses on a particular geographic region. I plan to bring people on that can share their experience of why and how they podcast locally. I'm going to compile the tips and advice to help you if you plan to start a local podcast of some sort. If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions, please email me at joshua@podcastguymedia.com 

If you need help with your podcast, check out Podcast Guy Media. I can help you launch your podcast or ongoing editing services (actually, I can help with just about anything with your podcast).   April Ockerman began podcasting about 9 months ago. She had spent about a year doing research into how to start her podcast. While she worked through figuring out her budget for podcasting, deciding what pieces of podcasting equipment to get, which software to use for recording and editing, April also had to face her fears of getting started by realizing that she can really impact people through her podcast. Some lessons she learned as she got started: Do you research - find out what makes a good audience, what length your audience likes Ask people to listen to the podcast Be open to receive feedback Set the time aside (it takes her about 3 hours to do two 15 minute episodes) Just go for it! How April has promoted her podcast: Created a facebook group Put the podcast on her website Share it on social media PodcastGuests.com Article in the local newspaper She recommends that everyone look into working with their local newspaper to get a story done on their podcast or podcast topic.  Her biggest pain point is monetizing her podcast. One great resource that helped her was a couple episodes of the School of Podcasting with Glenn the Geek from the Horse Radio Network.   Resources and Links: April's website PodcastGuests.com Episodes with Glenn the Geek http://podcastguymedia.com/pe-podcast/505-the-power-of-a-strong-niche-with-glenn-hebert/  http://schoolofpodcasting.com/making-a-living-talking-about-horses-glen-the-geek-is-never-boring/ http://schoolofpodcasting.com/glenn2/ http://schoolofpodcasting.com/glenn-hebert-morning-show/ http://schoolofpodcasting.com/tips-choosing-working-co-hosts/ 

Have you struggled to find the niche for your podcast? Today's guest is Brain Kane from the The Real Brian Show, former host of ProfitCast and ArrowSquad. When he started The Real Brian Show, he struggled with the whole "niche" issue and, as a result, struggled with how to define his podcast to others. Listen to his podcasting journey: [02:00] As a kid, Brian wanted to be a morning DJ, but when he began with radio, interest in radio was fading, and it didn't pay well. He tried figuring out podcasting in 2013, and discovered Cliff Ravenscraft's Podcasting A to Z which made it easy. Joshua first found Brian when Dave Jackson and Daniel J. Lewis separately mentioning ProfitCast. Joshua and Joshua connected regarding sponsorship possibilities. [04:30] How (or why) did Brian start podcasting? His first show was "Backstage Pass" (interviewing hip-hop artists) and then "TV Talk" (hosting podcasts about TV shows paying $80-90/hour). Brian took another course in 2014, researching how to grow an audience. Everyone charged for "the secret" and Brian interviewed people who had succeeded monetizing their podcast. [07:20] ProfitCast lasted 110 episodes and 2 years. None of Brian's peers were making the amount of money they wanted with their shows. Ironically, a published author and public speaker Brian listened to was not interesting. After 50 episodes, the guests were dispensing the same recycled advice. He was not seeing a massive impact and felt something was missing. [11:20] The successful people Brian was interviewing were not sharing everything, either on purpose or didn't know -- they were lucky. Podcasting can be like network marketing: if you're good at it and get in at the right time, you can be successful. They're extroverted AND good at selling. They claim anyone can be successful at podcasting (or network marketing) -- which isn't entirely true. Some people will never be "that good" at podcasting. [13:00] The people at the top have a very unique combination of skills: charisma, extroversion, entertainment, sales, and marketing. If you don't have that unique combination, you must get creative and succeed with your own skillset. However, don't try to emulate the greats like John Lee Dumas and Cliff Ravenscraft. Observed what worked for them and apply it within your own personality. [14:50] By 2016, podcasting was noisy compared to 2008, and Brian felt there was nothing new to say on ProfitCast. Since then, he's learned a few new things he could share. He's currently learning about achieving celebrity status, which can succeed in acquiring loyal listeners. Once you create a course or run advertising, you'll get the money. [16:30] Many podcasters feel they've said everything there is to say but feel the pressure to keep going. Brian announced the ending and explained the timeline of that final wrap-up. Some podcasters get frustrated/discouraged and either put out junk or they pod-fade. [18:45] If Brian ever restarted ProfitCast, he wouldn't be as nice with guests. He'd push for the answer he was looking for. Also, Brian isn't a niche person. For some reason, podcasting has become about niches. In any other form of media (i.e. Shark Tank), they hate niches. Brian is a Type 7 (Enthusiast) enneagram with a multitude of interests/talents and gets bored doing the same thing for too long. He usually won't finish a book because it doesn't keep his attention. [21:30] After ProfitCast, Brian decided he was done talking about podcasting. He also can't talk about one single TV show anymore. Variety in your life is okay. Three years into the Real Brian Show, it's been very tied to him as a person. He began the show wanting to talk about more but overthought it every step of the way. Just starting the radio station at the high school, morale went up. He's made people smile and helped them have a better life. People told him it needed more, but that led to further complicatations. [25:50] The Real Brian Show was created to talk about a variety of things, and help people have a happier day. The side aspect was "Unleashing the Superhero" to embrace who you really are and be continually better. They also embraced the idea of nerding out on your passions without apology. His big mistake was listening to too much advice and adjusting based on what others thought he should do. Brian has been bringing things back to his basic core elements plus his beliefs for the show: have a better day, and smile. [29:20] Adults get married, find a life of responsibilities, and they stop having fun. It's time to get balance in life. Also, follow your own journey. For example, Instagram may work well for others, but not you. Instagram may also work for you at a different point in time. [31:10] Brian is intentionally trying to break the mold. He observes what others are doing, what's working, but is his own trailblazer. He's not a teacher and wants to create a show that is valuable. [32:30] Podcasters are taught to "get the numbers up" into tens of thousands of listeners to get advertising. However, he has loyal listeners -- his friends he made because of the show. Just because people say you should niche (or teach) doesn't make that you should. Define what success looks like for you -- it's NOT always money or thousands of listeners. Are you influencing people and creating friendships? Do your words make an impact and change lives? You don't hear that message enough. If you found this podcast useful or interesting, please share it with a friend. Links/Resources: The Real Brian Show: RealBrianShow.com (The Voice of the Nerdy Eclectic) Daniel J. Lewis, The Audacity to Podcast: https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/

In this episode, we speak with Eric Hunley, the host of the Unstructured Podcast. He starts out by discussing the inspiration behind his podcast and the reasoning for his unique podcasting approach. Eric explains why he often brings in other people to assist him with interviewing guests and how he does not realize he is learning during each show. Then, Eric explains why he hates show notes and how he does not have time for everything because of his full-time job. Eric Hunley is forging his path in interview style podcasts as the host of the Unstructured Podcast. Not surprisingly, it is a formula that is now being followed by many other podcasters. Eric has created over 100 interview style podcasts in less than nine months, with a gambit of podcast guests sourced from all corners of the globe. New podcasters and seasoned professionals often seek out his knowledge and have begun following his unstructured direction.   Eric started out by being an expert listener. He listened to some expert podcasters like Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla but ended up getting bored. It took Eric over ten years to start a podcast by the time he decided he would begin one because he could not decide what topic would keep him interested. His idea was to create an idea pub; the requirement for guests were people who are really cool or who do something really cool. Eric goes against all the rules of podcasting and does not niche down. Initially, when Eric started out the show, it was all about his guests. He came to learn over time that it is not all about the guests, it is all about the audience. Eric can better serve the audience by bringing in experts. For instance, he brought in a third level black belt and invited his friend who is also a UFC fan to help with the interview. Another guest Eric had on the show is a medical intuitive, someone who is told by a spirit how to heal a patient. Being a skeptic, Eric brought in someone who grew up with alternative medicine and another person who is a hypnotist. Between all of these people, the conversation was informative and open-minded. In a recent interview, Eric talked with Super Joe Pardo, a well-known podcaster who charges his guests to be on the show. Also, he interviewed Christopher Lochhead, another podcaster who is against the idea of guests being charged. Eric facilitated a discussion about whether or not podcasters should be charging their guests or not. Eric is always learning and is not very disciplined on the takeaways from his show. He has not taken an active role in studying the content from his show, but he does learn material from his guests. The best interviews are when you can connect with the other person and make it feel more like a conversation rather than a formal interview.   LINKS MENTIONED: Unstructured Podcast Super Joe Pardo Legends and Losers John Lee Dumas Dr. Tyson Franklin Jordan Harbinger Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen    

In this episode, Joshua talks with Natalee Allen Champlin, former host of the third episode of The Mentee Podcast. Natalee shares the unusual way she became the host of a podcast that she didn’t start herself and the lessons (both good and bad) from that experience. What We Talked About How Natalee transitioned from podcast listener to host Why Geoff (the owner of The Mentee Podcast) chose an unusual method to keep his podcast alive How to learn from every experience to become better…including failure Lessons Natalee learned about growing as a podcaster How to find your “sweet spot” as a podcaster in a world full of podcasts Key Takeaways Be open to new experiments. An experiment, like a change in podcast format or features, could open a new opportunity for you. Don’t be afraid of healthy conflict. When working with others, don’t be afraid to stand by and defend your ideas on a project or idea. Don’t hold on to failure. If something no longer serves you or your mission, don’t be afraid to let it go. Learn from your failure. Every experience offers opportunities for learning.   About Your Guest Natalee Chapman is an entrepreneur, Mom, “wannabe astronaut” fill-in marketing director, business coach, and former host of the third season of The Mentee Project who is building a leadership development company. Links:   Instagram Twitter My Best Self Podcast My Best Self Facebook Community   Resources to Check Out Final episode of The Mentee Podcast

Drew Ackerman joins us on the podcast today to talk about his podcast, Sleep with Me. We explore several areas: Diving into a niche that wasn't really being served Creatively and purposely rambling Facing imposter syndrome And more... Check out his podcast here: https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/

Jonathan Messinger is the creator of the kids podcast Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian.  When his son became interested in audiobooks, he went looking for podcasts for kids. When he couldn’t find anything, he decided to create his own. He writes and performs all episodes of the podcast, with his 9year old son Griffin serving as editor.   How Jonathan got into podcasting (01:37) Why Jonathan decided to make a podcast rather than a book (02:53) How the sound design of the show has developed (05:19) Jonathan’s process for creating the podcast (07:25) The challenge of getting the word out about the show (08:48) Why Jonathan started doing live shows and what his format is (09:54) Jonathan’s involvement in the Gen-z Network (14:13) Some of Jonathan’s podcasting failures (19:22)   The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian http://www.finncaspian.com/   earth@finncaspian.com   Twitter: @finncaspian https://twitter.com/finncaspian   Instagram: @finncaspian https://www.instagram.com/finncaspian   Podcast Engineering School – Episode 33 https://podcastengineeringschool.com/jonathan-messinger-pes-033/   GEN-Z Media http://www.gen-z.fm/     Best Robot Ever (All the GEN-Z podcasts) http://www.bestrobotever.com/   The Unexplained Dissapearance of Mars Patel http://www.marspatel.com/   PRX https://www.prx.org/

This is a quick episode to give you an update on the podcast and what's been going on with me (i.e. why I haven't published recently). This is also an experiment with me recording the podcast in a new way for me. This episode has not been edited like I normally do, so it's much more raw. I basically just did some de-noise for the background noise, adjusted the volume, and cut big gaps. Check out the website for more great episodes and resources: http://podcastingexperiments.com

Eric started podcasting in his senior year of college. Inspired by a conversation in a Facebook group, he researched the idea. Once he had figured out how to do it, he was persuaded to just do it. He was joined by Justin and although the audio was terrible, they got the first one out. Now 9 years later they have 6 podcasts and have branched into experimenting with narrative podcasts. How Eric got into podcasting 9 years ago How Justin's story intertwines The moment they decided to take podcasting seriously and create the current iteration of Three Fifs Podcast How they started Rolling 12s, a narrative podcast of a tabletop roleplay of Vampire the Requium and how it has evolved The practicalities of recording the Rolling 12s podcast Where they get their music from Their experience of  creating a narrative from scratch How having live players that can do anything, challenges telling the narrative Their Podcasts: Three Fifs Podcast - http://threefifspodcast.com/ Thumbstick Mafia - http://threefifspodcast.com/category/podcasts/thumbstick-mafia/ Got Ya Thrones - http://threefifspodcast.com/category/podcasts/review-shows/got-ya-thrones/ Three Fifs God - http://threefifspodcast.com/category/podcasts/review-shows/threefifsgod/ Gems - http://threefifspodcast.com/category/podcasts/review-shows/gems/ Rolling 12s - http://threefifspodcast.com/category/podcasts/rolling-12s/ Connect via Twitter: @3fifspodcast https://twitter.com/3fifspodcast @ljay90 https://twitter.com/ljay90 @ayrryk https://twitter.com/ayrryk Creative commons music - http://incompetech.com/ Creative commons sound effects - https://freesound.org/

From fan of podcasts to producer of podcasts. As an avid fan of podcasts, a little bit of research led Paul to realize podcasting is relatively cheap and easy to get into. He bought a Radio Shack mic and just started talking. He tried all sorts of different themes including socio-political issues and soccer before figuring out how to be authentic and entertaining. This led to his first fictional podcast. Now 6 years later he has 3 fiction podcasts, 2 more in the making and a podcast about writing.   How Paul got started in podcasting The journey and failures that got him to the podcasts he has now How Paul's podcast Diary of a Madman came about Utilizing your downtime and finding a niche by experimenting How Diary of a Madman has developed to include other writers for the next few seasons Editing episode by episode versus editing the whole season How to smartly invest your energy when trying to grow your audience Why Paul created the Fate Crafters network The advantages of belonging to a podcast network     Paul's Website: http://www.paulsating.com/   Paul's Podcasts: Subject: Found – http://www.paulsating.com/subject-found Diary Of A Madman - http://www.paulsating.com/diary-of-a-madman Athiest Apocolypse - http://www.paulsating.com/atheist-apocalypse Who Killed Julie? - http://www.paulsating.com/who-killed-julie Horrible Writing - http://www.paulsating.com/horrible-writing     Fate Crafters  Podcast Network https://www.fatecrafters.com/

Amanda’s podcasting journey   Amanda has just reached her 2nd podcast anniversary for her current show, Great Beer Adventure. However, it was nearly 3 years ago that she started looking at podcasting. She was a teacher, feeling depressed with a very long commute. Her husband recommended listening to Serial, and then one day said to her, ‘You could do this. You could make a podcast.’ Amanda says she never does anything by half so she dived full on into the deep end.   She always teaches herself how to do things before showing others that she’s working on it, so Amanda actually had a starter podcast that she published called Dear Diary. It was her talking into a microphone, learning the process of editing and uploading, but she has long since deleted it. Somebody told her early on that ‘your first podcast will die’ so the purpose of that first podcast was really just to be a practice and to kill it off once she knew what she was doing.   Wanting to go after something she felt passionate about, once she was comfortable, Amanda started Great Beer Adventure in 2015. These days, she is no longer teaching and spends her days doing podcast- and beer-related things fulltime. The podcast itself isn’t a full-time job but Amanda also does social media for a malt company, is putting together an event for beer geeks, and is helping Jessica Kupfermann with a program. Without the podcast none of that would be possible and she’s glad she’s been able to make up her own job.   Podcasting in the wild   First and foremost, Amanda makes a point to go where her people are. She calls it ‘podcasting in the wild’. The show is about people’s stories and their passions around craft beer and she’s talked to everybody in the industry, from malstsers, hops farmers, brewers and the people that clean the tap lines. She wants them to feel the most comfortable so they’ll tell her their innermost fears and joys—if she can make somebody cry, she gets excited—so she has recorded in hops fields, warehouses, breweries, tap rooms and bars. The only thing that ever gets recorded not out in the wild is the intro and outros, and occasionally a special episode via Skype.   Amanda has two set ups of equipment for this type of podcasting. If she’s recording an interview, she’ll set up her ZoomH6 with either ATR2100 or ATR2005 microphones on barrels or tabletops. Alternatively, at events, she uses a leather harness with a mic and Zoom H2N so she can do vox pop (she said popvoxing…but I think it’s supposed to be voxpop?) clips with various people at the event. The feedback from listeners is that they like this because the mics pic up both the voices and the ambiance sounds. Listeners feel like they’re at the event. Plus, in recording on location, the guests feel more comfortable so Amanda finds she is able to get past the PR jargot pretty quickly. It’s been a wonderful way to get to know people.   Despite the name of the show, the guests don’t necessarily talk about the beer that much. Amanda is also clear that the show isn’t about reviewing the beer or talking about the flavors. It’s about the stories behind the beer and the passion people bring to this industry. She’s working on having some different segments and including different voices, including working with correspondents to bring in breweries from all around the world.   The evolution of the show notes   Amanda has done a bunch of different things with the show notes. She says she has done what you’re supposed to do, what she wanted to do and then threw all of that into the fan and let I come out the otherside. Now she gives the raw audio to her editor and instead of just recapping the show, he makes the show notes into more of a story. The blog post that accompanies each episode includes his reaction to the episode. It’s a little deeper than the traditional bullet points or paragraphs people are used to.   Amanda’s goals for the show   Amanda has two main goals for the show. Firstly, she has an insatiable curiosity and wants to know how everything works, so she’s loved being able to do that. Secondly, her goal is to help people learn all that goes into their craft beer, and help new people find and learn to love craft beer. If you like coffee or wine or spirits, there are different beers out there for you.   To do all the recording on location, there is obviously a lot of travel involved. Amanda’s first step was to ‘take Maine by storm’ and at this point she feels she has done that. There are over 90 breweries in the state and although she hasn’t featured all of them, she’s covered a lot.   Engage with your audience where they are   The next step is to take on the world, which means more travel outside of Maine. Whenever she goes to events she will visit breweries and bring her microphone. Recently Amanda went to MAPCON (Mid Atlantic Podcast Conference) in Philly and on the way she visited breweries in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Similarly, she’s done some day trips to New Hampshire and also recorded in Orlando on a trip to PodFest.   Amanda also utilizes correspondents from around the world so that she can share the stories of craft beer from places she can’t travel herself. She encourages people to talk to their local brewers and the people in the tap rooms, to get to know them and submit a 7 – 10 minute piece of audio.    That’s also her advice to other podcasters: find ways to engage with your audience where they are physically located. Think about how you can actually get out there and get out of your own comfort zone!   Find out more from Amanda:   You can follow Amanda on Instagram @greatbeeradventure or find out more on the website, www.GreatBeerAdventure.com  

I’m doing some rebranding with this podcast. I’m changing the name from Creative Studio: podcasting experiments to Podcasting Experiments from the Creative Studio. Right now, I’m just announcing it here in the audio, but in the next episode or two, you’ll see some changes in the visual branding. We will be talking with Glenn Hebert, also known as Glenn the Geek and America’s Horse Husband. He began the Horse Radio Network in 2006 and has grown it into a successful business. We’ll talk about treating your podcast as a business, the advantage of a strong niche, and the power of involving listeners. MetaMoment: Now, before we jump into the interview for today, let’s pause for a MetaMoment. This is where we review one or two podcasts about podcasting on this podcast about podcasting. Today’s MetaMoment is...Podcasters’ Roundtable. It is hosted by Ray Ortega and regular co-hosts Daniel J. Lewis and Dave Jackson. They bring on different podcasters to have roundtable discussions about different aspects of podcasting. It is very interesting because you get to hear different sides of the many issues in the podcasting industry. You can find out more by going to PodcastersRoundtable.com. How Glenn got into podcasting Glenn was working for a horse retail company back in 2006, and after listening to Leo Laporte’s podcast Earth to Twit, he decided to start one of his own. Back in those days, it wasn’t easy, but he figured out all the tech and began the Talking Equine show for the retailer he worked for. The retailer eventually sold the company so the podcast stopped, and Glenn went into consulting, but in the meantime decided to do more podcasting because it was fun. It was getting a little bit easier to listen because iTunes had come out, so he started the Horse Radio Network. They started with 1 show—The Stable Scoop Show—but had the network from the very first episode. Glenn always new he wanted a network and knew he had to start somewhere, so one show was the beginning. That show is still going after 9 years, and his first co-host only just left after 460+ episodes. She got a really good job and wouldn’t have time, so now they’re rebranding that show but it has been a sad change. It was hard for the audience too because she’s been there every week for 9 years so the audience was invested in her too. Treating your podcast like a business Glenn started out treating podcasting like a business because he always wanted it to be a business. He admires the podcasters who are just doing it for fun, but his intention was always for it to eventually be his livelihood and allow his wife to leave her job (which she has now done) to work in the business too. Everything they do is calculated as ‘how can we make income off of that’ but that doesn’t mean the listeners’ experience isn’t a part of the goal too. Making the listeners happy makes them want to buy the product advertised, which makes the sponsors happy, which allows the business to make money and continue producing content. It’s a circle and Glenn looks at how to keep everybody in the circle happy, including his and his wife having fun, and not trading their values for the business. Their mission statement is ‘uniting the horse world one show at a time’ and they’ve managed to achieve that. They have over 70 media partners, magazines, blogs, websites and things, so those media partners are all contributing and now some of those are working with each other. It’s been a conduit for a lot of people to gather, and it’s the building of relationships that has caused the Horse Radio Network to grow to the point where they are now. Relationship building and looking at it as a business from day 1 was always the plan for Glenn because those relationships are what make a business. It’s a lot of work, and they work more now than they did in their jobs and are making less money, but Glenn says they are having fun. The advantage of a strong niche Horse people are not just passionate about their hobby, they are addicted: they spend all their time and all their money on horses and all their free time talking to other people about horses. That’s the advantage Horse Radio Network has because they have walked into an addicted group. It’s a perfect audience because they truly are invested 100 hours a week in their hobby. They’re working for their hobby, so it has been easy to get them involved. Glenn is always thinking about how to get everybody involved—listener, sponsor, host—in the circle. The power of involving listeners as much as possible Glenn has a myriad of ways the network involves listeners. Firstly, the 250 Patreon donators—who are called Auditors—have become a focus group. They get their own private Facebook group, which is extremely active, and they’ve become like a big family. The auditor group is involved in almost every decision the network makes, from picking the music for The Stable Scoop show rebrand to doing product reviews for their sponsors in exchange for free products. This has led to an increase in regular Patreon donators, which is great for the business so it has been a valuable way to keep everybody in the circle happy. Other ways the network gets audience involved is through regular segments, like submitting content for the very popular Really Bad Ads segment on Fridays to go into the draw for a monthly prize. Other successful listener involvements strategies are game shows like trivia, listener round tables, movie reviews, live reports from events like horse shows and Q & A sessions with professional riders. The Cyber Monday Radio-Thon and continual innovation Every year on Cyber Monday the Horse Radio Network does a 12-hour holiday radio-thon, including 32 hosts, 100s of phone calls, big name guests and many listener submissions of voicemails, songs, poetry etc. Last year, as well as giving away $5000 worth of prizes, there were 20 advertisers involved and it was a huge money maker for the network. Sponsors always want to get involved because being Cyber Monday, there is a direct response: they advertise their products and then right away the listeners go and buy it for Christmas. Although they started the radio-thon to raise money, Glenn says they also needed to stay ahead of the crowd. There is finally some competition in the horse podcasting world but he knows they have to keep innovating to stay first. His advice to other podcasters is to think outside the box and keep involving the listeners. Some niches are broader, which can be tougher to deal with, but every niche can make something work that involves the listeners. They want to be involved. When you’re experimenting with new segments or new ideas, put them at the end of the regular show, after the music. Call it a bonus and see what response you get! Keeping in regular touch with your regular devoted listeners is so important: sometimes it’s the simplest stuff that means the most to them, like a simple birthday shout out on air. You can find more about Glenn’s work and the Horse Radio Network at www.horseradionetwork.com

Welcome to the Creative Studio, the podcast where we conduct experiments in podcasting. Most podcasters stick with the “normal” podcasting practices, but you - you’re different. You like to try different things.   “You do it like this, and then you break the mold.”   This fifth season of the Creative Studio is a production of Podcast Guy Media, LLC. We will be talking with people that are doing something unique with their podcast. Maybe it’s their format, their philosophy, their niche. Whatever it is, we’ll find out what makes it tick. We’ll see what works...and what doesn’t. We’ll see what we can learn and apply to our own podcasts.   Visit our website at PodcastingExperiments.com.   Today we will be talking with Johny Florida, host of the Wrestling’s National Committee podcast. Johnny will talk about the power and pitfalls of relationships with other podcasts in your niche, WNC’s podcasting set up, and how to use strategic partnerships to build your credibility.   MetaMoment:   Now, before we jump into the interview for today, let’s pause for a MetaMoment. This is where we review one or two podcasts about podcasting on this podcast about podcasting.   Today’s podcast MetaMoment is…The School of Podcasting. I know, we just mentioned this podcast a couple episodes ago, but I wanted to give Dave Jackson an extra shout out for winning the podcast award in the technology category. Dave has been podcasting since 2005. Not only is he a podcast coach, he is also an employee at Libsyn - just another way for him to contribute more to the podcasting industry. You can check out his podcast at SchoolofPodcasting.com. This MetaMoment has been brought to your by Libsyn. They are the media host I use and the number 1 place I recommend as I work with new podcasters. I’ve been recommending them for several years now. They are not a sponsor, but I have recently become an affiliate for them, so if you sign up with Libsyn and use the coupon code ‘JOSH’ you can receive a free month of hosting. In fact it’s more than a month because you’ll get the rest of this month and next month free - just make sure you don’t change your hosting level before the free month ends. Again, go to Libsyn.com and sign up using the code ‘JOSH.’   How Johny got started with podcasting Johny knew about radio and even internet radio, but he’d never heard of podcasts until he began listening to them on YouTube about 4 years ago. Being a huge wrestling fan, he found the Don Tony Kevin Castles show and Solomonster, and that began his interest in podcasts. Eventually he decided to do a wrestling podcast himself, and eventually settled on the name Wrestling’s National Committee as a nod to political organization names, because the show treats wrestling like politics. Johny says there is politics in everything, even sports. One example of the way they combine politics and sports is the Sunday breaking news show. They cover news in the wrestling world, but in particular they look behind the scenes of those news stories to find out the psychology of the who, the what, and the why. Politics is nothing more than psychology in a physical sense—it’s about the why something is being done—so there’s politics in terms of the issues in wrestling and the psychology in terms of why those are occurring. That’s why the show covers the politics of wrestling, to investigate the why of every move the wrestlers and corporations make. Johny has always loved figuring out all the pieces of puzzles, so this fits well. He regularly gets feedback from listeners on social media saying that they love the deep analysis even if they don’t agree with the opinions. The power and pitfalls of relationships with other podcasts in your niche The WNC does 3 shows per week, and Thursday’s show follows Wrestling Soup, another podcast that they look to as the indirect father of the show. Called Souper Party, they talk about wrestling and some news, but not politics itself in that show. Being that the show follows directly after and is inspired by Wrestling Soup, Johny and his team have developed a relationship with them and positive relationships like that have been very important in helping boost WNC. However, although Johny loves working with other groups, not all relationships like that have gone well and he also suggests caution when working with other podcasters. For a while they had a joint show with another podcast, but it turned sour when one member of the other 4-man team became a problem. After that group imploded, Johnny ended up hiring two of those guys for WNC. The disgruntled team member then started throwing legalese around regarding copyright of the logo, and filed a complaint with MixCloud who pulled all the episodes down. Johny says they all learned a valuable lesson about being more careful creating partnerships, even between friends, because things can get nasty when they start to break up. He recommends doing more research up front, and simply being careful about who you work with. WNC’s podcasting set up For the normal WNC show, they broadcast live for 2 – 3 hours each day. Often it’s 2 hours of the live main show, and then they’ll do an After Party bonus show only for the people who donate on Patreon. In order to do the live show, Johny has three systems running at once: the Mixlr system, Skype and Audacity. He’s also got several laptops going at once and uses the Turtle Beach headset. In terms of cost, the Mixlr system ranges in cost from the free version to $100-$300 per year. This is the main way WNC goes live so it’s an important part of their set up. Meanwhile, Audacity is totally free so Johny also recommends that because there are so many different features and editing options included in it. It took a few days to get all the tech set up, but he learned how to do each podcasting process from the beginning. One thing in particular he advises is to always compress the audio files and export as MP3s because the size really matters. Most podcast hosts only have limited storage, even when you pay for the upgrades, and if you’re uploading several shows a week it can really fill up the storage space quickly. So compressing the audio files is crucial. Use strategic partnerships to build your credibility A major strategy for the WNC in building their show and credibility in the niche has been the Thursday show that piggy backs onto Wrestling Soup. Johny says you shouldn’t be afraid to follow up another podcast if you’ve got the blessing from them, and it’s a strategy brand new TV shows use all the time. It helps with your content, gives you somebody to vouch for you for your credibility and can provide support for both shows. Strategic partnerships can also boost credibility. Johny has done this in a big way with their sponsor, the combat sports app FiteTV. The app is free and most o the content is free except the pay-per-view fights. They have an affiliate program, which Johny signed up for so that when he promotes them they become the sponsor of the show. Although it does also bring in some revenue, getting a sponsorship was more about adding to the credibility of the show as it’s still young, having only been out less than a year. Because of building that relationship with FiteTV, Johnny is now a media agent for them. He’s also built relationships with Indie Wrestling across the map; he has relationships with 18 Federations in 14 States and also in England. He has then helped some of those get on FiteTV, so it’s been a great network to build. As FiteTV grows, WNC grows and vice versa. Affiliate programs can be simple and the benefits go both ways. It’s not just about revenue, it’s about credibility and relationships. The best way to find Johny and WNC: The best place to check them out is social media. Look up Wrestling’s National Committee on Facebook @wncshow Twitter @WNC4Lyfe or Instagram @WNCshow Or you can find their shows on Mixcloud.com/WNC and donate at Patreon.com/WNC   Thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s episode of the Creative Studio. If you found this podcast helpful or interesting, please share it with a friend. Detailed shownotes can be found on the website at PodcastingExperiments.com. You can also reach me by calling (405) 771-0567.   The Creative Studio is a production of Podcast Guy Media, LLC, at PodcastGuyMedia.com.

We will be talking with Eric Trules and his podcast is e-Travels with E. Trules, and it’s unique in that it combines travelogue storytelling with an aurally immersive experience of sound, effects and music that take you right to the destination. We’ll talk about his podcasting journey, his publishing schedule with alternating formats, and the beauty of travel.   MetaMoment: Now, before we jump into the interview for today, let’s pause for a MetaMoment. This is where we review one or two podcasts about podcasting on this podcast about podcasting. Today’s podcast MetaMoment is…Podcast Talent Coach with Erik K. Johnson. His podcast focuses primarily on the content of your podcast and how to improve it. In episode 175 of Podcast Talent Coach, Erik shares his journey as a hockey coach and how it relates to determining the “why” behind your podcast. The concept of knowing and following your “why” is not new, but Erik’s story and explanation do a great job at exploring the topic. Check it out at PodcastTalentCoach.com. This MetaMoment has been brought to your by Libsyn. They are the media host I use and the number 1 place I recommend as I work with new podcasters. I’ve been recommending them for several years now. They are not a sponsor, but I have recently become an affiliate for them, so if you sign up with Libsyn and use the coupon code ‘JOSH’ you can receive a free month of hosting. In fact it’s more than a month because you’ll get the rest of this month and next month free - just make sure you don’t change your hosting level before the free month ends. Again, go to Libsyn.com and sign up using the code ‘JOSH.’ Eric’s podcasting journey Eric has been podcasting for a relatively short time. He releases a show every other week and there are 17 episodes now. It’s taken effort, work and collaboration because podcasting is all new to him. However, he has been an artist, storyteller and performer for almost 50 years. He started as a modern dancer and also spent many years as a professional clown. He’s just retired from his 31 years as a Theatre Professor at the University of Southern California. It was actually a student who suggested that he start a podcast, after hearing him speak. He was fairly confident with the storytelling side of things, however it was a steep and fast learning curve for the tech. Eric initially got a grant from USC, and found both his sound engineer, Alysha Bermudez, and music composer, Amanda Yamate, through the University. He found his producer, Harry Duran from Podcast Junkies, at the Los Angeles Podcast Festival. Harry taught Eric everything he needed, and with the help also of Amanda and Alysha, he has been insulated and prevented from making a lot of mistakes early in his podcasting journey. About Eric’s unique travelogue podcast E-travels with E.Trules is available on iTunes and Stitcher and is unique in that it combines travelogue storytelling with an aurally immersive experience of sound, effects and music that take you right to the destination. The episodes are stories of off-the-beaten-track, once-in-a-lifetime type trips, told with insights, humor, perspective and an artistic point of view. The listener of the story gets the treat of both the story and being taken there aurally because Eric chose not to go with royalty-free music but instead have a composer recreate sounds that are very site-specific and original. For example, for a story about Bali, the composer Amanda recreated Balinese gamelan music. However, because of the style of the podcast, the episodes are time consuming to make, so Eric planned to only release one episode per month. Extending the podcast without creating twice as many travel episodes Harry convinced Eric to release more regularly than the once-per-month schedule originally intended, and the idea of a behind-the-scenes episode was born. These are interview-style episodes that supplement the travelogue episodes. So every other week, the even-numbered episodes, there is a behind the scenes episode which alternates with the sound-immersive travelogue episodes which are the odd numbered episodes. Episode 0 is the welcome episode, which is the best one to start if you’re new because there are excerpts, examples of different places around the world and a nice introduction. Harry Duran, Amanda Yamante and Alysha Bermudez have all been interviewed as behind-the-scenes episodes of the podcast. But Eric also likes to feature people who are kindred, artistic spirits, either foreign born or who have traveled a lot. On occasion he has been solicited to be on the podcast by someone he doesn’t know, but he finds those conversations a little anti-septic. He prefers the episodes where the guest is someone he knows, because the medium of podcasting can capture the energy and chemistry of the relationship. Some examples of people Eric has interviewed are Liz Femi, a solo performer born in Nigeria, Debra Ehrhardt, a solo performer and storyteller from Jamaica, and Morlan Higgins, an actor and musician who is a fellow traveller on the path of life. His episode was also special because it is punctuated with Morlan’s own mandolin music. Storytelling that makes foreign people and cultures human Eric likes asking people he knows well about the complications in their countries. What’s interesting to him in human natures and in cultures is not what’s great about them, but the vulnerabilities or flaws that may be present under the skin. He likes to show the stories that are not things going perfectly well, a la Facebook profile. That’s what makes people and cultures human and relatable. Storytelling is all about vulnerability in a narrative sense: rooting for the underdog, or the main character that you care about. Audiences usually care about the character who is vulnerable because they can identify with them. Eric likes to share insights into experiences that listeners can relate to, as opposed to just a colorful travel story. The beauty of travel and life Eric is shocked and amazed and disheartened at how many people think it’s cool not to travel. While he does agree that there is plenty to see in the USA, many people use excuses that other types of travel is too expensive, scary, uncomfortable and that there is terrorism in the world. These things are all true, but the perspective you can gain from leaving your own four walls and country is astoundingly worth it for Eric. He wants people to realize that America is not the center of the world, that most people in other countries on the planet have lots in common with us. Travelling allows you to see how much they care about family and children and education and putting food on the table too. For Eric, we’re all connected by our humanity and it’s fascinating to see the differences, not in the human spirit but in cultural things: dancing, food, worship and the ways people move through life. It’s a shame that people think it’s ok not to travel, because if you can push yourself out of your comfort zone and let go of the unknown, that is the beauty of travel and of life! You can find Eric and the podcast at http://erictrules.com/podcast/ Outro: Thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s episode of the Creative Studio. If you found this podcast helpful or interesting, please share it with a friend. You can also reach me by calling (405) 771-0567.

  We will be talking with Meghan Enriquez today from True Conversations. We’re going to hear how she started a podcast to grow her movement, how she grew the podcast into a network, and how she fosters engagement with her target audience. She also is hosting an event at the end of September 2017, so listen for that later. How Meghan got into podcasting Meghan was not looking to become a podcasters. She started her company, True Conversations, back in January 2016 after shifting career goals and being home with 2 young children. She felt there was a need to change the culture in how we communicate and lead. True Conversations started out being events and training, but one day at a lunch, the broadcaster for the Baltimore minor league team suggested podcasting as a useful platform for her to explore. Although Meghan at the time didn’t know what a podcast was, she soon saw the value of it as a medium for spreading the mission of True Conversations—to promote understanding around stigmatized issues—into the world. Although she didn’t know how to do it, she knew she could learn, and so that’s what she did. It has been the biggest blessing and best decision she made around True Conversations. From one podcast to a whole network In order to cover the breadth of issues and all the life and human experiences that deserve to be talked about, Meghan realized she’d need to open up the podcast network. That way, a variety of people can have it as a platform and a safe space to respectfully bring to the table stories, networks and topics that Meghan personally didn’t have experience with. People were invited to have their own show as long as they were willing to maintain the same sort of vibe of having true conversations that are real, transparent, uplifting and empowering, being respectful of all sides of an issue and promoting the culture of spreading understanding. So much of what overwhelms our social media dialogue right now is arguing, pettiness and taking sides, and that’s part of the reason all the shows on the network are on the same podcasting channel: it means listeners bump into and naturally come across topics, conversations and perspectives that they might have otherwise have avoided due to the personalization in how news is consumed these days. The diversity aspect is really important and what pushed Meghan to create the network. Before the podcast, there were live events True Conversations began by hosting small coffee shop events with a  panel of people from as many sides of an issue as possible and having a true conversation around it.  The first event was about redefining the health journey and featured four people living a health journey and going about it very differently, with different beliefs. The goal was to normalize that whatever you choose is good for you. Other topics have included world peace, faith and body image. True Conversations also has a contributor-fed blog, which was a way to allow people from different walks of life to have their space on the platform before the podcast came about. This year, the vision is for the events to culminate into an annual larger event on a central topic, which will happen with the first annual True Conversations Live Event on September 30th in Baltimore. The topic this year is entrepreneurship, and the event will feature a screening of the She Started It documentary as well as the true conversations panel discussion with local female entrepreneurs. Being that September 30th is International Podcast day, Meghan is inviting local podcasters to come to the event for free, interview people and cover the event. Live interactions and conversations online A few months ago Meghan began to do weekly Facebook lives every Thursday at 7pm Eastern as another way to connect with the community, get to know each other and give them space to share their feelings about some of the current issues that affect our lives privately and professionally. Meghan finds there’s a different exchange that can happen when it is live instead of just having it in comments where the tone of voice can be misconstrued or intentions misunderstood. It’s a meeting point for people of different ethnicities, socio-economic status and career paths asking each other questions, while Meghan just facilitates. For now, it’s on Facebook Live. Meghan said when she first started doing Facebook lives she made all the mistakes, but the lesson for her is that when faced with something new and uncomfortable, see yourself as a student and just do it. One mistake she did make is to randomly just pop on, instead of letting people know ahead of time when she’d be live. That’s why they set up the consistent expectation of the regular Thursday 7 o’clock schedule. She says that picking a consistent schedule is not only healthy for you as a person with a busy life, but it’s more helpful for your audience so they can plug in much more frequently. The Power of the Podcast Meghan’s hope and why she chose podcasting as one of their platforms is because it’s a wonderfully powerful tool to have and promote social change. If you’re in this space, just like with any other media, you can use it for entertainment, and people do need places to escape and zone out for a little while. But Meghan’s advice is to be conscious of how you’re influencing and perpetuating social norms and culture, and use that power responsibly. Even if you’re not talking about deep, heavy topics but are more in the education or entertainment space, use the power for good so that you are spreading a happier, healthier message. If people are listening, you have the opportunity to influence them in a good way. Find more from Meghan: The best place to find more information or reach out to Meghan is www.true-conversations.com and social media links are on the bottom of that website too.   MetaMoment: Today’s podcast MetaMoment is…The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson. This is always one of my top podcasts to listen to every week. I started listening in late 2012 and haven’t missed an episode since. In episode 582, Dave opens it up to his listeners as they share some “Um, Yeah, No” moments. This is when someone reaches out to you as a podcaster, pitching themselves - but it is clearly not a good fit. In fact, some of them are hilariously off target. You definitely want to check this episode out, and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes either. This MetaMoment has been brought to your by Libsyn. They are the media host I use and the number 1 place I recommend as I work with new podcasters. I’ve been recommending them for several years now. They are not a sponsor, but I have recently become an affiliate for them, so if you sign up with Libsyn and use the coupon code ‘JOSH’ you can receive a free month of hosting. In fact it’s more than a month because you’ll get the rest of this month and next month free - just make sure you don’t change your hosting level before the free month ends. Again, go to Libsyn.com and sign up using the code ‘JOSH.’   Thanks for taking the time for listening to this week’s episode of the Creative Studio. If you found this podcast helpful or interesting, please share it with a friend. Detailed shownotes can be found on the website at PodcastingExperiments.com. I would love to hear from you. You can reach me either through the website or by calling (405) 771-0567.   The Creative Studio is a production of Podcast Guy Media, LLC, at PodcastGuyMedia.com.

Welcome to the Creative Studio, the podcast where we conduct experiments in podcasting. Most podcasters stick with the “normal” podcasting practices, but you - you’re different. You like to try different things.   “You do it like this, and then you break the mold.”   This fifth season of the Creative Studio is a production of Podcast Guy Media, LLC. We will be talking with people that are doing something unique with their podcast. Maybe it’s their format, their philosophy, their niche. Whatever it is, we’ll find out what makes it tick. We’ll see what works...and what doesn’t. We’ll see what we can learn and apply to our own podcasts.   Visit our website at PodcastingExperiments.com.   We will be talking with Matt Medeiros today from the Matt Report Podcast. We’re going to hear about the way he experimented with publishing Netflix style, the power of video, and his approach to sponsorship.   Matt’s podcasting journey   Matt first began podcasting about 4 or 5 years ago. It began a few years before that, when he’d first started running his WordPress agency and went to an event and saw the potential for people to be talking with each other in the WordPress space. He was starting his agency and had other colleagues doing the same, growing fast and putting a lot of stock into their relationships in the space. At the time there were maybe 2 other WordPress podcasts, whereas now there are at least 15. It all started with the idea of getting connected in the community and growing his business, which for Matt, it has.   Matt’s podcast is the Matt Report. It’s an interview podcast that is basically a breakdown of what’s happening in the WordPress space. The interviews are with people in the space—developers and agency owners, as well as general tech and business owners—to help his audience learn from a variety of differnet perspectives. His audience ranges from people running small software startups doing anywhere from a few hundred dollars per month to $5000-$50,000 per month in sales of digital products.   The changing way Matt has published the last season   Like everybody else, Matt started doing his show every week. He did that for nearly 100 episodes, but without a hard schedule or plan on how he approached it. After a while that becomes a lot of work, and becomes a little stale, for the host but possibly even for the listeners. So Matt decided to change things up a little bit. He decided to release a whole season onto the website and Soundcloud ‘Netflix style’. However, they’re still released through iTunes once per week. That way, superfans can listen to them all at once on the side, but the normal cadence still happens every week.   This has been a benefit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it allowed Matt to really focus and spend a month or so preparing the season. It also allowed him to dedicate an entire landing page to his season’s sponsors. It’s great for Matt because it’s easier to pitch sponsors that way, it’s great for the sponsors because they have more focused attention for a whole season and it’s great for listeners who aren’t getting hit with new sponsors every week.   More podcasting experiments   In Season 5, Matt also introduced 2 new co-hosts of the show, so he only hosted half the season. The other half was co-hosted by 2 other gentlemen who took the lead talking about software as a service. That was an experiment to get some new voices and a new perspective.   In Season 6, which is due in August, the podcast will go audio and video and feature an educational component. Everybody who was on the show was interviewed for 15 minutes and then presented some form of topic for 15 minutes. There will also be slides people can download so it will be a more value-based season for the audience.   The power of video   When Matt first started the show, 4-5 years ago, he did it on YouTube as well as audio. However, it was a lot more work back then. Now, the software is getting better, live streaming is more accessible and editing software is much more powerful so it’s easier to produce video and audio on the post-production side.   Matt has three YouTube channels and he knows there’s a huge connection for audiences with video. It’s the personal effect and that’s what makes some people tune in. There’s a stronger audience on the audio side because it’s so much more portable than video. However, video is very powerful for growing audience retention so he recommends it.   How Matt is approaching sponsorship   WordPress is an interesting space because although there are a lot of products and services, the everyday consumer doesn’t know about them and isn’t going to sign up. It has a lot to do with trust and referrals. Those pockets of companies that have something to sell—products, themes, hosting—do recognize authority in the space is valuable, so Matt is able to position his show quite well, even with numbers of listeners that are nowhere near like a mainstream podcast, or a tech podcasts and YouTube channels. For those mainstream channels, it’s a big ocean to swim in so they have to get big numbers to make it work. WordPress isn’t a big ocean but you can get big numbers when you have the trust and authority both of companies willing to sponsor you and of your listenership.   Matt is a trusted voice in the community, which means he can command a little bit more in sponsorship dollars. He has one of the most popular and certainly the highest rated WordPress podcast, so he is that authority. There’s no magic to his strategy: he simply goes to popular companies that he knows have advertising money to spend and pitches them to sponsor the show. He also limits the sponsorships to two per season so they don’t get drowned out, and that also makes it more attractive to sponsors.   The next steps for Matt and his advice to other podcasters   Season 6 is going to be a continuation of the experiment theme in terms of structure. Matt is also considering going outside the WordPress pocket, and expanding the show topic a little. He also plans to be more consistent with live shows. His advice to people questioning whether or not to start a podcast is to just start, but don’t worry about going the full monty right away. You can just dip your toe in the water with some consistent kind of audio or video content. It could be on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or even Twitter. Find the platform you are most comfortable with right now and just start with getting your message out. Don’t worry about subscribers or microphones going into Skype going into a recorder. Just dip your toe in the water and start.   Where to find more from Matt   Check out the podcast at https://mattreport.com/   Matt’s fulltime job is representing Pagely at https://pagely.com/ which is Enterprise WordPress hosting. The agency he cofounded helps a lot of higer end and larger implementation of WordPress for startups that are using it in different ways, not just as a website.   He also has a YouTube channel that covers tutorials for WordPress: www.YouTube.com/plugintut   Or to have Matt review your website at a very affordable price, go to www.UserFeedbackVideos.com  

Today’s guest is Daniel Lewis. The story is more important than the format As a consumer the format of the narrative podcast is not immediately interesting to Daniel. It’s the story that has to catch him, and whether he can connect with the topic itself. For people considering doing narrative podcasts, it’s really a decision about whether that is the best way to tell the story that you want to tell and if you are willing to do the extra work that goes along with the format. It can come out really neat if you do it well but it is a lot of work. First, consider is a narrative/storytelling format the thing that communicates your message the best? Second, are you willing to do the hard work it takes to get something like that done? Planning and preparation is key If you have an idea that you feel could be fun for a narrative podcast story, Daniel says you need to plan and be prepared. If there is something coming up that would be great to record, make sure you have a recorder with you throughout the process. It could be as simple as your iOs or android device, but make sure you have that recorder with you at all times because conversations could come up at any time that are relevant to the story you’re telling. Another reason to be prepared with a recorded always is to be able to speak your mind about something when it comes to mind. One practice you have to get into is verbalizing as much as possible, especially in those moments where you step away from the action and start talking to the camera or microphone. As you start producing this, you’ll find you will be recording a lot of random stuff. Daniel advises not being afraid to cut stuff out. It may be funny conversation but is it relevant? Does it add to the story? It’s ok to toss good stuff out if it doesn’t fit with the story that you’re doing. Making a narrative podcast might help your marriage! As a side note, Daniel suggests that maybe learning to make a narrative podcast could help in marriage communication as well. It’s stereotypical but a common complaint from wives is that their husbands don’t say what’s on their mind. This practice of verbalizing for the podcast could help here. When you get in that practice of communicating what’s on your mind and describing things, you’ll end up with much better material to use for recording. Choosing guests When he listens to podcasts like Serial or Start Up, Daniel wonders about things like whether all the many random voices gave their permission to be used in the podcast. That is something you have to be concerned with today, especially if you’re going to monetize the narrative podcasts that you’re making. You need to talk to a lawyer but it might be enough to get the guest’s recorded agreement to basic terms and that they know they are being recorded and it will be used for telling a story. The next step is finding people who would have some kind of feedback, having a conversation with them and recording it. It could be as simple as someone being a sounding board and you asking them to hear you explain the idea and then question and challenge you on it. Not only does it mean it’s another voice, it’s also a different perspective that could potentially bring something to the conversation that you would have never thought of. Varying the audio recording methods In an audio drama it is very important people can hear the spoken work very clearly. In a narrative, interspersed with clips of actual things you recorded, the audio doesn’t have to be studio quality but it does need to be listenable. Daniel believes the biggest sin that can be made with this kind of recording is not getting the volume levels right. The narrative section might be at a certain volume that is a different volume to a sound clip. Pay attention to this when you are recording but also in the editing. A good way to get better audio quality is simply to get closer to the microphone. If you get some echo, some reverb, or background noise, it isn’t that much of a problem and can even enhance it because it helps make that section different from the clean, present studio voice. On the other hand, a soft room sound doesn’t quite work because it sounds like it’s trying to be studio quality but didn’t quite get there. Because it doesn’t contrast very much, it can create some conflict. If you want to create audio quality, try to make that contrast bigger so that people know just by the tone, the quality and the sound of the audio that it’s changed from studio narrative to recorded live in person. People can more easily follow that and you don’t need any transition because the style of the sound is making that transition for you. Using music in transitions Daniel suggests that you have certain music saved for certain things. All Things Considered by Gimlet, and NPR do this. They have sponsor music that loops in the background while they’re talking about their sponsors, and other tracks too like the opening music or the wrap up music. You can have your own sound track for the show, but make sure you get the license for the music. Verbally transitions are sometimes needed. However, don’t say “we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsor.” The music can be what sets the tone but you still need to clarify some changes with your spoken word. You need to say things like ‘this podcast is brought to you by…such and such’ so there’s still some kind of verbal transition, however the background music does some of the work for you. People can then start to associate certain background music with certain parts of the show.  Music can also set the tone and emotion of the moment just like a film soundtrack. Additional transition tips Another way to transition is to have a portion of the clip playing in the background so the audience knows you’re about to go to a clip or just coming off a clip. Play a portion of the clip and have the narrator come in and say “that’s so and so, talking about such and such”, or start the clip by saying “on such and such day, I was talking to so and so”. As well as reducing the volume, a cool little trick you can also do, especially when there’s spoken word in the background and spoken word (your voice) in the foreground, is to play with the frequencies a little bit. Reduce the frequencies in the vocal range, so that way you don’t have multiple pieces of audio conflicting for the same audio frequency range. You reduce it a little bit in the background but then raise it back up when you bring that background clip back into the foreground. Enticing the listener Daniel emphasizes that to entice the listener you have to have a compelling story to begin with and compelling details along the way. It’s ok to sometimes along the way dig deeper into something less compelling, books and movies all have their low points where the audience is waiting to get back into the action. Your podcast story might have those moments too. It’s not always cliffhanger after cliffhanger—that can get boring as well. Look at the overall story you’re telling within an individual episode, and look at the peaks and valleys within the story. Start with a peak so that when the audience starts listening they think, “that’s interesting, what is the story behind that?” and they want to learn more. You need something that hooks them in the beginning, and carry that through a little bit. Then it’s ok to go down into a valley as you go into more depth. Then go back up into a climax, and perhaps back into another valley. Make sure you end on a climax too. The most important parts of presentations, books, and stories are the beginning and the end. Make sure that your beginning and end are great material. Especially with that end point, you want to hook them so that they’ll come back for the next episode. It could be a cliffhanger, but there are also ways to end without cliffhangers, such as by letting the audience know what’s coming in the next episode, because that can hook them in as well. Keep learning across genres Daniel’s advice is to keep learning how to tell a good story and not just in the medium of a podcast. The principles apply whether it’s learning about giving a good presentation through something like Toastmasters, or whether it’s a book about storytelling. The medium itself doesn’t matter, the skill behind the medium matters. Learn the principles and looks at narrative lessons you can learn to know how to craft things together. Study the podcasts out there that do it well. There are plenty of journalistic narrative podcasts out there aside from Serial. Some suggestions are Start Up, Reply All and most everything from Gimlet Media or This American Life or NPR spin offs. Listen to them and break it down. Try and evaluate what they are doing in each part, what they are using the make their transitions, how they are coming up with hooks, what the flow is that they’re following. Don’t try to imitate them; it can be difficult but also usually ends badly. Look for what you can learn that you can put your own style on. Learn from other great artists. Be inspired by others. Almost no great artist is inherently good without being inspired and challenged by other things, so listen to other stuff and don’t be only entertained by it. Go back through, deconstruct it and experiment with it on your own.

Today’s guest is Jessica Abel, author of the book Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio and the Out on the Wire Podcast. Reasons to do a narrative style podcast Jessica suggests doing a narrative podcast because narrative journalism is an extremely powerful way to convey ideas. You can pack so much into so little time and with so many layers of meaning by carefully editing, layering in sound and thinking really carefully about your scripting and narration. Although you could listen to five episodes of a good interview podcast and get little nuggets of gold here and there, there’s often fluff that goes on in between those nuggets. It’s possible to put all of those nuggets into a half hour narrative podcast and really not miss anything. Even interview podcasts themselves can be done much more tightly, much more efficiently and much more interestingly. For example, Fresh Air episodes are heavily edited. They’re not narrative, they’re interview based. But they’re still done in a style that the listener is kept in mind and the story that they want to tell, the information that they want to convey is carefully composed. Jessica believes that even people who are doing a more interview-oriented format could benefit from thinking like a maker of narrative. When researching her book, Jessica spoke with Dylan Keith, the head of production at Radio Lab who also used to work at On The Media. People used to ask him what he did for a living and he would say “I take a 45 minute interview and make it a 6 minute interview.” It would be a super punchy, awesome 6 minutes and the listener can get everything they need out of it. Jessica’s advice is to approach an interview in that way, as material, and to think about what is it that you want to tell with this interview. Even if you’re not constructing something that’s character based you can still think of these kinds of tools and apply them to interviews. Constructing a story from a narrative idea In order to take your initial idea and make it into a story with a strong narrative, there are a lot of steps, which is why Jessica did an entire podcast series and wrote a book on it! First, come up with an idea for a story, ideally one based around a character that goes through changes, although you can certainly work the style with idea-based stories as well. Then you need to vet that idea in various ways, test it with different kinds of tools. One such tool is the ‘X-Y story formula’, which comes from Alex Bloomburg. So you may be doing a story about X, but what’s interesting about it is Y. It’s important to figure out what’s really interesting about it and not just what you’re going to find interesting about it, but what the listeners are going to find interesting about it. There’s also the focus sentence approach, which is sort of like a mini narrative arc. Jessica says that if you can work out the focus sentence on your idea, you often are well on your way in terms of thinking about the outline of your story. The sentence is usually some form of this: “Someone does something because [blank] but [blank].” A character is in motion, living some kind of life and has a sense of mission, something they want, but there’s something that stands in their way. From there you have to do a bunch of further outlining. Jessica also invented a new tool called the Story Mad Lib, which she talks about in more detail in Episode 4 of Out on the Wire Podcast. The Story Mad Lib is a way of building out the entire arc of the story in a paragraph to guide you where you’re going to go, and help you figure out and plan your interviews carefully ahead of time. If you do an interview that takes an hour or two hours, you will have tons of stuff in there that you could use for 8 or 10 different stories, and you get to decide which one is the story you want to tell. So that kind of selection and decision-making is a huge part of making a narrative. Selecting interview subjects and preparing for interviews It depends on what the interview is for but if the interview is for a story that is character-based, then Jessica recommends thinking about what the turning points in the narrative are. If you have a character-based story, you have a character who is going to be the center of the story, you want to think about what the stages that they went through in the change that you want to depict in your narrative. Think about when they went from one place to another place, what and where their dilemmas were, where were their decision points. During the interview, ask them all kinds of questions about those decisions that they had to make, and about those moments of change, how was it before, how was it after etc. The preparation is often figuring out the bare outline of what the person’s story is and then deciding where you want to delve in further. Jessica goes into more detail on this in episode 6 of her podcast. Hooking the audience’s attention at the start There are a lot of ways to approach this and one way Jessica suggests is to think about your best piece of tape, and put that at the beginning of the episode. Ask yourself which piece of tape is the one that’s going to raise a question and get people curious, get them wondering what’s going to happen next. Put that at the top. Basically, you need to put a question to the audience so that they can’t turn off, they need to keep listening to find out what’s going to happen next. Techniques to transition smoothly Jessica doesn’t have a list of transition techniques, but rather each time she needs to go from one part to another, she thinks about how she wants to connect the things that happened and raise a new question. At the end of one section you want to raise a new question that you’re going to answer in the next section. If you’re using music, that’s a good way to bridge parts like that. Jessica suggests thinking about what cycles are in your story. She recommends Ira Glass’s 45 second rule: every 45 second you need to have a new little mini arc happening in the story. It can really be anywhere between 45 seconds to 2 minutes of time in your story but each time you need to be raising a question, answering a question. It could be narration, a quote, some music, but it’s important to think about it in little arcs. Suggested resources Of course, Jessica recommends her own book and podcast, because she created them for people who are wanting to make narratives. Other than that, she recommends transim.org as it’s a wealth of information on both the technical, strategic and all other aspects of narrative audio making. Practice your craft Ultimately, Jessica’s advice is to just start making it. She says, “Start making audio, just go!” It’s about practice and doing it over and over again. Ira Glass talks about the gap between our taste and what we’re capable of when we start. We can see what’s great but we can’t make what’s great and that can be really hard and really depressing to know how far we are from where we want to be. But the only way to the other side of that gap is to do it over and over again. That’s exactly why Jessica made her book and podcast and working group: so people can have a place where they can work with other people to make audio and other narratives too. Whether you’re a writer or a cartoonist, you have to practice your craft.

Today’s guest is Doc Kennedy from the Filmaker’s Focus podcast. He is one of the guests who contributed to the Season 4 series on Narrative Podcasting, and he’s on the show today to share some updated information. Along with being a podcaster, Doc is also a film maker, and working towards being an actor and a stand-up comedian. Being a film maker, he brought a different perspective on narrative podcasting than many of the other guests, and was able to bring in a lot of parallels from video and acting. Today, we will revisit this. In the time since Doc was last on the podcast, there have been ever-increasing changes and improvements to technology. For example, cell phone cameras have gone from little grainy pictures to 4K. It’s insane how much things have changed even just in the last couple of years. Because of this, Doc’s perspective has changed somewhat too, and he feels some of the advice he gave last time is now outdated.   Getting started Doc’s advice is to start with the basics. Some people are producing videos online that look good but sound terrible. If you can’t get the video to at least match the audio, he says don’t make it. Sound and lighting is the thing that separates you from or makes you an amateur. If you have to choose from the two, take the sound, because you can look at a picture and think ‘it’s ok’ but if the sound is bad it’s unlistenable. The majority of things today will have half-decent video because most cameras these days are so good that you can work around shoddy lighting. If you’re going to hire out for anything, hire an audio guy. That’s how important it is. If you see a video that looks good but sounds horrible, you will turn it off. It’s that simple. Make sure you’re getting quality audio and do what you can for solid lighting. Doc says if you can afford it, hire somebody that has the proper gear and knows what they’re doing. It’s one thing to have a mic but it’s another thing to know how to record. There’s a huge difference between recording audio for a film versus recording a podcast episode. In the podcast, usually you’re in a contained environment. In a narrative setting, the elements might be a little out there so you need to be aware of the little sounds that you’re hearing the background. At least reach out to someone in your area who has the gear and let them guide you on what to get and what’s available in your area. Doc hesitates to list specific brands of quality gear because things are changing so quickly. However, he suggests looking at getting a basic shot-gun mic, and doing your research.  There are some amazing tutorial videos on YouTube that provide great videos of comparisons between two microphones, which can be really helpful. You want the professional level, but make sure you do your homework. The importance of pre-production Doc is really big on pre-production. He says podcasts are often rushed but in film making they don’t do rushed projects, everything is planned out. He likes having a solid game plan in place, making sure everyone has the right gear and there are the right people to operate that gear, and that the production is as great sounding as it looks. The more planning you do up front the easier it is on the back end. In Doc’s freelance work, planning also helps when managing the client. If you do the preproduction there is a blueprint set up of what the client can expect so if they come back and say they aren’t happy or it isn’t what they expected, you can refer back to the pre-production blueprint. A lot of times people don’t understand what it takes to make a video or what that video may look like in the end. In that kind of client situation, ask if they’ve seen a video or movie that they want their video to look like. That makes it comfortable for client and creator and gives time to clarify whether the creator can actually create what the client is asking for or whether they need to refer on. Doc says pre-production meetings can drag out though, so he recommends doing pre-production for your meeting on pre-production! Applying the screen-writing approach to podcast planning Doc suggests writing out the podcast planning as a screenplay because having the blueprint is really vital. His opinion is that if we don’t know where we’re going, we’re going to get there and where we end up isn’t going to be good. If you aren’t good at writing and don’t feel comfortable about it, find someone who is. Make sure that you get something written out so everyone on your team knows where you’re going, even if the team is just you. If you’re doing something with multiple characters, you can start visualizing what that character should be. Pre-production isn’t the most fun part, and for Doc he doesn’t enjoy the post-work editing either. He finds the best part is actually filming the piece. However, it’s important to appreciate the pre-production process because it makes everything else seamless. Do the best with the equipment you have Doc advises not to get too caught up in the newest, upgraded technology. In terms of cameras, 4K is really popular right now and it’s growing. If you have a DSLR, don’t be ashamed that it isn’t 4K. Use it. There’s a feature film on Netflix right now that was shot entirely with an iPhone! But this iPhone film had solid audio. If you’re doing things correctly and you’re giving a picture that’s worthy of the audio, you’re fine. Don’t worry about what the newest, greatest thing is, don’t be in a rush to upgrade it, just do the best with what you’ve got. Contact Doc Doc is keen to answer questions from listeners. He didn’t go to school for video production, he learned it all from mentors. The mentors meant a lot to him so the least he can do is help others in the same way, which is why he does his podcast. Find Doc at filmakersfocus.com or follow him @filmakersfocus on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you’d like to, you can follow Doc’s comedy @dockcomedy on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

The guest today is Corey Coates from The Podcast Producers. Choosing the right medium for your content Corey’s experience has shown him that you have to make a decision as to who is going to be the one actually telling the story before you decide whether or not to do a narrative style. When doing narrative podcasting, people usually imagine as the narrator that they are “telling” the story, but the reality is a really good narrative podcast is one where the story is being told by the participants and almost unfolds on its own. There’s clearly a choice to guide the story in a certain direction, to edit in a certain way and to present the story that you might want to tell but before you even think about why you want to do it, ask “who is going to be responsible for telling the story?” A lot of people are interested in the method of doing it this way largely because of the popularity of some narrative podcasts. When you listen to RadioLab or Serial, they sound beautiful and they’re fun to listen to. Corey knows how attractive that idea can be, but doing it just because a lot of the most popular shows or the ones you enjoy are in that fashion doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what you should do. Choosing the right medium for your content is critical. If you’re trying to bring pure information from individuals to individuals, maybe the interview format is the way to go. If you are trying to demonstrate, as Corey and Jessica did in The Podcast Producers, that there’s a lot of experts, information and ways to look at the exact same thing, then maybe the narrative way of going is better for you. Ultimately it comes down to deciding ‘who is telling the story and what is the story being told?’ and then choosing the format that goes around that. Start with the story arc It always starts with the story arc. From beginning to end, what is the story you want to tell? Decide how you will subdivide that into chapters, which can become the episodes. For The Podcast Producers, Corey and Jessica knew they wanted to do 10 episodes, because it was a time constraint and prevented the project expanding for the rest of the year. From beginning to end they brainstormed a ton of questions or topics, what would be a logical order to arrange topics, and who might they be able to talk to on some of those subjects. It was about the questions Corey, Jessica and their community had, who are some of the people that might be able to provide the answers, and then how can you link one answer to the next, or one question to the next answer that takes someone through the journey but most importantly leaves them where we want them to be, which is wanting more. When you get to the end of it, there’s conclusions and ideas but nothing is really conclusive. Choosing interview subjects Corey and Jessica specifically targeted certain individuals for their knowledge base and their experience in the industry. It’s tough because in a lot of cases you have folks that are the most vocal and prominent, that may not necessarily be the ones with the best information, they’re just the loudest so they tend to get the most attention. Having been in the industry for 10 years and 3 years respectively, Corey and Jessica were able to tell whether folks were really legit, they know their stuff, and they’re really making a contribution, or if they were jokers and they’re coming in marketing themselves but not really having the skills needed. So they laser pointed their pitches and ended up getting 95% of the people they wanted. The 5% that didn’t were often the ‘shot in the dark’ people, and usually the reason was that their schedules wouldn’t allow it or it wasn’t going to fit Corey’s production schedule. Corey’s advice is that the more specific you go towards somebody as a guest, having knowledge of who they are and their background, the more likely they are to agree because they know that you’re not just coming at you with a form letter that you send to everyone but that it’s a personalized request. If you blast to everyone in an industry, that shows people that you don’t care who they are, you are just taking who you can get. Corey strongly advises against that. Word of mouth types of referrals can also be great, even if then you are cold calling those folks, because you can tell them who recommended them to you. For season 2 of The Podcast Producers, they already have a great list of guests, most of whom have come through referrals this way, but that has happened over time as they built their reputation in the industry. Tips for interviewing and sticking to the story arc Ultimately when interviewing, Corey is always looking for sound-bites. He wants the two or three good phrases out of the guest in a 20-30 minute conversation that are going to be usable. Sometimes there are surprise elements in the interviews. There were times when Corey planned to interview a guest on a topic, but ended up going off track and talking about other aspects of podcasting and those sections became the gold that often fit into other topics. His advice is to play a little bit fast and loose. In interviews for a narrative podcast you can get away with it because it’s not a show where the person you are interviewing is the sole guest for the one episode. As an interviewer, you don’t have to be ‘on’. You don’t have to ask the immaculate questions, perfectly phrased, and the guests don’t have to give you that perfectly phrased answer that leads from beginning to end of the show like you would in an interview format. Corey does suggest that as the interviewer, you have to speak less. Ask a question, then allow the guest to speak. After they finish the answer, just pause for 2 seconds, and you’ll see almost every time that the guest will elaborate. And the second thing they say is almost always more profound than the original answer that you got. Finding the gold in the editing process Corey believes the hardest thing to do for any editor is to edit, especially when it’s their own show. As podcasters, we are the control room, the editor, the producer, the distributor, the marketing personality, all at the same time. It makes it difficult to be objective when making some of these choices. It’s important to find a way to put things in perspective to who that audience is going to be. Start editing and cutting, not from your own perspective and the things that you like, but the things that are going to be the most valuable to that listener. Of course you, the podcaster, will understand the topics but if your guest is using a lot of industry jargon or buzzwords, it’s important to think about whether the listener will understand. If the answer is that most people wouldn’t understand what that is, Corey says, “cut it, you don’t need it!” On the cutting room floor When interviewing, Corey suggests you try to save yourself time down the road. When you get an ‘aha’ moment during the interview, time-stamp it. It was an emotional moment for you and that could then translate well to be an emotional moment for the listener. What you’re able to then is take some of those emotional markers and start putting them into bins and experiement with arranging them around. As you’re doing that, you only have to go and look for the little 5-10% pieces of audio that represent linking the pieces together. That is really the trick: creating the entire story to the best of your ability based on only components provided by your guests. Everything in between that can’t be linked and doesn’t make sense is where the narrator jumps in to get people from point A to point B to point C. Corey feels that repurposing audio is a great way to go, and with The Podcast Producers, they intentionally did 20-30 minute interviews with podcasters for this purpose. Partly it was because they didn’t want to take up more than 30 minutes of anyone’s time, but it was also because at the end of it they got a weekly 30-minute long form podcast with somebody within the industry. Having finished producing the entire 10 part series and doing all the marketing necessary to get it out there, he can then start pulling these to release as episodes, raw and uncut. It keeps subscribers happy because they’re now getting weekly content, fans of the series are happy because they love the ‘behind-the-scenes’ stuff, and the editors are enjoying it because it’s a chance to see it in the raw perspective before it ends up in the polished product. Tracking and transition techniques Everyone has their own approach and every producer has their own flair. For Corey, it’s very simple: he’s always looking for wording to match. When something that one person says can naturally lead to something that someone else said, and those two things can be put together that is a win in narrative audio. Then you don’t need music, transitions, narration or anything fancy. It’s just letting the spoken word tell the story. In many cases it doesn’t always fall that way because it is largely unscripted material so we have to find a way to bridge from one to the other, which is a good opportunity for a narrator to jump in, usually with a little bit of bed music under it. The music helps the listener to float in and out of the show when the narrator interrupts, but sometimes it’s also used in order to give the listener an appropriate amount of time to think about what was just said. If you can get two pieces of audio to stitch together naturally without having to do anything else to it, do that first. And if you have to get some narration in there, leave a little space, put a little music, give the narration and then go back into the content. Avoid Analysis Paralysis By his own admission, Corey is a proponent of the art of non-doing. He warns against getting overwhelmed by the amount of information that’s out there and getting locked into the research phase. He says just let the interviews flow, start getting the content in. In the meantime, start the hunt for your music. He suggests finding an individual composer so you have something that’s thematic that will work for the entire series. Then, see what happens!

Today’s guest is Jessica Rhodes from The Podcast Producers. Reasons to do narrative style Jessica explains that putting on a narrative podcast is going to make you a thought leader in that industry. It brings you a lot of credibility because of the amount of work that goes into it, the production and high quality of the style of podcasts. It makes you come across as a lot more serious about what you’re doing. Interview style podcasts are great but when you put out a narrative show, you are putting out a quality of show that is so much higher than the majority of shows out there so it really does set you apart from the crowd. There is a lot of work both in preparation and post production. There are so many podcasts now. People want to podcast because they want to make money and be famous and they want the easiest way to do it. Well, the reality is if you want to be super famous or successful or make a lot of money, you have to put in the hard work. There is no fast path to a lot of success. A narrative style podcast is a lot of work but you will get a lot of recognition and exposure with a really quality show. Planning and Preparation for a Series You need to know and have a good understanding of who your audience and target listener is. You also need to know what the story arc is. The difference between a narrative and another type of podcast show is that there’s a story arc; there’s a beginning, a middle and an end. When preparing for their show, Jessica and Corey were thinking about the fact that they were talking to podcasters. What are the questions that podcasters have? What do podcasters think and talk a lot about? They brain dumped all the different topics that came to mind and then on a Google spreadsheet moved them around in a different order and thought strategically about what the right order would be and how that story would be told. Jessica’s advice is to think about who your target listener is and what the goal of the show is. What is the story that you’re trying to tell? The interviews When you’re thinking about what types of interviews to have on, remember that your guests ARE the show. When you have a narrative based podcast featuring a lot of different guests, you need to be ok with not being the front and center spotlight. The creators are the puppeteers, asking the right questions to allow the guests to tell the story. Jessica was strategic about having guests on from a variety of different categories of podcast, different experience levels, some well known and some not super successful. A good podcast in Jessica’s opinion is not one with just a big name, but one with good content, good production quality, good sound quality and a host who really, really digs their show. She would advise against hosting a narrative show and only trying to get the big names. A narrative show is beautiful because it’s bringing voices to so many different people that you don’t hear on every other podcast. Tips for having a good interview The difference in doing a narrative style podcast is that the interviews are not meant to be heard just raw and uncut, so it’s not just this flowing conversation. It feels a little choppy because it will get cut and pasted into different episodes. The best tip Jessica ever heard and the best advice that she can give is actually a tip from Mark Maron at Podcast Movement: listen. When you’re interviewing, really listen and let your guest do as much of the talking as possible, especially in a narrative based podcast. Corey also taught her this: the best part of the interview, the best stuff, is going to come after at least 15 minutes. So if you can, have your interviews go for a minimum of 30 minutes. Sometimes you can only get guests for 30 minutes but if you can have someone on with you for an hour, the stuff that comes after that 15-20 minute mark is going to be the best. You’re just breaking the ice after those first few minutes. The editing process It’s important to have a team. Doing a narrative-based podcast by yourself is going to be a really big challenge. It’s not impossible but Corey and Jessica each brought very different skill-sets to the table, which allowed them to have a really good show. She highly recommends that if you want to do a narrative-based podcast to really make sure you have the right partners to help you do it really well. Jessica has a nice voice on the microphone, can interview well and knows how to get guests. So she was the main booker for the show and obviously contributed along with Corey to the ideas. She thinks more like a marketer and an entrepreneur than Corey does. He is the artist, he is the editor, he is the producer and the one that listens to all the interviews and takes the pieces and puts them together. Having a partner and knowing what your skillsets are helps, but also get as much content as you can. They brainstormed what the story would be but what they realised is they ended up talking to the guests about a lot more than what they booked them to talk about. So they ended up being able to use their interviews in a lot more of the episodes than first thought. You don’t want to pre-edit, you want to just talk to the guests and try to get as much great information. A lot will get left on the cutting room floor, but you want to get as much great audio as possible so you have plenty to work with. Strategic Elements of the Stories and Transitions In the narrative-based podcast, you want to have a variety of feels to the show. For Podcast Producers they had three different kinds of audio: interviews, solo segments and conversations between Cory and Jessica. And there was also music. A person’s voice when they do a solo show is different to when they interview, and again to when they have a conversation. It sounds so different. In a narrative based-podcast, one of the things you can do to hook listeners, is to have those different kinds of vocals. The music is HUGE as well. They actually contracted a musician to write the music for the show. The high quality of the music is a big part of creating the high quality show. You can find musicians to compose a song for you. The production quality and the sound, high quality music, will really set you apart. Sponsorship Getting sponsorship comes back to that high quality content and production, and the launch. They didn’t do that much around marketing but Jessica thinks because all of their energy was into the production of the show, it marketed itself. She thinks the mistake a lot of podcasters make is they go into podcasting thinking about sponsors and have dollar signs in their eyes. But if you think about the story and the listeners, and focus on the quality of the show, then you can definitely attract sponsors. In the iTunes show there is a part about podcasting and it has other shows in there like Podcast Answerman. She emailed iTunes and said that they should feature her show in that category. It took a couple of months but now their podcast is listed in the ‘How to Podcast’ section of iTunes because they had a very clear target market, a highly produced show and they went for it, they made it happen. Repurposing the interview content that didn’t make it Podcast Producers is a show for podcasters, so the audience will respect and value that unedited aspect. Also showing the unedited interviews is a lesson in and of itself. Also Jessica and Corey wanted a way to create buzz. She was pregnant and he is very busy, so they knew they weren’t going to be able to come back and produce another season for a while, and it was a way to fill that space. They chose to not build an email list together. So on the PodcastProducers.com you can find Jessica’s bio and a link to her website, and a link to Corey’s bio and his website. They wanted a way to keep people engaged in between seasons so they wanted to keep having episodes come out so people stayed in touch. This was about getting content out, it isn’t a list builder, it isn’t a way to make money, it was about making Jessica and Corey authority figures. They were both behind the scenes people in podcasting, working really hard in their businesses but not internet celebrities. They wanted to show that they knew a lot about podcasting. Jessica did not want this to be a business podcast where it just sounds like everyone’s pitching what they do. She says maybe if they had talked more about their businesses they would have seen more people visit their websites. But the original goal was to produce a high quality show and create amazing value for podcasters. When you do that, you will attract people. Quality leads will seek you out. Resources Jessica recommends people use Podfly Productions, Interview Connections or Josh Rivers’ services. She also highly recommends honing your communication skills on the mic. You just have to do a lot of podcasting and do a lot of interviews and listen to yourself after the fact to hear how you sound and to improve. Listen to people like Terry Gross from Fresh Air and Mark Maron host of WTF, or other high quality podcasts. Listen to them as a way to learn how to be a better host and a better interviewer. Also check out Jessica’s WebTV show Interview Connections.TV which is a weekly show with tips for podcasters because that will be helpful too.

Today’s guest is Geoff Woods from the podcast The Mentee. There is a change of direction in the podcasting world, ever since Serial, where narrative podcasting has become more popular. We are still at the very beginning of the bell curve of podcasting’s popularity because we’re still in the realm of the early adopter. Many people still don’t know what podcasting is. There is going to be an increasing need for podcasts because it will become more popular and the professionals are realizing it. There are narrative journalists who did that as their profession who are bringing that talent and skill set to the podcasting world. With that, you’re starting to see podcasts coming out with incredibly high production quality and budgets for production as well. You don’t have to do that to compete moving forward, but recognize that the quality is going through the roof and if you want to stand out you have to do things differently. Geoff’s approach Geoff started recording the conversations with the incredible, high-level people he was spending time with as a way to document his journey from employee to entrepreneur. He got feedback from the listener that what they really wanted wasn’t necessarily just an interview but that they wanted to hear private conversations that were genuine, that actually led to results in his life. His podcast is a mixture of the conversations he was having, interspersed with his own narration about it. As he documented his journey over the last year, there were times where he felt compelled to share his thoughts and document his journey and carrying a recorder everywhere enabled him to do that. He says he has only used perhaps 5% of those little moments in the podcast but it aids in the rawness and authenticity of his podcast. It shows the true emotion, including fear, that he’s going through but also when the lightbulb comes on in his head too.  Advice for narrative podcasters Recognize that you need to document every interaction not only for your own retention but also in case there is a snippet of gold that you can use for the podcast. Also of course ask for permission to use what snippets you choose in the podcast. You have to document it and form some system of marking the date you talked to them, what you talked about and moments of gold. When you start a podcast or a blog, when you do anything that puts you in the position of being a reporter, you end up doing something that creates an immense amount of value for yourself. This is why Geoff started his podcast. Not only to add value to other people (which was his number 1 goal) but also to give a way to add value that was unique, and get in front of the people he wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. If you were to walk up to those people and ask to pick their brain, the chances are the answer will be no. However, when you put yourself in the position of reporter, all of a sudden you are giving value to them because you have a platform and are giving them exposure. Everyone wants exposure. It feeds the ego. Regardless of how big their podcast is, this is true. Some people will ask you how big your podcast is and how big your reach is, and that’s ok, but most people will just want the exposure. Take Damon John from Shark Tank for example. The odds of getting him to have coffee with me, he’d likely say no. Geoff recognizes that if he wanted to get in touch with those kinds of people, he needed to step his game up even more. Using a brand like entrepreneur.com behind his name gives him even better access to those kinds of high-level people. Therefore, he set out with the aim of becoming a contributing writer for entrepreneur.com for the specific reason of being able to network. When he found out that Damon John was coming out with a book, he recognized the opportunity, as a reporter for a major publication, to offer exposure to him for his book. It was an immediate yes, and he got to have the conversation with Damon that he wanted to have, turn it into a podcast episode and turn it into an article for entrepreneur.com which not only added tremendous value to him in promoting his book, but also adding tremendous value to Geoff from a credibility and traffic standpoint. It was a true win-win. Geoff is always asking the question ‘How can I add value? How can I help you?’ He knows if somebody is coming out with a book then they will be looking for press, so it’s a no-brainer. Hooks in the podcast to entice listeners Geoff also realizes that recording private conversations with some really influential people can be taken out of context. So what he’s started to do is narrate at the beginning of each episode to provide the context and frame the conversation. It shows people the goal, the mission and the stage of the journey that he’s on so that they can understand why the conversation is worth listening to. Then he adds a take-away so the listeners can easily find out what they can apply in their own life, and also a call to action. It’s a concept of opening loops and closing loops. At the beginning you can say something that sets up the topic. E.g. ‘the 5 things that are holding you back from quitting your day job’. This gives the listener a headline and something that grabs you attention and makes you want the answer. Then, however, they don’t get the answer straight away. They have to stick around to listen to the end of the episode so they will get the answer. Then, throughout the episode, before you give them the answer to that question, before you close that loop, open another one. You can add something like ‘before we finish this episode I just want to let you know that next episode we will feature a conversation with xyz and the secrets he shared about abc.’ Then close the original loop so that the listener does get that sense of closure. The basic formula: Open loop 1, open loop 2, close loop 1. Then in the following episode you address the fact of that open loop 2, but also open loop 3 before you close loop 2. It’s putting a chain together so that listeners are drawn on and on. This idea comes from Ryan Dice at Digital Marketer. This is something, a very specific thing, that Geoff thinks about when he’s planning his podcasts now. He asks himself ‘how can I tie these episodes together?’ so that strategically he can keep people engaged.

Today’s guest is Bryan Orr from Podcast Movement: Sessions. Bryan's podcasting story: Bryan got into podcasting doing a typical interview show around small business. He found he was getting bored listening to his own content. Some guests were great and the application was strong but it wasn’t grabbing attention the way shows like 99% Invisible and This American Life had done. He had a real discontent with what he was producing, so he began Mantastic Voyage with his brother. Now he does more of a narrative style with Podcast Movement: Sessions. It’s not quite storytelling, but synthesis: synthesising information into a story. Define narrative: A narrative is anecdotes, so descriptions of things that happened, plus emotions or moments of reflection. If you take something that is an occurrence and add in elements of reflections or emotion into it, that can become a narrative. Another way to describe a narrative is to raise questions but be much more slow to answer them using occurrences or a sequence of events. In a question based podcast the host would ask a question and the guest would answer it. But in a narrative based podcast you explore the answer, and you find it by weaving through a set of occurrences. The pros and cons: A good reason to have a narrative of any kind is if you are wanting to make an emotional connection. If you have no interest in emotion whatsoever, making an emotional connection or getting people’s emotions to rise and fall, then don’t do a narrative. If all you’re wanting to do is simply express information and have information absorbed, then narrative doesn’t make sense. But Bryan challenges anyone who says that all they’re doing is relaying information because information is absorbed when it’s attached to emotion. If we have no relationship to information given to us then you’ll have a tough time remembering it. But if you can attach information to an emotion, then you’ll remember it. Humans are hard-wired for story. As soon as you hear a story, you’ll listen to it. The only reason to decide not to do it is if you don’t have the time, the discipline or a subject matter that has any emotion whatsoever. If you don’t have any time, if what you’re wanting to do is simply create a content machine and not actually go through and edit and write, then don’t do narrative. Narrative requires a great amount of effort on the front, middle and back end in order to pull it off. It requires a time investment a lot of people don’t have, and for certain niches, it may not be worth it. The steps required: The steps required depends on the type of narrative podcast you’re doing. Some are content-centric. For example, Podcast Movement: Sessions is content centric. Take the content that you already know you want to talk about and find the best story you can from within that. It’s easier than starting from scratch. Fiction podcasts start from scratch and are much more difficult because they centre around really good writing. First, distill one idea, even if it’s a content-centric podcast. Figure out what the one idea is that everything you’re doing is surrounded around. Think about how you want the podcast to sound: intense, mysterious, funny. How do you want it to sound generally speaking? Then start to lay it out on a timeline. What are some pieces you can fit in, and then see the gaps that need effective narration or sound clips to augment it. Bryan's editing process has evolved over time as he has used different programs and learned to be a better podcaster over time. His process is to record the audio and load it into Reaper, which is non-destructive software so you can make changes and go back later not having lost the original take. He will then go through and log the tape using markers, making notes at significant points. Brian uses brown, green or red markers: red says ‘no way to use it’, green says ‘definitely going to use it’ and brown says ‘maybe’. Then, aggressively hack it because it’s non-destructive so he can get it all back later if he wants. He will then assemble the piece with all the narration and extras, then do a final edit where he makes it even tighter, and then he does the scoring which is adding the music. The timeline also helps in the editing. Loosely, you will  know generally the points you want to hit, maybe 6 points. As you log the tape you find the specific things that you want so you fill in the timeline with the specifics, adding more detail until get to a really tight story. Bryan says you can still create a good podcast even if you don’t know where you’re going, but it will take more time. It’s better if you have the general outline of where you want to end up and how you want it to sound before you start. The interviews: In Podcast Movement: Sessions the main topic for each episode is the main speaker. Then Bryan weaves in interviews and discussions with other people as well as his own narrative comments. He works ‘in the tape’ a lot. That means he goes through the tape a lot to find some areas that are really strong, and some areas that are weak. It’s nice to have balance from other voices when you have areas that aren’t so strong, that don’t stand on their own that well. Bryan turns on a recorder when anyone is willing to talk to him. He has a mobile set-up and does a cell phone interview for the secondary voices. The point of these sections is to create some balance so the audio quality can be less than that of the main interview. He emphasizes the need to get a lot of tape. You never know what you’re going to get, sometimes you’ll get great stuff from unexpected places. The ethos of a one-take interview show doesn’t translate into narrative because the whole interview won’t necessarily be strong. The cutting room floor: Bryan uses a list of questions to ask himself to make sure he’s not missing anything in the editing process. Is there an idea of place? Is there emotional balance? Are there ups and downs? In the timeline you can mark this with up arrows and down arrows. Is the story bouncing or falling flat? What are the stakes? What is at stake in the story if the subject if the narrative doesn’t go the way that you hope it goes? Establish that early on. Look at your story and if it happens just like someone expects it to happen then it’s not a good story. It has to have some element of the unexpected to it. Rob Rosenthal of the House Down Podcast says use your best tape first, and Bryan follows this advice. Figure out a way to take some of your most engaging audio and use it early on. It creates draw into the story and interest in the story. It establishes the ‘why you should care’ factor. Be conscious that whatever you end the story on is what you’re leaving people with. It’s ok to leave it unclosed. Good modern storytelling very rarely has grand summation, however it does have something that you want to leave the audience with and they’re very intentional about that. Whatever it is that you’re doing with your narrative, you want to make sure you’re conscious of that. As for out-takes, if it’s good, clip it so you can have it later. If it’s topical and interesting, save it as a clip and maybe you’ll use it later. Transitions: Bryan advises you think of the mood and emotion, make sure the timing is appropriate, give people enough time to digest what just happened and then transition them emotionally into what’s about to happen next. Music is a huge part of that. Ira Glass says This American Life uses ‘plinky’ music. The biggest mistake people make getting into narrative is they just use the wrong music. Music for sound and transitions is not the same kind of music that works if you’re doing an interview podcaster type of intro. Pick music that is very understated and simple and mood appropriate to what’s going on. Usually it’s fairly neutral, even for sad scenes. Tracking is the name for the cutting of those little narrations in between pieces. What works nice is to not only introduce the next thought, but do some of their talking for them so that the narrations aren’t literally just introducing the next idea. Resources: Listen to really great narrative podcasts. The RadioTopia podcasts are great examples of narrative podcasts: 99% Invisible, The Memory Palace, The Illusionists, Kitchen Sisters, Lost and Found Sounds. That will give you a feel for what is good, it helps you obtain good taste. You have to actually enjoy it yourself. If you’re not passionate about stories at all, it won’t work. Listen to podcasts that specifically talk about how to do narrative. How Sound by Rob Rosenthal is the best one around, or Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel. Also look into Alex Bloomberg’s storytelling workshop on Creative Live. Go to the Third Coast Festival in Chicago, where the world’s best audio storytellers go to meet and learn to each other. Transom.org and Airmedia.org are good places to go. Look into Smart Sound, which you can use to create your own music tracks and make them exactly what you want them to be. It’s not cheap but it’s a good resource. The takeaway: Just do it. Do it even if you’re never planning on publishing it. Start with your family, start with the stories you can tell about yourself, and sit in front of the microphone and work on editing it. You can’t read your way into becoming a good storyteller or a good editor. Just get started and you’ll find once you put in some hours you’ll be good. If you’re going to do narrative, you can’t outsource it. You are going to have to learn how to do it all. Bryan strongly suggests getting in and learning every step of how to do it. Cutting your own tape, doing your own logging, learning how to write your narrations, learning how to write your own music. If you want more from Bryan you can find him at PodcastMovement.com    

Today’s guest is Elsie Escobar. Elsie runs a yoga podcast and has extensive experience in the performing arts. She doesn’t have personal experience creating narrative style podcasts, but she does have a lot of experience listening to them and some really great insights to share. http://thefeed.libsyn.com http://shepodcasts.com http://bit.ly/elsiesemergencyexcitement Elsie’s story: Elsie started a yoga podcast on her own, which had nothing to do with narrative. She was in Los Angeles and the LA podcasters were all storytelling podcasters at that time. All were creating what we would consider to be more of a storytelling type of a podcast, minus all the hyper-produced musical interludes and overtone of the narrative between the conversations. They were done in a way that struck me as a human being telling stories. Tim Coin had a podcast called The Hollywood Podcast. Dan Class had The Bitterest Pill. Lance Anderson had Verge of the Fringe. Kush had Things I Say. All four of these guys were producing a podcast telling stories, and all did it completely different from each other. For Elsie this was an incredible learning to understand how powerful a narrative could be in that it doesn’t have to be a specific type of way. She also worked as an actor for 10 years, did theatre and movies and TV, and worked in Hollywood for a while. In hindsight, she says she didn’t have confidence in who she was as an artist, she didn’t trust herself, and that was one of the reasons she quit. She didn’t have the creative life she wishes she could have had. Elsie says podcasting gives that to her, the creative control and expression she was searching for. A listener perspective on narrative podcasts: When working behind the microphone with all the editing and producing, we can forget what it’s like to be on the other end of the microphone. Even when we listen to podcasts we forget what that listener experience is like. Working in theatre is similar. Doing musicals, Elsie always got notes from directors that would say ‘you have to earn the right to start singing the song’. There are times in some narrative podcasts where she felt that they had not earned the right to insert that piece of music there, or to narrate this portion, because it’s more contrived. It needs to be furthering the throughline of the storytelling process. Although like anything else in podcasting there are very specific ‘rules and regulations’ around what constitutes a strong listening audio piece, there is also the ability to mess with them to the point where you don’t have to follow any rules. Creative juices sometimes get stuck in the technical world. Elsie explains the technical stuff comes from one side of brain and creative comes from the other. If you’re thinking about the technical that’s the editing and producing etc. The narrative and storytelling and strategy and heart of the piece is the creative. It’s either too ‘out there’ with no form, or it’s too form-ish with no impact that you’re looking for. A balance between both is what makes the most incredible narrative podcast. You’re into it, you create the thing, maybe you have a team. But then find someone not a part of the “in crowd”, maybe they’re the audience, maybe there’s a person who would benefit to listen or someone you want to reach. You have them listen to see if it works, like a mini focus group. Tips for planning and crafting the narrative: Make sure before you start that you/the team have the key points you want to drive home or the overarching theme and WHY of this podcast. What’s the bottom line of this podcast? How is it that in the process of capturing the audio, how can we get the bits and pieces that really serve to drive the larger dialogue and larger point? As producers, keep the throughline front of mind, that primary dialogue with the audience. Make sure you mark things as you go. You will think ‘I’m never going to forget that’ but you will. Be meticulous about that. Be clear that you know how to get back to this information. Schedule a buffer time to capture some of that thought process straight after the interview, to write down the key insights from your guest but also from you. Write it down, you won’t have the throughline in your head as clearly as when you first finish that interview. Advice on crafting the beginning, the ending and the climaxes: The key thing in theatre, dance, almost every art form is pacing. It’s the same thing with storytelling and music. You set up a certain amount of some sort of consistency, perhaps in the rhythm or your voice, and then you add elements that break that pattern. Sometimes it’s more melodic, more pleasing, but sometimes it’s very dissonant and it shocks you. It can be change of speed/tempo (faster or slower), volume (louder or softer) or sharpness. What’s lovely with a narrative podcast is you don’t have to do it just with your voice, you can use sound design or music. Be very deliberate as to why you are putting that where you’re putting it. Pacing also needs to be steady. It doesn’t need to be any one specific rhythm, but the drive does need to continue the story, it needs to consistently move forward. Transitions: You need to make choices based on the kind of transition that it is. Is it a very poignant transition? Or is it something where you’re talking about x and then that topic is put to rest so now we’re going to start talking about y. That merits a strong transition, an audio period. This is the end of the sentence. End scene. There are times that may not be so poignant and more integrated from one to the next. Think about what kind of transition you need. Really truly study the narrative podcast genre. Listen not for content but for transitions, what worked the most and what worked about it? Reverse engineer the impact something made on you or why it didn’t work or why it was too jarring or why you wish that it was some other way. Follow your instincts with this, develop your own opinions, find what you like and see what resonates with you. That only comes from studying. The takeaway: Think about how you can use every part of who you are to make those transitions. There are different ways to use the body and to tell stories minus audio, minus music, minus words, just with gesture. Doing that kind of work opens up so much. It opens up the possibilities when you can so you don’t fall on the same old patterns of ‘I’ll just use music here’. What if instead of music you used silence? Perhaps there are optimal ways to do things, but sometimes doing the different thing will get you the results you’re looking for. It’s necessary to look outside the industry to see what other people are doing and to see what we might be able to pull in and use that. Break the mould! Bonus notes: The LA Podcasters: Dan Class primarily told stories about his life when he was an out of work actor in LA. He was a stay at home dad, taking care of his babies. He cultivated these incredible, super funny stories of his life. Like a diary but better produced. Each episode focused on maybe 3 stories tops. For the most part it seemed as if he was off book but very clearly he worked on them. He could do it at a stand up show or encapsulate different genres, could shoot it as a pilot episode. It was also highly audio produced. Kush did Things I Say also about living in hollywood around that time. His storytelling wasn’t necessarily as funny as Dan Class’s but was very poignant and cut through a lot of layers of living life in Hollywood. He would tell a story but also give a lot of deep thoughts. You didn’t know if he was serious or making fun of the audience. Lance Anderson’s take was not scripting anything. It was raw storytelling, a kind of “me and my mic, no music, awkward pauses accepted”. He would riff on something that was striking him in some way. It wasn’t just your regular Jo Schmo behind the mic, he really took the craft of getting behind the mic and doing a monologue as something to be cultivated. At the beginning of podcasting it was more common that it was sort of like an open Mic spoken word stories like that, where you would craft the story before, see where the story was going, and then you hit the microphone and you do it, and see if it lands or doesn’t. Sometimes his flopped and sometimes it soared, but it was beautifully done. The Hollywood Podcast with Tim Coin was a very unique take on narrative. He was an actor trying to make it in Hollywood and he told the stories of auditions, brought in all the emotions, covered his relationship with his girlfriend and Dad and brother, all the psychological stuff going on. It was a very well-produced one hour drama comedy. It had scene changes and some musical interludes. Elsie recalls she laughed out loud AND cried publically out on the street because each one of his podcasts was like riding a rollercoaster. Links: http://thefeed.libsyn.com http://shepodcasts.com http://bit.ly/elsiesemergencyexcitement

Today’s episode features Eric Johnson from Podcast Talent Coach.com. He has a lot of radio experience and he helps people create stories from their podcast. We talk about storytelling in great detail. He also has worksheets and other resources for telling great stories on his website at podcasttalentcoach.com   The Pros and Cons   One reason to do a narrative podcast is that it’s not prevalent right now in podcasting. Most everybody wants to do an interview podcast, because that’s the easiest type to do. Doing a podcast by yourself where you’re presenting the information is a little more difficult. The most difficult type of podcast to put together is the narrative podcast. It takes a lot of work to create but it’s one of the more entertaining and effective podcasts that you can put together.   Eric recommends narrative style because: It’s not prevalent right now, not many people do it. It’s incredibly entertaining It makes you unique because it’s a creative and artful form of podcasting.   However, it’s incredibly difficult and unless you know what you’re doing it’s not something you should dive into headfirst. Experience in podcasting, broadcasting, audio recording and editing will help. If you don’t have that experience, creating a narrative podcast as your first podcast is going to be very difficult.   When you listen to NPR, they have professional editors that sit down and edit the piece together so it comes together in one nice story in 2 minutes. But that person’s job is to edit stories all day everyday. Be aware that it’s not an easy thing to do unless you know what you’re doing.   The Steps Required   Once you’ve recorded, you have to catalogue the interview, the questions you’ve asked, the details the guest provided. Then once you have the interviews recorded, you have to step back and write the story, find the pieces of the interviews that support your story and piece them in.   The toughest part is knowing what parts to leave in and what to leave out and still tell the complete story. You have to be an incredible storyteller, which is difficult and it’s also an art. You need people to interview that are lively, entertaining and energetic but also that will speak in complete sentences to help tell your story. And then you have to catalogue it all so you can put it together in a way that makes sense, so that your listener can understand the complete story.   The first thing you need to do is decide what story you’re going to tell. The most well known narrative podcast is Serial. It was telling a story of a guy who got locked up, but the question was ‘did he do it or did he get locked up unnecessarily?’ The creators knew the outcome before they started editing. They knew how many episodes they wanted to create and they worked their way backward.   Figure out what the conclusion is of the story you want to tell, and then work your way backwards to figure out exactly how much information you need to include to properly tell the story and reach your conclusion. That will help you figure out who you need to interview and what questions to ask. Until you know what story you want to tell, you can’t begin creating the podcast.   The Four Key Elements to Storytelling   A powerful introduction. What do you want to make your audience feel, laugh at, marvel at or better understand? What do you want the audience to walk away with? It must be an intriguing introduction. Create the first few seconds to hook your audience and bring them into the story like an amazing opening scene of a movie.   Create vivid details so your story comes to life in the theatre of the mind. The images are dancing in the listener’s mind. When you create with wonderful images and vivid detail, it adds authenticity and believability and makes the story come to life.   Powerful conclusion. Once you’ve accomplished what you hope to make them feel, you’ll know you reached the end of the story and that’s where your conclusion is. Knowing ‘where you want to end’ helps create the intriguing introduction at the beginning.   The call to action. Where do you want the audience to go next? What is the follow up? In podcasting, when you’re telling great stories and you create a wonderful narrative for your listener, the end shouldn’t just be the end, it must lead them to more. Is it going back to your website or the show notes? Know how you want people to get more involved.   The most difficult part of storytelling is creating that intriguing introduction that really hooks your audience and tells them exactly where you’re going. Don’t wander into the story. You don’t want your listener to be wondering where the story is going rather than enjoying the details. You want the listener to enjoy the journey, and have the anticipation and excitement build up. In a movie we know where the story is going. But is the hero going to survive or is he going to perish? That’s what draws people in.   The Interviews   Sift through the interviews that you’ve recorded to find the parts that will tell the story, rather than you telling the story. The more actual interviews you can use the better, because it brings the story to life. Additional voices add depth to the podcast. The more voices you include, the more depth you have.   You can learn a lot by watching expose shows like Behind The Music or Sixty Minutes. Watch how they make their transitions in their interviews. It’s truly an art, to go from one interview clip to transition to another interview clip. Behind The Music is a great example: they tell the story of a band using a narrator that voices the transitions, and then the band members’ interviews tell the real story.   When you recruit the people that you’re going to interview for your podcast, it’s important to let them know that you’re putting together a story, and their interview will be part of a larger piece. Reassure them that nothing they say will be taken out of context. Make sure in your editing that you are including pieces that are actually what the guest said, not changing their words in any way.   The Interview Subjects   Finding people to interview really comes down to the story that you want to tell. You need to talk to the main characters and people that have intimate knowledge of the story you’re trying to tell. If you find multiple people who are giving you the same story, find the most credible and/or most entertaining and use that.   When it comes to selecting guests for a podcast of this nature, the most important part is to find individuals that will speak in complete sentences. When you go to edit your podcast, to put it into parts, you will find it easier to edit if they speak in complete sentences.   This is where the art of interviewing comes in. You as the interviewer need to think about that in the questions you ask. You need to ask questions that will generate answers that are complete sentences. The answer has to stand on its own without the question setting it up. It’s more important to find guests that can provide that for you than to find guests of any other nature. A great question you can ask is the ‘complete this sentence’ style question. It’s a great trick for people who won’t use complete sentences.   Resources   If you want to create great narrative podcasts, look into great storytelling and moviemaking. Understand how movies are created from idea to plot concept to storyboards to shooting the film and how they piece that all together. Go back and look into the early days of radio when they used serials like The Green Hornet or Dick Tracy. If you can find those stories and how they created those through audio, that will help you create great narrative podcasts.   Eric covers storytelling quite a bit in his own podcast. Storytelling makes you real as an individual, which helps create that relationship with your audience. When you’re trying to do business online, people want to do business with those they know, like and trust. That happens through your podcast.   The take-away   Storytelling is so critical. It’s what happens to be missing in great podcasts today. A lot of interview podcasts are successful because guests come on and tell great stories about how they failed and how they succeeded, and those stories make for great entertainment. Narrative podcasts can do the same thing. It’s a tonne more work but it’s a fabulous form of entertainment.

Today’s episode features Dave Jackson sharing his expertise about creating narrative style podcast episodes.   Pros and Cons of doing a narrative style:   The big pro is that stories engage audiences more than just a plain interview. There’s a reason every movie, every book, every TV show and almost all media is a story of some sort. It’s the Hero’s Journey: the audience gets sucked in and wants to find out what happens next.   The main con is that it takes a lot more time. To do just a host talking into a mic is a 4:1 ratio. If you’re making a 15 minute podcast like that, plan on spending an hour working on it. However other kinds of podcast have a much bigger ratio, because now you’re trying to get things to sound a specific way and create a mood so it takes much longer.   Dave’s tips for how to approach it:   Start with an idea first, break it down into specific topics next and then construct it into a narrative story.   Write it down and start fleshing out the idea, even write your show notes in advance. This helps because often during this process you will come up with cool ideas for production.   Choose guests via a criteria so that they fit the goal of the episode. That will mean you will get more of the sound bites you want from them and hopefully less will end up on the cutting room floor.   When trimming down interviews to get to the narrative elements, focus on the parts where the guest actually answers the questions you ask. Remember, you are the buffer between the guest and the audience and you don’t want to make the audience sift through content that isn’t relevant.   Ask yourself “What’s the point of telling the story, what’s the objective?” Do you want people to laugh, cry, groan or be entertained? Write it out so you can see the ebb and flow of the story. Then you will know where it tugs on their heart strings and where you need to lighten it up a bit so it’s not so heavy etc.   Sometimes you have good content that wasn’t relevant to the particular narrative, so it got cut. However, you could still use it for a promo for the episode or you can also release the full, raw, uncut interviews as well. For example, The Podcast Producers do this in between seasons.   Techniques to transition between clips or parts of stories:   Use music or sound effects, for example, at the end of a segment. Fade in music that sets the tone of the point you were making. It’s also useful for the audience to help the point sink in, let them ponder a bit.   Have a commercial break. This is a common way and audiences are familiar with it because it’s used so widely in mainstream media.   Simply use a dramatic pause followed by a question. Using a dramatic pause (think Paul Harvey, the king of radio) to let the idea sink in. Then start off next point with a question, to signal to the audience a shift of direction.   Resources or sources of inspiration   The book “Resonate: present visual stories that transform audiences” by Nancy Duarte.   Listen to Serial or Radio Lab or StartUp. Listen to enjoy the story, but also listen for the technical aspects of what they’re doing so you can reverse engineer them and use them yourself.   A portable recorder, to try to capture your thoughts in a moment, or your surroundings.

Welcome to the Creative Studio podcast, where we conduct experiments with podcasting! Throughout this season, we have explored how to create a narrative or journalistic style podcast. This is the tenth and final episode in this series. Today, we will hear from several of our special guests regarding resources to help you create narrative audio. We’ll also hear some general tips from them that will also help throughout this process. Today’s guests are: Bryan Orr Corey Coates Daniel J.  Lewis Doc Kennedy Jessica Rhodes Jessica Abel Dave Jackson Erik K. Johnson Rye Taylor I also want to thank Else Escobar and Geoff Woods for being guests this season as well. As we wrap up this episode and series, I want to invite you to get a free gift. I have put a detailed PDF together with everything mentioned in this episode. To get this, you don’t even have to enter your email address – just click the link to download the PDF right away. I know that this episode and corresponding PDF doesn’t have everything we covered in this series, but if you’d be interested in getting something with all of this either in written form or video, please let me know! I really want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. If this series has helped you, I really want to hear from you. You can go to the contact page or send me an email directly to joshua@podcastguy.co. Now, as we are wrapping up season 4, I am working on some things for season 5. The tagline for this podcast is “podcasting experiments,” so I’d like to follow that vein and interview podcasters that are creating podcasts that are different from the “standard” podcasts. Maybe it’s the format that they use. Or the combination of formats they use. Or maybe it’s how they record the podcast. Or maybe it’s the way they combine niches to create a new niche. I’m going to be on the lookout for such podcasters, but I’m open to suggestions. If you or someone you know is creating a podcast that you think is a little different from the rest, please let me know. Listen to really great narrative podcasts Radiotopia podcasts 99% Invisible The Memory Palace The Allusionist The Kitchen Sisters Lost and Found Sounds Listen to podcasts that tell you how-to do narrative How Sound hosted with Rob Rosenthal Out On the Wire with Jessica Abel Book: Out On the Wire Third Coast Festival in Chicago for Audio Storytellers Blogs Transom.org AirMedia.org Here Be Monsters Just Do It (even if you don’t publish it) Start by telling stories about yourself or your family Don’t outsource Learn how to do everything yourself Cutting own tape Doing your own logging Write your own narrative Edit music Do raw interviews “Art of Non-doing” Hunt for your own music - work with composers See what happens Oversaturated with information online, get back to the basics Listening to what other people are doing with narrative Listen to War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells Take what you learn from these people and put your own spin on it Understand it is going to be a lot of work Scour YouTube Freesound.org - sound effects Connect with right people to get the right voices for your show Make it the best that you can Don’t let the deadline dictate the quality! Telling the story is more important than meeting the crunch time High-production quality Putting some thought into your story Check out the “How-to Podcast” section in iTunes The Podcast Producers Podcast Answerman The Audacity to Podcast Podfly Productions Interviewconnections.com Honing skills on the mic Communication Skills Practice talking Do a lot of podcasts and interviews Hear how you sound and improve Look for high-quality podcasts Listen and learn how to be a better interviewer/podcaster Terry Gross of Fresh Air Marc Maron of WTF Interviewconnections.tv Just start making it - start making audio Put on a pair of headphones and stick in a mic and talk about something you’re interested in Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte Radiolab Look into great Storytelling and Movie-making How ideas are brought from plot concept, to storyboard, to actually shooting the film Look beyond the scope of the medium that you’re trying to create - look outside of podcasting Save the Cat Screenwriting Power Your Podcast with Storytelling with Alex Blumberg Storytelling resources Learn how to give a good presentation from Toastmasters Book or video series on Storytelling Listen to the podcasts out there that do it well Serial StartUP Reply All This American Life NPR spinoffs Gimlet Media Listen, learn, & put your own style to what you find is good/inspiring Learn new methods from other podcasts Challenge yourself by deconstructing what you find when you listen to these podcasts So this is Joshua Rivers wrapping up season 4. The Creative Studio podcast is a production of Podcast Guy Media, LLC. If you’re looking for help with the editing, show notes, or other aspects of the post production of your podcast, check out PodcastGuyMedia.com/cs to schedule a short free consultation.

Welcome to the Creative Studio! This is the podcast where we talk about and explore ways to experiment with podcasting. We are close to wrapping up our series on narrative or journalistic podcasting. This is the ninth episode in this series and we have one more after this. If you haven’t listened to the first eight episodes yet, I encourage you to do that first because we have already covered everything you need to create a narrative podcast.   In this episode, we are going to take the next step. We have already talked about the editing process and the fact that sometimes a lot of things get cut out of the final piece. We’ll be looking at some things we can consider doing with these pieces of audio that are left on the cutting room floor. Corey Coates and Jessica Rhodes from the Podcast Producers starts us off.   [Corey]   [Jessica R.]   [Dave x 2]   Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting can always be counted on to bring great thoughts. One concept I’ve heard him share about many times regarding editing is in reference to targeting only a certain length of time.   [Dave x 2]   Erik K. Johnson adds to the thought about repurposing audio for future episodes as well.   [Erik]   [Jessica R. and me]   I also had the thought that bloopers are another thing that could be used. Several podcasters I know of use this either regularly or sporadically. I know that bloopers on TV shows and movies are really popular, and I think they can be effective in audio as well.   Before we wrap up this short episode, I did want to mention a great new resource that you can get ahold of. Jessica Rhodes not only does The Podcast Producers with Corey, she also has her own show, Rhodes to Success, and her business, Interview Connections. One of her specialties is connecting podcast hosts with podcast guests. She helps to facilitate interviews on both sides, so she has written a book about how to rock the podcast from both sides of the mic.   Here are just some of the topics you'll discover in this powerful book:    *  Getting Started with Podcasting    *  Positioning: The Power of Celebrity    *  Rock the Interview    *  Getting a Return on Your Investment    *  How to Launch and Then Soar    *  Leveraging the Power of Guest Interviews    *  How to Monetize & Market    *  Podcasting to Actually Grow Your Business   Plus, Jessica includes her exact, step-by-step blueprint and the resources she uses to make podcasts happen!   I’m going to dive into this book more in the next episode, but you can check out http://www.creativestudio.academy/rockthepodcast for more information.   The next episode will wrap up this series by sharing the different resources that can help you as you create a narrative podcast. In fact, many of these resources can help you with any podcast you create.   If you’ve found this series helpful, please share this with someone that you think could benefit! I look forward to talking with you again on the Creative Studio podcast! God bless!

You just want to think of the mood and emotion, you want to make sure that the timing is appropriate, that you are giving people enough time to digest what just happened and then transition them emotionally into what is about to happen next so obviously music is a huge part of that and I can go into a little bit about music if you want.    1 But in many cases as we know when we are editing and trying to construct this, you know life just doesn't always fall that way because this is largely unscripted material.  So we have to find a way to bridge from one to the other and in many cases what I would find, as I mentioned earlier, was that if I can't make a bridge between two components of audio, two spoke parts but I do want to put then close together, that is a good opportunity for a narrator to jump in. 2 The two tricks I can give right now are if you can get two pieces of audio to stitch together naturally without having to do any tricks, do that first and if you have to get some narration in there, put a little space, put a little music, give the narration and then narration and go back into it. 3 You know each time I need to go from one part to another I think about you know, how I want to connect to the thing that happened, you know raise a new question.  Like at the end of one section, you want to sort of raise a question that you are going to answer in the section following so there is that.  If you are using music, music is a good way to bridge parts like that.  But yeah, I mean you have cycles in a story, where you have hourglass, at least a long time ago it used to go by the 45 second rule that every 45 seconds you need to have a new little mini arc happening in the story.  I think anywhere between 45 seconds to 2 minutes of time in your story, you need to be raising a question, answering a question.  Starting into a new thing so you have like narration, you have a quote, you do some music, and you need to think about it in little arcs like that. 4 Well you got to give expectations for your audience.  In narrative podcasting, one of the keys that you have to.  One of the things that is great about narrative podcasting is you can be very creative.  But the one thing that you also got to do is make sure that you got a box to think out of.  Okay.  It is very important in narrative podcasting that you actually create a structure, a framework, a box, whatever you want to call it.  But you got to have a formula in place that your listener can expect, okay. 5 And what you do with that is just like I was telling you a story and you were like and then, so as soon as I tell my audience that I fell off the back of that gator and I knew that I was about to get bit, I actually go into the introduction, my normal, standard introduction that they can always expect.  So they are expecting the end of the story but it is just the beginning, I am just foreshadowing what is going to happen at the end of the episode and then all of a sudden my theme music kicks in, my normal standard introduction kicks in and then they are like oh we got to wait for the rest of the story, but what it does is it engages them to the point that, "Oh, okay, this is the formula, he gives us the teaser, we know he is going to finish the story later in the episode but we got to wait for it, so here is the music, here is the into, here is another part of the story and he will get back and tell us what happened on the back of that alligator as soon as he fell off."  And that is how you can weave it in and those are the kinds of transitions I am talking about.  You want to have a specific structure in mind for your narrative podcast always to go back to that way you’re listening audience, they know what to expect.  Yes they want to hear the rest of the story, so they will wait even if you cut away from it in the middle of it and go to something else like your introduction or commercial. 6 In some cases though, what I am looking for is a bridge that is going to be some bed music in order to give the listener what I feel is an appropriate amount of time to think about what was just said.  It is pretty funny.  I think there is a meme going around up out there on Sound Cloud or something about how to do air in podcasts and they do it beautifully where they have someone say something very compelling and then you are struck by a piece of audio that holds you and hangs you while you think for as long as we want you to think and then the narrator comes back in.  Well there is something to be said for that because it does create that beautiful timing and it does give the listener the opportunity to not be bombarded constantly with information.   7 Paul Harvey was a famous radio guy and one of this favorite things was, that guys was like the king of the dramatic pause.  You thought he liked died or something, did somebody hit him over the head but all of sudden in the middle of his sentence he would just pause for no reason and you were like, did he fall asleep, is he narcoleptic or something.  It was really weird.  But you know something like that maybe, just a pause, just to let that idea kind of fade into the breeze as it goes out.  And then maybe you start off next with a question just to trigger somebody, hey, we are moving in a new direction. 8 It is really good and it is interesting too how seconds really matter, like that was really mind-blowing to me, to realize that sometimes when you start to feel oh 3 seconds was too long and you can really say that.  You can really feel that.  And also listening to their music transitions, I am sure that there is a magic number right, where it is either too long or too short and so they optimize for a certain amount of length and I think if you can maybe discern that for yourself to like you know my transition needs to be one second long so it needs to work this way or my transitions for these longer things need to be up to you know, 5 seconds or something like that where you can start to sense like that is part of the difference and you can then start to make decisions based upon length and maybe just the length will do what you want it to do and not the type of music you are putting in there.   9 In the narrative based podcast you want to have a variety of feels to the show.  So what we did was we had 3 different kinds of audio, we had interviews, we have solo segments and we have conversations between Corey and myself.  And then there was also music, okay.  So an episode would, you know as you are listening to an episode, you are going to hear you know and in interviews, you are going to hear a portion of an interview, you know Corey interviewing someone or me interviewing someone.  And then you are going to hear a splice of where it is just me talking in the microphone and I am sure that you know this Josh, when you hear someone on a solo podcast and it is just them and the microphone, they are alone in the room, it is just them and the microphone, the sound of their voice and the tone is so much different than when they are talking in an interview.  Likewise, it is also different when you are just having a conversation, like Corey and I, partners, co hosts, us talking back and forth, he wasn't interviewing me and I was interviewing him, we would have a topic at hand, we would start with okay, DIY Podcasting.  And we would just kind of talk, we would say, "Yeah, you know, I started...."  And like we would just kind of give our stories and our thoughts.  Again it is a different feel from an interview.  So in a narrative based podcast, one of the things you can do to hook listeners is to have different kinds of vocals, right so the solo, the interviews, the conversations, the music is huge, right.  So we used Corey contracted a musician to compose music for the show.  Listen we talked a little bit already about the importance of having a high quality production value in a narrative show, that is one of the things that is going to set you apart from most other weekly-based interview podcasts, having really quality music is a big part of that. 10 Well one thing that you want to may be sure to do is get royalty free music, that is first and foremost.  You don't want to start using, you don’t want "Another One Bites the Dust" and everything from Queen and so on when you are talking about your music because you can get in trouble.  So you got to find some resources for royalty free music and you find that in a variety of places.  There is some, if you have a Mac, there is some on your Mac but I would advise against using that if you can.  The reason is because it has been used, people have heard it before.  You want to try to get unique music that is almost exclusive to you even though it is not exclusive to you.  You want to get those pieces of music that people haven't heard all the time.  So to use those, find them on YouTube or find them on a website called audioblogs.com or audiojungle.com.  Find these pieces of music, these dramatic pieces and utilize them, leverage them.  In other words, when we are talking about a scary story, have some creepy music in the background, enjoy it, play with it.  Have some fun with it, but just don't overuse it.  You want to make sure to bring an ambiance to your narrative but you definitely don't want to go over the top to the point that people are like, "Oh man, this is really cheesy."  You just want enough music to make your point without beating people over the head with the music. 11 Okay so, (0:41) talks about, he used the term "plinky music" that This American Life uses plinky music.  The biggest thing I see people do who are getting into narrative, they just use the wrong music.  Music that works for transitions and for sound beds is not the same type of music that works if you are doing a, "Hey everybody, I am a cool interview podcaster," type of intro.  You know it is, you see that so many times, loud rock music or dub step and that kind of stuff.  It just doesn't work underneath, there is too much going on and it interferes with the person who is speaking, especially if you are transitioning into speech.  So pick music that is very understated that is very simple and that is mood appropriate with what is going on and usually in most cases it is fairly neutral so it is not, even if you are in a sad scene, you don't want some big sad, sappy orchestra, it is too much, you just want a simple, maybe a simple guitar pluck that is a little moody sounding underneath.  So you just think much more simple with music. 12 I did season one of Filmmakers Focus and I got a point where I was kind of rushing things and I found some music for free and honestly the music sucks, it just does not work for what I needed to be pushing.  And it just takes it down a notch and it is not like it is playing throughout the entire thing but it is just kind of lame, doesn't work for this.  I mean it would be a great piece for something else but I mean I should have taken the time to let it, let myself find the right tunes rather than try to push a week or something ahead so I would highly recommend, especially with this format, you are going to need every bit of, every piece of help that you can get and that music is going to be key to help tone this story. 13 Anytime a narrator jumps in I usually put a little bit of bed music under it and that is kind of to allow them to float, if you will, in and out of these conversations, imagining that the conversation is the sort of front facing audio that is the meat of the show and then from time to time this narrator is some guy or girl in the sky that is going to pull you out of the show and talk to you a little bit.  Whenever I am pulled out of the show, I want something musical underneath to give you that sense that I am in a different space and then get dropped back into the show itself. 14 So one tip that I would give people that is sort of an insider secret if you are really serious about narrative is looking to smart sound.  You can actually create your own music tracks and then make them exactly what you want them to be and you can make very, very simple good bed music using smart sound and I have been happy with it.  It is not cheap but it is a good resource if you are looking to create narrative for a long time. 15 Another technique you could use those would be you have certain music that is saved for certain things, Gimlet, all things considered and several other NPR style productions do this kind of thing where they have the sponsored music and it loops in the background while they are talking about their sponsors or they have their opening music, they have their wrap up music, they have their music that plays when they are struggling with a thought or they have their music that plays as they are wrapping up their ideas.  You can have that kind of thing and it is like your own soundtrack for the show, definitely get the license for the music, don't just use any music but make sure you are doing it legally.  And then that music can be what sets the tone so although it may be that you are recording in the exact same studio in the exact same sound quality, instead of having to say, "Now let's transition to our sponsors," you can have this music in the background that makes that obvious difference. 16 And so as you are making that point a lot of time you can fade in music that will really set the tone of whatever it is the point you are making and then let the music fade in and fade out.  You know, I have heard people kind of pause after that music because like the music comes in [humming] and then it is there to let you ponder what that person just said, right.  You just said that final, you put the you know, the period at the end of the sentence, let it sink in a bit and then about the time you go, “well that is weird, nothing is playing" they will start talking again and here is the new topic.  So I think music is a good way of doing that, you know, sound effects maybe in some places if you are talking about I don't know, maybe you are talking about, you have one topic and this and that and this and that and you just pause and you start playing a sound effect and people are like why are there geese honking, well because the next topic is "I remember one time out by my grandfather's lake there were geese."  And you know I can see something like that to just politely cue the listener, "Hey, guess what, we are going someplace else now."  This was over here without completely jarring their feelings out of their teeth, something like that might be an interesting switch.  I really think, the thing I love about these, I wish I had more time to do them, is it is so creative and you can kind of, for me at least when I do these and I listen back, it just, when I just feel that natural flow without kind of like, oh what was that or I really do like that.  And in some cases, a nice little jarring exit is maybe the emphasis you are going through.  Maybe you are trying to get people to go, "oh, oh what was that?"  You know because you are trying to get their attention, so for me it is kind of like painting with audio, you know. You might want to try a soft, music especially, I was amazed it triggers something in the mind that people knew what you are talking about, they got the joke a little quicker because the music spawned that thought.  Maybe it is the musician in me but my knee-jerk reaction is what can I use music wise here to transition.  I think those would be that and like I say, sound effects or a question in some cases. 17 Oh yeah, to be able to make those choices based on the kind of transition that it is.  I mean if it is a very poignant transition or if it something that you are talking about x and then that topic has been put to rest and then you are going to start talking about y, I feel like that merits a pretty strong transition between those because it is sort of like an audio period.  You know what I mean.  This is where it finishes, the sentence, period, and next scene.  So it could be something like that and there are times when you can do a less one that isn't so poignant and they can really just seem lessly integrated into the other one. 18 So it is not like you would be telling this story and in the middle of this story there is suddenly background music and you are talking about your sponsor but you would need to say with language things like, "this podcast is sponsored by such and such," or "brought to you by such and such."  So you are still making somewhat of a verbal transition without actually saying, "Let's talk about our sponsors now" or "Let's segue into this other thing" or "we will be right back after this brief message."  Please do not do that in a podcast, that, this is not radio, you are not going anywhere, your listener is not going anywhere, no one is going to leave and have to come back, you don't have to say, "we will be right back after."  Just make it a smoother transition,  Pet peeve, sorry about that.  But your background music then can help you with that and people then can start to know as they listen to your show as the background music is starting at a certain point, maybe they know, oh the show is almost over or they start to associate certain background music with this episode is halfway through and he is doing this transition point or whatever it is, you can really set the tone and the emotion of the moment with the background music.  You see that done in movies all the time and I love movie soundtracks and that is something that the soundtrack can be really good at doing, is setting the emotional tone of the moment. 19 They call that tracking in the business.  So tracking is cutting those little narrations in between pieces and I also struggle with the same thing you are talking about.  What I found works nice is to not only just introduce the next thought but also you can do some of their talking for them.  So you will see that they do this a lot in highly produced narrative shows is that instead of just saying "And then I asked so and so about such and such and this is what he had to say."  See that is a little too, it is almost like why didn't you just do the interview them.  You know but what you can is you can say "And then I was interested in what such and such's experience was, he shared with me, so on and so forth, which got me thinking, da da da."  And then they start talking.  You see so you are doing some of their talking for them so that your narrations aren't so tight where it is just you know just literally just introducing the next idea, it is a little more complex than that and it makes is just a little tighter. 20 There is a couple of ways that I do it and every producer has their own flair but for me I mean it is very, very simple.  The first thing I am always looking for is when wording can match wording.  When something that one person says can naturally lead to something that someone else said.  When those two things can be butt together, that for me is a win, that is a victory in narrative audio.  I don't need music, I don't need transition, I don't need anything fancy and I certainly don't need narration because the job is there for me and again spoken words, spoke word.  Let the words tell the story.   21 Well something cool that I see done with the NPR style shows they have a portion of the clip playing in the background so you know you are about to go to a clip or you are just coming off a clip.  You don't have to then say let's play this clip but you can just play a portion of the clip and then you jump in as the narrator and say, "That is so and so and we are talking about such and such," or you can start your clip off by saying, "On such and such day, I was talking to so and so," and then you go into the audio clip as it has been playing silently, a little bit silently in the background.  A cool little trick you can also do, especially when there is spoken work in the background and spoken word in the foreground, your voice is in the foreground and maybe you’re playing an audio clip that has spoken words in the background, is you can play with the frequencies a little bit, not to make it sound like a telephone call or something like that but reduce those frequencies in the vocal range which are roughly around the 200-400 hertz range I believe.  So that way you don't have multiple pieces of audio conflicting for the same frequency range but you have reduced it a little bit in the background but then you raise it back up when you bring that background clip back into the foreground so it is more than simply reducing the volume but reducing it on specific frequencies as well so that the foreground voice sticks out all the more. 22 One of the key things in theater is pacing and changing the pace of things.  As in dance, you know as in almost every art form, including music, there is a reason why you know, the iambic pentameter that Shakespeare uses stays at a specific type for many, many different lines and then all of sudden it breaks that rhythm,  It is because something important is happening then.  Something else is taking up that rhythm.  When Shakespeare breaks that rhythm, there is a very, very important reason why.  And as when you are producing something like a play, that is a Shakespeare play or you are playing it or whatever, you need to really look at that and to see that.  The same thing happens with story-telling or with music.  You set up a certain amount of consistency perhaps in your voice, consistency in the way that you are telling the story and then you add elements that break that pattern, that break it in some way that sometimes it is more melodic, sometimes it becomes more pleasing and sometimes it is very dissonant so that you cause the person that is listening to question or to go, "that was shocking."  And you can use different ways to do that with, because you have the voice, you have different ways to do that.  There are possibilities of using speed, tempo, right, you can do it faster or slower, you can do it louder or softer, you can do it sharper and there are layers that you can build into that.  What is really lovely about the narrative podcast is that you don't have to do just with your voice, you can have aspects of sound design, which is one of the reasons that narrative podcasters are around that way, or music. 23 You can learn a lot by watching expose shows like Behind the Music or 60 Minutes and watch how they make their transitions in their interviews, it is truly an art to go from one interview clip to a transition to another interview clip.  And when you catalog your interviews, after you have done it for a while, you will get the hang of hearing pieces that you want to use in your story as you are doing the interview and you will catalog those, you will jot down a note that, "Oh at 3:05 of the interview, he mentioned a part about the gun and that is what I wanted."  You know, then you can go back and find that piece.  You will start to recognize that piece after you have done it for a while, those pieces will jump out at you 24 To study transitions, to listen not necessarily for content sometimes but listen for transitions like what transitions worked the most, what was the thing that worked about it and like questioning back again, like reverse engineering, the impact that something made on you or why something didn't really work or why it was too jarring for you or you wish that it was this way.  There is something really amazing about following your own instincts with this kind of work.  And in order to develop that you have to develop your own opinions.  And part of it comes from studying, to see what you like and what resonates with you.    

CS 307: Enticing Your Listeners   Welcome to the Creative Studio podcast where we conduct experiments with podcasting. We have been delving into the world of creating a narrative podcast, whether that is a journalistic, fiction, or NPR style. This is our seventh episode in this 10-part series, so if you haven’t listened to the first six, it would probably be best to do that first. I’d like to start by giving a special thanks to today’s guests: Rye Taylor, Bryan Orr, Jessica Abel, Daniel J. Lewis, Geoff Woods, The Dave Jackson, Corey Coates, Jessica Rhodes, and Elsie Escobar. We’re going to explore the peaks and valleys, the stakes, loops, emotions, and more.   1 – [Rye’s story about wrestling the gator]   We just heard from Rye Taylor sharing his story and leaving it on a cliff hanger and go into some kind of a transition.   12 – Foreshadowing (Rye)   I guess this is where Paul Harvey should come in. But, we have Bryan Orr to continue this thought.   3 – What is at stake? (Bryan) [music] 10 – Raise a question (Jessica Abel)   That was Jessica Abel. I mentioned this several times, but you really need to listen to her podcast and buy her book, “Out on the Wire” by going to CreativeStudio.Academy/wire. Not only do you need start with an intriguing teaser by foreshadowing, determine what is at stake, and figure out how to raise a question in your listener’s mind, you need to look at the overall story you’re telling. You need to see the ups and downs. Daniel J. Lewis calls these peaks and valleys.   14 – Start with a peak (Daniel)   Not just should you start and end with a peak, Bryann Orr adds to this by suggesting that you start with your best tape first to draw them in.   4 – Best tape first (Bryan) 18 – Set the stage (Geoff)   Geoff Woods of the Mentee Podcast states this well. As the host or narrator, it’s important for us to set the stage by giving the context and necessary information to understand what’s about to come. He continues by talking about loops.   19 – Open loops (Geoff)   We are driven a lot by our emotions. Really think about the decisions you make. There are certainly some that you make after logically thinking through the matter, but there are a lot of times that our emotions direct what we do. Emotions draw us into TV show, movies, and other forms of story. Dave Jackson defines some specific aspects of emotion that apply here.   11 – Emotion (Dave) 6 – Emotional markers (Corey)   That was Corey Coates of Podfly Productions and the Podcast Producers podcast. Bryan Orr and Daniel J. Lewis bring the conversation back to those peaks and valleys, or emotional bounce.   2 – Emotional bounce/balance (Bryan) 13 – Ups and downs (Daniel)   Else Escobar joins us again to blend her experience as an actress and podcaster by talking about pacing and breaking the rhythm.   15 – Pacing/break the rhythm (Elsie)   Jessica Rhodes is the co-host of the Podcast Producers with Corey. She mentions differing the vocals to change the pace as well as using music as a hook.   8 – Different vocals (Jessica Rhodes) 9 – Music as a hook (Jessica Rhodes) 16 – Music (Elsie) 17 – Driving forward (Elsie)   Some narration is usually necessary to be able to make transitions, to move the story forward, or fill in missing information. But Corey shares the ideal way to craft the story.   7 – Guest-created story (Corey)   Just like we should start with a bang, we need to end it well, too. What do you want to leave the listener with?   5 – The ending (Bryan)    As we wrap up this episode, we need to remember that this is all more of an art than a science. Yes, we have mentioned frameworks and best practices, but this is just where we should start.   [Elsie quote – “break the mold”]   When it comes to enticing your listener to keep listening, you may have to play around with different things to see what works best. The specific style you are using or the message you are trying to convey may change how you want to do this. A great thing you can do to help yourself is try to pay more attention to TV shows and movies. How do they tease upcoming shows? How do they start the show? How to they end things before going to a commercial? What do they do at the end to try to bring you back next time? As you pay attention to these and try to dissect what they do, it will help you learn how to apply that to your podcast. If you have found this series helpful, please share this with others. I want to help as many people as possible. In fact, one way I’d like to help people is by delving deeper into this through a course. If you’d be interested in a course where you’ll not only get more about creating a narrative, but you’ll also get one-on-one time with me and collaborative experience with others, go to MasterPodcasting.com. It’ll give you a little more information and you can sign up to talk with me about how I can help you more with this. Come back next time and we’ll talk about making transitions between clips and part of the narrative. Thank you again and God bless.

Welcome back to the Creative Studio, where we conduct experiments with podcasting. In this fourth season, we are talking about narrative podcasting. This is episode 6, and we’ll be discussing the editing process. In the previous episodes, we discussed various things regarding planning, preparation, and recording for a narrative podcast. If you missed those, you’ll definitely want to go back and listen to those. In this episode, we’ll be hearing from: Bryan Orr Corey Coates Doc Kennedy Dave Jackson Erik K. Johnson Rye Taylor Elsie Escobar There is a lot involved in the editing process. As we discussed in episode 402, editing shows up many times throughout the narrative workflow. Here’s a quick review of that workflow or roadmap: Idea Research enough to pitch idea to group Research more Conduct pre-interviews Adjust story concept Pick interview subjects Interview Transcribe Write first draft of script Edit Second draft Edit Third draft Full cuts “Read to tape” as group Group edits Fourth draft Tracking Rough mix Listen to the rough as a group Another group edit Rough sound design Listen as a group Edit Fix sound design Pass off your final master Final mix Send out Get notes Fix based on notes Review again Green light Publish This workflow is roughly based on the process that Roman Mars shared during his keynote presentation at Podcast Movement 2015. There are at least 5 edits mentioned in this process – some are individual and others are group edits. There are a couple ways that editing can be approached. Each has its benefits and drawbacks, and I think that each one is helpful, if not needed, in the workflow. One way to edit is in written form and the other is in audio form. There may be other approaches and various combinations of these forms, but these are the two that I will focus on for this episode. It is good to start by getting a transcript of the tape you recorded. I didn’t do this for the first several episodes of this series because it costs either time or money – and I didn’t want to give up either at first. I finally gave in and paid someone on Fiverr.com to transcribe some for me. Here’s what I did. I had already listened to all of the audio after the interviews and separated the clips based on the overall topic of the section. There were some sections that I copied and put into a couple topics. In the end, I had anywhere between 10 minutes to 60 minutes of audio for each topic. I put the clips for one topic together on one track and mixed it down to a single mp3 file. I sent that off to the person on Fiverr. There were one or two episodes where I trimmed out my side of the conversation to made the file shorter because I was paying by the minute. I also wasn’t using any of my side of the conversation in the end. When I got the transcript back five or six days later, I would read through it and mark out things that I knew I wanted to cut out. This would include my side of the conversation if I didn’t already take it out. Sometimes the guest would cover a couple topics together, so I would take out parts of the guests’ answers that didn’t pertain to that particular topic. Sometimes the guest would go into stories that were related to the topic, but weren’t necessary to make the episode work. There were also several times when multiple guests would basically give the same answer or perspective, so I would usually cut someone’s answer. The decision could have been made depending on clear they gave the answer or even how much I was already using from that particular guest. I don’t try to give equal time, per se, but I do like incorporating different voices. I would also look for short clips that I could use in a teaser or opener for the episode and highlight the different spots. So, I would end up with a document that had a bunch of stuff crossed out. I would usually do some of this on my break at work, so I would actually print out the transcript and mark it with a pen and highlighter. I would then translate that to the document in Microsoft Word and save it as a new file. I would do this so I could make changes but still have the original work. Here’s a quick side note. If I was working on this with a team, I would probably have been using Google Docs instead of Word to make it easier to collaborate. I know I haven’t gotten to any of the guests yet, but be’ll get to our guests after I finish explaining this writing part. So I would take the edited document and then I would try to organize the remaining clips into a logical order. I would look through each guests answers and label it as a certain subtopic. I would then be able to create a form of an outline. In a couple cases, I actually numbered each clip so I could rearrange them using just numbers instead of copying and pasting a bunch of text. After I had the order of the clips, I would look at what I needed to do to create the narration in between the clips. Sometimes the guests’ answers could stand alone without much introduction or transition, but other times I needed to set it up a little more. In some cases, I would summarize a 2-minute explanation the guest gives in 20 seconds to make it more concise, and then let them finish with the pertinent details. We’ll actually be talking more about transitions in a couple episodes, but it is part of the editing process. Then I would be able to record the narration part. I would often find places where it didn’t sound right, so I would have to rephrase and rerecord. This is another editing step. I would then take my narration clips and the guests’ clips and move onto the audio editing part of the process. I personally use Adobe Audition, but before that I used Audacity. Bryan Orr, host of the Podcast Movement Sessions podcast has his own workflow. Bryan Orr – his workflow Doc Kennedy, host of the Filmmakers Focus podcast, continues to share his perspective from video creation. He also makes reference back to an old program that we can learn from. Doc – War of the Worlds Doc – take notes, what works Doc – hire someone And if you’re looking to hire someone, Corey Coates is the co-founder of Podfly Productions and is an excellent editor. But I wouldn’t be opposed to talking with you about working with my company, Podcast Guy Media, LLC, especially if you’re interested in creating a narrative podcast. Erik – Let the guest tell the story That was Erik K. Johnson, who has some great resources at Podcast Talent Coach. Erik – only use what you need Dave Jackson has been podcasting since 2005 and has helped a lot of people with their podcasts, everything from getting started to growing the podcast. Over the years, he has seen a lot of things and has developed some pet peeves in the mean time. Dave – answer the question Rye Taylor joins us again to share some thoughts about the difficulty that podcasters can have cutting things out, especially when there is something more personal involved. Rye – cut the extras, even when it’s personal Rye – one central character Corey Coates also talks about the difficulty podcasters can have trying to edit their own show. Corey – perspective and objectivity One suggestion from Elsie Escobar is to reach out to your audience for some perspective. Elsie – mini-focus group In the discussion with Elsie, I realized a connection between editing and our brain. The right side of our brain is the hub for creativity while the left side is the more logical side. When it comes to creating a podcast, we are using both sides of our brain, but it’s difficult to keep switching back and forth between creating and editing. Because of this issue, I’ve heard many people recommend batching your work so that you focus solely on creating, and then you focus solely on editing. If you have a team, this process can be improved. You can have some people on the team work on the creative aspect while others focus on the editing. Elsie – creating vs. editing I’ve mentioned the book, ‘Out on the Wire,” by Jessica Abel several times throughout this series. It really is a great book to help with many of these aspects of creating a narrative. In the section about editing, she speaks with several different companies that create narrative audio, such as This American Life. An edit was revealed to be a single session of basically tearing apart the script to make it better. It was brought out that sometimes a single edit could take several hours to a full day of work. And this would be with a team of people. And that would be just one of the several edits on a single piece. Did we mention that creating a narrative takes a lot of work? Dave Jackson actually talks about his experience of working on a project in his podcast, The School of Podcasting. He actually gave a shout out to me and this podcast. Thanks, Dave. Yes, I did a little happy dance when I heard that. Anyway, he said that a 20-minute piece he worked on for TheMessengersDoc.com took 4 hours. That’s a ratio of 12 minutes of work for 1 minute of audio. No, Dave is not slow. This just takes a lot of work, and the editing portion is a large part of that. Rye talked earlier about focusing on one central character and have this as a guide during the editing process. When you’re reading the script or listening to the audio, ask yourself if it is vital to build the story around that central character. Now, the character could be a person. It could be an animal. It could be a place. It could be a topic or idea. Whatever that central character is, try to keep the story centered on that. As was also mentioned, make sure to keep your audience in mind. Where are they coming from? What is their experience or knowledge? What do they need to know? What do they need to feel? How can you help them? One last thing to consider when editing and cutting your audio, consider your overall purpose and goal. What is it that you are aiming for? What is the call to action that you want your listener to take? How will this move the podcast forward? Maybe the podcast is designed to move your business forward. Whatever it is, ask yourself if it contributes to this overarching goal as well. In the next episode, we are going to talk about how to entice your audience. This includes how to capture their attention at the beginning and keep them listening. After that we will look at another aspect of the editing process we haven’t really talked about, and that is making transitions between clips and narration. In other words how to make the narrative flow better. I haven’t really assigned you anything so far in this series. I’ve mentioned resources to help you. I’ve mentioned the website and the email list you can join for additional information and notices. But I haven’t really given you an assignment for you to work on and take action on. So here is your mission, should you choose to accept it. Go to CreativeStudio.Academy and sign up for the email list. If you’ve already done this, great! You’ll be sent some resources I’ve created. One thing is a guide on creating a website. Another is the roadmap for narrative podcasting that I created earlier in this series. You will also get a sample of my editing processes. I’m including copies of each stage in the written portion of the process. So you’ll see the transcript with parts crossed out. You’ll see how I organized the remaining clips. You’ll see the narration I wrote and put the script together. This will give you an example that you can see, as opposed to just listening to the process here. The next step in your homework is to e-mail me, joshua@podcastguy.co. Or you can just reply to the e-mail with the resources. Let me know what your plan is for creating a narrative podcast, or at least what ideas you have. I would love to talk with you about this. I am also willing to have a Skype conversation with you to answer any questions you may have and share a little more of my process, including sharing my screen to show you what I did in the audio part of the editing. So again, your mission is to go to CreativeStudio.Academy and join the email list to get started. This message will…well, no, it won’t self-destruct. I want this to reach more people as well.   The Creative Studio podcast is brought to you by Podcast Guy Media, LLC. Through this business, I help people with several aspects of their podcasts. I recently helped one podcasters launch his first podcast. I am the podcast manager for another podcast, where I help oversee all aspects of the podcast production from planning and scheduling guests to editing and publishing. What I do most of the time with clients, is the editing of their audio. If you need any help or have questions, please let me know at PodcastGuyMedia.com. If you couldn’t tell, I’m really getting into narrative podcasting, so I’m especially interested in helping you if you want to dive into this awesome world. Again, the website is PodcastGuyMedia.com.

CS4.5 – Recording Your Narrative Podcast   Special guests: Corey Coates Jessica Rhodes Dave Jackson Daniel J. Lewis Geoff Woods   Intro: Welcome to the Creative Studio, where we conduct experiments with podcasting. We are in the middle of our fourth season, where we are talking about narrative podcasting. If you’re new to the show, I’d recommend going back to the first episode of this season because each episode builds on the previous one – at least to some extent. We’ve already looked at: What a narrative podcast is and whether you should do this format or not The overall workflow or roadmap of a narrative podcast The planning and preparation that needs to go into a successful narrative In this episode, we will be looking specifically at the recording aspect. Jessica Rhodes and Corey Coates are the hosts of The Podcast Producers podcast. They are conducting interviews for their second season (which is almost over), but for the first season, they did a narrative or documentary style. 4 – Guests are the spotlight 1 – Looking for sound bites 6 – Interviews not meant to be raw and uncut 2 – Doesn’t have to be perfect questions 7 – Let the guest talk 5 – Allow the guest to tell the story 3 – Shut up after asking the question 8 – Best stuff after 15-20 minutes Jessica Rhodes is also the founder of Interview Connections, a service that connects podcasters with guests. She also provides a lot of great information and resources for interviewing. One resource is a video series called Rock the Podcast from Both Sides of the Mic. This can help you with being both a host and a guest. Check it out at InterviewConnections.tv.   Besides having interview skills and techniques to get the content you need, an important aspect of interviewing is having a way to record the content. There are several ways that you can record. One popular way is using Skype with a Skype-recorder. You just speak with the guest and the software can record the conversation for you, usually splitting your side from theirs. This makes it easier for editing later. This is how I did most of the interviews for this series. I also used my cell phone with Corey Coates. I had my phone hooked up to my mixer so that both sides of the conversation could be recorded into my digital recorder. If your guest has the right equipment, you could speak over the phone and each of you can record on your own side separately. This is called a double-ender. Another method that you use is in person interviews. For this a portable digital recorder is really helpful. Dave Jackson even uses his iPhone’s recording software. 9 – Digital recorder ready Daniel J. Lewis also talks about using a digital recorder, but he emphasizes the importance of getting good quality audio – at least quality that is good enough. He has some great tips. 10 – Clear spoken word 11 – Microphone techniques 12 – Contrast in audio Geoff Woods records a lot of audio for his podcast, The Mentee. It started as a personal mission to build passive income after his income got slashed by 40%. He sought out people that were already doing the things he wanted and had conversations with them. 13 – Record everything you can 14 – You won’t use everything So when it comes to creating a narrative podcast, you need to do the preparation beforehand, like we mentioned in the previous episodes. When you’re prepared, you’ll have a better idea of where you’re heading. In “Out on the Wire,” Jessica Abel interviewed a lot of people. One of the people was Ira Glass from This American Life. They obviously create a lot of narrative and journalistic audio. In talking about pre-planning the story, he said: “An if you want to make things that rare really special, sometimes you invent like a fiction writer, and then see if reality conforms to what you made up. And when it doesn’t, obviously you report what’s actually real.” In other words, you try to think of what the story is and what people may say. You line it up before you conduct your interviews so you have an idea of what you need and where you’re going. When you are talking with people, that will guide you. But you’ll also find out the specific details and information. You’ll find out the parts where you guessed wrong. You’ll then adapt your prewritten story to what you actually get. It’s like working with a template – it won’t be perfect, but it makes it easier to adjust and put the story together later. I wish I read this before I started this project – it would have made it easier. Although, I did do some of this in the pre-planning stage. I had an outline of 10 main topics I thought I wanted to cover. After doing the first few interviews, I realized that a couple of the topics were too close to be separated. I also discovered a couple other ideas I wanted to delve into more. So I adjusted my outline and continued with the other interviews. After the interviews, I went through all the audio and cut the pieces out and categorized them. Since I was mainly following the outline, it was fairly easy to separate them. But sometimes the conversation shifted or we jumped out of order. But at least there was a plan to start with. In the next episode, we’ll be taking the next step, which is probably the most tedious part – the editing. If you remember back to episode 2 when we covered the roadmap, there are many edits involved in a well-produced narrative. If you haven’t already, I’d appreciate it if you took a moment to subscribe in iTunes and leave an honest rating and review of this podcast. Also, if you found this helpful, it would be great if you could help others by sharing this with them. The show notes page can be found at CreativeStudio.Acacemy/405. Thank you very much, and I’ll talk to you soon. God bless!  

  Welcome back to the Creative Studio where we conduct podcasting experiments. This is the fourth episode in our series on narrative podcasting. If you haven’t listened to the previous episodes, you can visit CreativeStudio.Academy or subscribe to the podcast to get those episodes. My name is Joshua Rivers and I am your host on this extraordinary journey into the world of narrative podcasting. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not an expert. I’ve been learning these things along with you. This episode is a continuation through the podcasting workflow and is kind of a part 2 to last week’s episode where we talked about planning your narrative podcast. This week we will take those plans and begin to make actual preparations. We’ll be getting things set in place so we will be ready to record. In a previous episode, we heard from Jessica Abel, the author of the book “Out on the Wire” and the host of the associated podcast. She shared some things about planning and creating the narrative arc. We won’t rehash those things now, but she helps us take the next step. 7 you have a character who's going to be at the center of the story, you want to think about what are these stages that they've gone through, and the change that you want to depict in your narrative, right? 8 you figure out when the turning points are, when do they go from one place to another place, where were their dilemmas, where were their decision-points, and then when you go to the person you want to ask them all kinds of questions about those decisions that they had to make, and about those moments of change, and how was it before, and how was it after. So your preparation is often figuring out the bare outlines of what this person's story is, and then deciding where do you want to delve in further. 4   In our case, we very specifically targeted certain individuals that we wanted for their knowledge-base and their experience in the industry. Corey Coates joins us again. He is from Podfly, helping podcasters  with their podcast production. He also works with Jessica Rhodes in creating The Podcast Producers podcast. It's tough because in a lot of cases you have folks that are the most boisterous, or the most vocal, the most prominent in some of the communities and Facebook groups, that may not necessarily be the ones who are bringing the best information, We know, because I've been in podcasting for 10 years, Jessica'd been doing this for two, three years, as well, so we kind of got a sense of those, you pass kind of the sniff test, if you will, you can kind of tell when you talk to folks that they're either really legit, they know their stuff, and they're really making a contribution, or they're kind of jokers and they're coming in and they're just sort of marketing themselves and not really the skills that they may have acquired Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting also does a lot of experimenting and testing of different things in the podcasting world. He chimes in on this as well. 9   Well for me, I've done it where I have chosen guests who had the background I was looking for, So by doing that, I kind of knew that the information they were going to provide, I wasn't going to really have to sift through much, it should all fit the goal of the episode, you have to listen to it all again, in fact, by the time it's over, you're so sick of hearing the same thing over and over, that it can be a little crazy, but I think if you have the right guest, that I guess in a way, I asked people that I think I know the answer. I'm trying to--not get them to say what I think, but maybe reinforce what I think. And then I'm always open-minded, so if they bring in something that I'm like, ooh, I didn't know that, that's even better. Erik K. Johnson refers to the popular podcast, Serial, to help draw some conclusions here. 12 Finding people to interview really comes down to the story that you want to tell. If you're interviewing, if you're creating this serial podcast, you need to talk to the guy that did it, or didn't do it, the guy, the accused. That's the key. Then you might want to try and talk to the individual that made the arrest, or people close to the story. People that have intimate knowledge of the story that you're trying to tell. you simply have to make sure you find the people that will help contribute to the story. Rye Taylor can get excited about telling stories and brings it back to core of the matter. 18   So, you've got to stick with your theme, and you've got to play with that idea of how do other people play into the hero's story, because you've always got to keep that as the main focus, that main theme and also to focus on the hero during that event.   Whether you are doing a narrative podcast or and interview-based show, finding and securing the perfect guest can be a lot of work. If you don’t have the time or connections to do this yourself, you can get some professional help to take care of the heavy lifting for you. Jessica Rhodes, one of our featured guests this season, started Interview Connections to help podcasters connect with guests. Jessica and her team work diligently to get to know both the podcasts and the guests so they can be a matchmaker. If a guest isn’t quite right, they strive to find out more so they can present only the best matches. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. Check out InterviewConnections.com today. [short music interlude] As with coins and stories, there are two sides to this issue of who to interview. Much of what we have heard so far emphasizes the importance of starting with the hero and main theme of the story. Then you target specific people to help tell the story. Rye Taylor looks at the benefits of both of these. 16 I think that you never know where the gold is going to come from when you're interviewing people. It depends on the narrative again, what type of story you're telling and where you are. If this is a live scenario, I would definitely make sure that you talk to numerous people, even if you think that they're not going to be a good part of this story. You'd be surprised. I'll give you an example. I'm going to be releasing a show called Daring & Rye, which is my story that's talking about me as a fat, middle-aged guy with a young family, who's ready to recapture an adventurous life. That is me. Okay? That's my desire. I'm the hero of that story. Now, just because I'm the hero of that story doesn't mean that I don't need supporting characters or other people to actually play a role in that. So during a trip to Colorado, during this whole narrative, I actually went and interviewed people during a day called the Penguin Plunge. Now the Penguin Plunge is a blast of an event because what it is, is these individuals from all over this part of Colorado actually come together, in the middle of February, and jump into this frigid, freezing cold water for a specific charity, okay? Now, I interviewed several people that jumped into the water for a specific charity, and I had a blast doing it. They had some amazing stories. I learned all of these things. Now, could I add that all to my narrative? Of course not, but I learned some amazing stories, and I was able to weave the best parts of that story throughout my own narrative and how it applied to me. It's not about them, it's about me in this particular instance, because I'm the hero of the story. Does that mean that their stories aren't important? Of course not. But you've got to have a variety of interviews--a variety--and then choose the best pieces that actually are the most applicable to your story, okay? 21 Sure, well, I think a lot of it just comes down to recognizing that, in this point, you are literally documenting everything, every interaction... This is Geoff Woods. He hosts the Mentee podcast where he records and shares raw conversations with mentors. ...and so all these conversations that you have with people, I think you just let them know, hey, do you mind if I record this? Not only for my own retention, I like to listen back, but oftentimes I find little snippets of gold that could go into my podcast, and if I come across something, I would be sure to reach back out to you and ask for your permission specifically, would that be okay? And more often than not, people are going to say yes. Very rarely have I gotten a no. And the only times when I've gotten a no is when it was an incredibly personal and private conversation on their end. They just did not want that documented. Which I could respect. 22   you end up with a slew of content and recording, and at that point it was just a matter--you got to document it, you got to form some system of marking the date you sat down, what you talked about, maybe moments--you'll know when you're in that conversation, like oh my gosh, that was a golden nugget--to be able to look at your recorder and say, hey at 19 minutes and 27 seconds, I need to go back and listen to that moment. Being able to just have some type of a system for that, and as you go forward, all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're like, hey, I want to do an episode on this, and you remember, I had this one conversation with Josh, and I remember there was a gold nugget, and then you pull up your Evernote, for example, and you look at the Josh Rivers Interview note, and you see like, ooh, 19 minutes and 27 seconds, there was a golden nugget, and you fast-forward straight to there, and you go boom, there it is. 1   I work in the tape a lot, that's the biz talk for the way that I do it, which is I go through the tape and I find areas that are really strong in the tape, that I'm definitely going to use, and then I find some areas that are weak. Bryan Orr hosts the Podcast Movement Sessions podcast. In fact, he’s the one that introduced me Jessica Abel and “Out on the Wire.” I'm not too choosy. Meaning that I'm not Ira Glass, so I can't get anybody I want. So anybody who's willing to talk to me about something that's related to my topic, I turn the recorder on for them, because why not? It's not that big of a deal. The interview podcast world spends so much time focusing on prepping for interviews and making sure that you're all set up, and sitting their at your desk, but I rely a lot on having my mobile set up with me, and I can do a cellphone interview or whatever, because the point of these kind of secondary voices, is just to create some bounce. So it's okay if it's on a cellphone, it's okay if it's not perfect, or if you're using the Ringer app, or whatever, to get the content. So I just say get a lot of tape. You'll know pretty much right away whether there's some good parts in there or not, and if there's not, then you just don't use it. Part of Brian’s perspective comes from the fact that his podcast largely has been pre-recorded - it was a reflection of the sessions at Podcast Movement 2015. He would take parts of the recorded sessions, and then he would try to get a short interview with the speaker. He would also try to get some snippets from some of the attendees. 2   Yeah, because you never know what you're going to get, so sometimes you'll get really, really great stuff from really unexpected places like, a perfect example is, I interviewed Adam Sachs, he's the CEO of Midroll and Earwolf, so he's this significant player in podcasting, but he doesn't do a lot of interviews, I only used a couple small clips from him, but the clips I did use were really good clips, 3 But if you had listened to that entire 30 minutes, you would have thought it was a pretty poor interview in general. That's where using the kind of ethos of the one-take interview show doesn't translate into narrative. 10   But I think if I just picked anybody, and now I got to go through their story, and their history, to find out why they did what, that's all great, but again, the more I have to listen through and cut out the stuff that doesn't fit, the more time it takes, so I'd rather have a guest that I was pretty sure is going to hit the nail on the head. That was Dave Jackson again. This is a good point to keep in mind - if you try to go too wide and capture everything from everyone, there’s that much more stuff to go back through later on. But sometimes, it’s the best that you can do. Like Rye said - you never know where the gold is going to come from. When talking with Corey Coates, he shares his concern about some people that are careless about who they talk to. 5   I know a lot of other approaches might be how many people can we try and get to capture in a really big wide net, and bring them in, but I can tell you now--and Jessica can speak best to this as a guest booker--that the more specific you go towards somebody as a guest, having knowledge of who they are, their programming, their background, what have you, the more likely they are to agree, because they know that you're not just coming at them with a form-letter that you send to everyone. they basically build an email list, and they blast it like a newsletter that they're doing a show, who wants to get involved? every aspect of humanity you can imagine is out there in the podcasting sphere, and you get the good, the bad, and the ugly every single day, but for me a lot of those referrals, like hey, who should I talk to, really respond from having a really good conversations in interviews for the show, and then them mentioning to me, it's like, hey by the way, you might want to talk to so and so, and because they really have a lot of great information on this, and they're fun to interview. [music interlude] So far in our planning and preparation, we’ve discussed several things about creating the story arc and finding the right people to voice the story. Most of the time, you may be looking for people to add to the story directly. Daniel J. Lewis makes some interesting observations about another potential reason to connect with others. 20   So as far as getting other people into your conversations, it's having those conversations, it's recording them, of course, it's finding people who would have some kind of feedback. Now, it could be as simple as someone being a sounding board, and you're telling them, I want to tell you this idea, I want to bounce some ideas off of you, please give me your feedback, don't just sit there and go uh huh, yeah, yeah, uh huh, uh huh. But feel free to ask me any questions, challenge anything I say, add anything that you think of. It's okay if you're not an expert, I just want another voice here with me, and that can sometimes turn out pretty good, because not only does it mean it's another voice, but it's a completely different perspective that could potentially bring something to the conversation that you would have never thought of including in your narrative storytelling. One thing that we as podcasters worry about - or probably should worry about more - is using various audio clips legally. I am certainly no lawyer, so you’ll want to talk to your own about your particular situation. Music is usually one of the biggest issues when it comes to using audio legally, but using clips of people could pose a potential problem. There are a couple simple solutions that you could try. 19   it could be as simple as just starting the conversation where they see the recorder, and you say, hey, I'm recording this conversation, I might use this in a podcast, are you okay with that? Erik K. Johnson adds to this a little more. 11   When you recruit the people that you're going to interview for your podcast, I think it's important to let them know, this is going to be part of a longer story, I'm putting together a piece, a story, an expose on x-topic, where I'm interviewing various people for the project, and I'll use part of your interview within the project. If they know that it's not simply an interview podcast, and that their entire interview won't be used, that we're using bits and pieces of your interview, I think that's good to know up front, I'm not sure it's going to change any of their answers, but I think it's wise for you to tell them that, so they're not surprised when they hear the show come out. I do think it's important that you let your guests know that nothing they say will be taken out of context, which comes down to your editing, you need to make sure you edit so the pieces that you're including from your guests are actually what your guest said, you're not changing their words in any way. Another thing that you’ll likely come across is when multiple people tell you the same story or details. 13   Now, if you find multiple people who are giving you the same story, you can use bits and pieces of each one, but I think you might be spinning your wheels trying to find individuals that are giving you the same information. One of them really isn't necessary, because you've already got the information. So find the most credible one, the one that will be the most entertaining, and use that particular individual. This next tip from Erik will probably apply more to the next episode when we talk about recording, but it’s wise to keep this in mind now. 14   You will find when you go to edit down your podcast, to put it into parts, you will find it easier to edit when they've given you complete sentences. 15 this is where the art of interviewing comes in. You need to ask questions that will generate answers that are complete sentences when taken by themselves, will stand out in a narrative podcast. The answer has to stand on its own without the question setting it up, and I think it's most important that you find guests that can provide that for you, than it is finding guests of any particular genre or nature, or knowledge. A great question you can ask when you're trying to get complete sentences, is if you're interviewing somebody who's not giving you complete sentences, use the complete this sentence for me. The most important aspect of interviewing is blank. And then have them repeat that first part. They would say I think the most important piece of interviewing is, and they'd fill in their answer. So if you run into somebody who won't give you complete sentence, use that trick on them. I didn’t do this when I interviews most of the guests. Sometimes I got complete sentences - sometimes I didn’t. It could be helpful to also talk about this with the guest when you start. Maybe say, “When we record, it would be helpful if you’re able to speak in complete sentences. I may ask you to repeat something so that we can get the information in the best way.” Doc Kennedy mentions another place that would be good to find some good voices. 6 I think there's a number of podcasters out there that'd be willing to help, and one of the keys there is that we know they have the audio set up to be able to record and give you a high quality voice coming back. You don't want to have somebody on that doesn't have the right setup. They might have the right voice, but if they don't have the right setup, then it's not going to work out. So find people that you can work with all the way, and I would reach out through whatever means you have, connecting through social media, listening to other podcasts, listening to maybe even another narrative podcast. Just find people you can connect with that fit that right tone, maybe it's somebody in your family. Just have them come over and do some recording with you, make sure it's going to work, and then just compensate them fairly, at the worst, dinner or something. That's how I would go about casting. Not only may you need help with the voices, but you may need help with some other parts of the production process. You may have noticed that this series is not being released weekly. In fact, the release schedule isn’t regular at all. This is because I didn’t plan this part of the process well. I didn’t think I would need help. I felt like I could handle it. While I might be able to do everything in a technical sense, time is a definite disadvantage. I didn’t think my schedule would get as busy as it did, and I didn’t think different parts would take as long as they did either. Like many podcasters, “life” has gotten in the way of the podcast production and delayed the release. I have outsourced getting transcripts for the upcoming episodes - at least transcripts of the clips I may use. It helps to see, in writing, the different things that the guests are saying. Then I can mark which parts to cut and rearrange the clips in a logical way with greater ease. I can then script the parts to narrate, edit the clips, and mix them together. If you’d be interested in a behind the scenes look and lending a hand in this podcast, I would love to hear from you. Simply go to CreativeStudio.Academy and click “Contact” on the menu or you can email me “joshua@podcastguy.co”. If you’d like a peek behind the scenes, but you’re not sure if you can help, you can go to the website and join the mailing list. I’ll be sending some things there soon to show some of what I’ve done, including how I’m taking the transcript and working it into a final script. I also have another thing going on in the background that has been taking some of my time, and I’ll share a little of that next episode. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode of the Creative Studio. God Bless!