Setting up my podcast is the single best thing Iâve done since starting to work online in 2001. Itâs fun, engaging, addictive and absorbing. One minute I can be sitting at the desk in my small study in Cumbria, recording my thoughts into my desktop computer. Within the hour, people all over the world can be listening to my content, then sharing and commenting on it on social media. Thatâs more powerful than anything I was able to deliver during my 18-year career in the BBC working as a radio presenter, journalist and producer.
To achieve this remarkable feat of broadcasting, I donât need a team of scriptwriters and engineers. Thereâs no need for a studio or a big radio mast; in the 21st Century this can all be done from the comfort of your own home and you donât need any special training or qualifications to do it. If youâre happy to speak into a microphone and youâve got some basic web skills â nothing more challenging than being able to make a listing on eBay or post on Facebook â then you really do have the prerequisites to podcast.
Add to that an almost obsessive passion about your subject - and believe me, there really is no topic too obscure to find a podcast audience - then you have everything you need to set up your own show. If thereâs one sense I want to leave you with by the time you finish reading this book, itâs that you can start a podcast, with virtually no expense and zero experience, and before long you too can be sharing your show with an international audience.
I worked in radio broadcasting for many years with the BBC and Iâve published well over 400 individual podcast episodes at the time of writing this book. Iâve built my entire career around communicating through words and audio, and now I want to share that experience and passion with you.
Iâm hoping youâre here because you canât wait to set up your own show and start sharing it with the world. If so, youâre in the right place. Letâs get started with the basics.
Before you read on ...
If at any point youâre reading this book and you think to yourself: I wish heâd put a weblink in there, then worry not. Weblinks in ebooks and paperbacks are horrible to manage, so I have placed every single weblink connected with this book â and a lot of extras which I donât mention â on the accompanying website at PaulTeague.net/POD. So thatâs it; one weblink to rule them all. It also means I can add cool new stuff in future months.
Why should you start a podcast?
We all have different reasons for wanting to podcast. Hopefully, thereâs a topic which you feel passionate about, thatâs always the best place to start. As a rule, it needs to be the sort of thing that you can talk about, read about and think about for hours on end without getting bored. Is there something like that in your life?
The reason I ask is because youâre going to know every inch of that topic by the time you hit episode 100. How will you feel about your subject by the time you reach episode 500? If that prospect excites you, rather than frightens you, you probably have a great contender for your podcastâs subject matter.
The truth is, unless you get very lucky, you will probably not make money for some time when you start podcasting. Itâs best to base a show on an interest that youâre passionate about, rather than as a route to fast and massive riches; that doesnât happen to most people. However, it certainly doesnât mean that you canât make some money from your podcast. Iâll be telling you all about that later in this book.
When I launched Self-Publishing Journeys, these were my aims:
1) To speak to other self-published authors and learn from their experiences.
2) To promote a paid self-publishing course through the podcast.
3) To promote third-party products on the podcast website from which I take a small commission.
I achieved all of those objectives in the early days of the podcast, but it didnât take too long until Iâd changed my course. I soon discovered that thereâs much more to a podcast than making money. Podcast bring all sorts of hidden benefits which Iâd never have realised if I hadnât started the journey in the first place:
1) Podcasts are superb for networking â my podcast has enabled me to speak to authors who are much more successful than I am and therefore give me a personal, 1-1 masterclass with them for free.
2) I have connected with other authors and editors who have enhanced my writing life through their skills and assistance. My two collaborative writing ventures came as a result of my podcast and I found two editors through my show.
3) My podcast gave me the credibility to do things that were far beyond my level of success. I have represented The Alliance of Independent Authors, presented to delegates at The Society of Authors, and shared the stage three times with bestselling authors at Amazon UK events.
4) Iâve made some great friends in my industry. I can attend writing events and people recognise me from my voice.
5) Iâve been paid for consultation by podcast listeners, without me ever having to sell it as a service. People come to me; I donât have to sell anything to them.
I posted my first blog post in 2009 and have blogged on and off for the past decade, without consistency or any particular strategy. I can tell you that in two decades of online working, and having spent all those years in radio, I have never been engaged in any activity which connected so intimately and closely with the audience. Podcasting is remarkable. Itâs my favourite way of creating content and communicating with fellow enthusiasts in my chosen niche, which is all rather convenient, because itâs just like running my own radio station â without the engineers, the hassles of a day-job or the boss shouting at me down the telephone because I played a Toyah CD and he doesnât like Toyah. And yes, that did really happen.
What is a podcast anyway?
Iâm hoping that if youâre reading this book, youâre already a listener to podcasts. If youâre reading this and youâve never listened to a podcast before, I suggest you make that your next step before you read on any further. Please make sure youâve found some shows that you enjoy and spend some time listening to them. It would be very unwise to start your own podcast before youâve got a firm grip on what they are and how you access them as a listener.
Itâs important that you do this as basic homework because itâs good to have an idea of what youâre aiming for in your own show. Weâre going to have to think about show format, the number of presenters who will anchor the show, whether to include jingles, episode release intervals and all sorts of other factors. You need to have a good idea of what works for you personally before you launch off into space with your own show. Remember, I want you to succeed at this.
I tend to avoid getting too academic about things, preferring to leave that to the professors and lecturers. Hereâs my best shot at a definition of podcasts, using Wikipedia as my inspiration and guide:
Podcasts are digital audio files which are released in an episodic series. They can be listened to on mobile phones, desktop computers, laptops and tablets. The best way to consume them is via a subscription which allows new episodes to be automatically delivered to the listener on publication.
Itâs a bit like radio, only itâs not live and you listen on your phone or computer. The other big deal from my â and your â point of view, is that anybody can do it. You donât need to be a company, a brand, a corporation or anything posh like that to start a podcast.
I like to use the word democratisation when referring to podcasts. In simple terms, that means you and I can do this, using only our phone or laptop, from the comfort of our kitchen or living room.
Podcast examples
Even if you donât listen to podcasts you may have heard of some of the biggies in the media. Podcasts have gone mainstream, theyâre the âmust-haveâ for every business because they connect with audiences in a way that wasnât possible before.
The award-winning Serial podcast is probably one of the most widely talked about podcasts in recent years. It combined investigative journalism with great storytelling in order to tell a true story over the course of a single season.
This American Life is a hugely popular podcast in the United States with â wait for it â around one million listeners downloading each episode. Thatâs a bigger audience than most radio stations have. And you can replicate that from your front room.
You will, no doubt, have your own favourites. Youâre only going to see more podcasts like these, not fewer. There are some very good reasons for this too.
Podcasting boom time
If you subscribe to Netflix or any other on-demand TV series youâll already know how great it is being able to access the TV that you want to watch, 24/7, without schedulers placing adverts in your way or forcing you to wait a week between episodes.
When I was a kid, I actually gave up horse riding lessons because they clashed with a TV series I was desperate to see. Now, no jokes about my age please, but in those days, we didnât have videos or hard drives; if you missed it, you missed it.
They were the dark ages of TV. Those of you who binge-watch series will know what great joy comes from watching TV on your own terms.
Now think of radio, which has been slower to catch up.
You have to tune in a radio, which sometimes catches and often loses the signal, only to listen to some self-opinionated presenter who forces their choice of music upon you, speaks over the intros and outros, and then decides what the topic of conversation is for the day. Now, donât get me wrong, thatâs how I made my living for years. But that model is long past its sell-by date, and thatâs where podcasts come in.
Podcasts are Netflix for the ears. You get to choose the topic, the presenter â or presenters â and the time and place that you will listen. Canât get to sleep and want to listen at three oâclock in the morning? No problem with a podcast. Like the topic, but hate the presenter? Just find another podcast on the same topic until you find a presenter that you like. Iâm going to use that word again â democratisation. Thatâs what has happened with podcasts. The listener is firmly in the driving seat, but so is the presenter. The listener gets exactly what they want when they want it, and however many times they want to listen to it. People like me and you get to take a piece of the action too. Iâve seen and studied radio station listening figures for more hours than I care to remember and I can tell you that I reach more people through my home-made podcast than I used to reach on the teatime show on a local radio station which shall remain nameless.
Podcasts are all around you too. Weâre all aware of Apple Podcasts, the ruler of them all, but Google also has a podcast channel now (more about that very important move later), and so does Spotify. These arenât tiny operators; when Google moves in, you know something big is brewing.
Podcasting benefits
I mentioned earlier ...