Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Joys of Podcasting 2 - Learning Curve

Joy of Podcasting 2 - Learning Curve

Joys of Podcasting 2 - Learning Curve


My podcast: Virginia Waytes' Sexy Stories is now up to episode 8 and chugging along nicely. For those not in the know, my podcast is a serialised paranormal romance for adults only where each week:
  • the podcast🎧 has a brief recap and all the naughty bits from the week's episode 
  • and there is also an eBook📕 with all the plot that would make the podcast far too long. 
Sexy Stories 08 - The Manor s01e07 Sexual Tensions: Werewolf Distraction Techniques

There are lots of supernatural beings and magic and excitement, as well as plenty of sensual sexy times.

So the whole podcasting thing can be a bit confusing, as I found out, because there are many different ways to do things. For example where to host, how to get the best sound, how distribution works etc. So welcome to my second post about podcasting and here are some of the things I have picked up along the way.

I shared the equipment I use over at this post: The Joys of Podcasting: A Beginning so I won't go into that again. Suffice to say I am still using the same stuff.

However, podcasting has other trip wires I had not appreciated, but once we know they are there it is easy to skirt around them. Please be aware, I am no expert, this is a post about how I went about things.

#1 Create a Podcast Trailer

Some podcasting sites, including Apple allow us to create a trailer for our podcast. A trailer is just what is sounds like, a short introduction to our podcast, usually about 2-3 mins in length. This is really useful for several reasons:
  1. We want out podcast approved on streaming platforms before episode 1 goes live
    For example Apple takes a while to approve new podcasts - it can be anything from hours to a week - and there has to be at least one "episode" live for them to approve it. This means if we want our podcast to launch on Apple at the same time as it goes live everywhere else we need a valid episode before we actually launch. A trailer counts as a valid episode.
    Most other places take less time to approve, but it is still best to have the podcast live on other platforms before launch,
  2. A trailer gives us a chance to introduce our style and hook listeners before launch day. We're trying to interest people in our product just like movies do, so a trailer is a great idea to gather interest. If we are very lucky they might even subscribe to our podcast.
I use Podbean as my hosting site and it allows settings for an upload to let services know if an episode is a trailer or a full episode. I can only assume other hosts do the same, but you'd have to check.

#2 Where to Get a Podcast Seen

There are many streaming platforms where it is a good idea to make sure our podcasts are seen. These are the ones I use and also the articles I used to find out how to submit my feed to them:
Now these do not all update instantly when a new episode comes out. I tend to set my eps to go live at 1AM because then, usually by breakfast/commute time (which is when podcasts are often listened to when the world is normal) they tend to have percolated through. The one that is always not there is Apple Podcasts. Every week I log in to my console as soon a I get up and hit refresh on the feed - it then refreshes usually in under half an hour.

N.B. we MUST make sure our podcast season and episode numbers are set. If they aren't no matter how many times we hit refresh, the ep will not show up on Apple. One week I forgot to set them and the moment I figured it out I added them in and voila, everything worked.

This is not an exhaustive list of where to list our podcasts, but there are just sooo many and these are some of the biggest.

BTW - I made these little graphics for linking to the various sites on my VirginiaWaytes.com blog and anyone is most welcome to use them if they find them useful. They are all png and were created from various sizes of logo available online, just right click and save them.



#3 Make Sure to Tell Everyone About the Podcast on Social Media


This is an obvious one to most of us who have been trying to get out work out there in any way online, but I think it deserve reiterating. No matter how many podcast services our podcast is on, the best way to get the message out there is with our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, and our mailing lists.

When my podcast goes live it gets a handful of views before I get to social media. Then as I pimp it around the numbers start to jump up. All these sites have algorithms that boost podcasts, but they have a nasty habit of only boosting the ones that already have an audience, so we have to do all the hard graft on our own. C'est la vie in the world of the independent producer 💖.

#4 Fantastic Advice from the Experts

There are many people out there who know more about this than me and many of them are very, very helpful.

Getting the Prefect Sound

There is a channel on Youtube with the most fantastic advice for all things audio run by a chap called Mike Russell. He has some wonderful videos which can help us take the sound of our podcast from good to great. This is my favourite vid of his:

I cannot express how good the advice in these vids is.

So Much Good Advice

Live365 has so many articles about so many different aspects of podcasting. It is so useful.

#5 Make a List


[Edit] I forgot to add this, but, if you like me forget things, make a list of what there is to do every time an episode goes live. Since I have made my list I have found it so much easier. Of course I have all the book things to do as well, but it never hurts to have a checklist 😃.

~*~

And that's all I can think of at the moment. Podcasting is an ever expanding world, but I hope this might help a few people sift through the information overload that is out there. Best of luck if you are launching a podcast, drop me your links in the comments if you are. Let me know any useful bits of advice you have picked up along the way too. Thank you 💖
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