What Kind Of Podcast Are You Making - The Podcast Report Episode #37

Podcast report episode 37. What kind of podcast are you making? Show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 37 it's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. The big idea is this. There's simply nothing sadder than a podcast pretending to be something that it isn't. Welcome to the Podcast Report. My name is Paul Culligan. I'm a seven time bestselling author. The new book how to Pause Podcast was number one this month at Amazon. We're thrilled by it. But it's not just books, it's podcasting. I've been in podcasting since day one. I've loved it, love the audience, love podcasts, love the industry. Two audiences for the show, the podcaster. Those of you who are podcasters who listen, thank you. Glad I've helped you in the ways you've told me. I have. And then there are those of you thinking about getting into podcasting who want to go deeper here. And I think this episode will be really good for you. The Podcast Report has never been a massive play, but it's a deep one. How do we get this serious? How do we do this right? So why the topic? I was having lunch with a friend, we'll call him, quote, unquote Gene. We were talking about award shows and podcasts and comparing one to another and these types of things. And he said he felt like some of the podcast awards are just comparing the wrong things. They're comparing shows that would be like letting a movie into the Emmys, just different production budgets and different production expertises and that type of thing. And it's really interesting because if you look at podcasts, you look at what NPR is doing, you look at what the NPR escapees are doing, you look at what something like Leo Laporte is doing or Adam Curry's doing. And there's a lot of different levels of quality. There's a lot of different levels of thought and input happening in podcasting. The last couple of episodes I've shared with you the whole Tim Ferriss thing where Tim was speaking to the guy from startup, and the comparing of different podcasts. There's room for all of them. And I want to explore this a bit. And it's not going to be definitive work. I'm going to try to speak to the kinds of podcasts that are out there. But I'm sure we'll go further. I'm sure we'll go deeper. I'm sure I'll hit this in a future episode. But I want to hear what you think. So this is not going to be the definitive list. Don't call this definitive list. Don't send in hate mail. Because I didn't add the type of podcast. But I got four types of podcasts that I think are really, really interesting. And it's not interview show versus something el, it's kind of how they're made. And the first kind of podcast is Live to Tape. You know, it's essentially what I'm doing here. I'm speaking into the microphone, I'm recording this. This is going to go to the editor. The editor is going to add the front and back, take out the hums, all that good stuff. I'm going live to tape. This could be just like I was doing a radio show if I wanted to. There are apps like Boss Jock, there are software services like Spreaker, there are people who make Live to Tape very, very doable. Adam Curry, I still remember at Gnome way back when he did, I want to say it was episode 200 of the his report, the Daily Source code. Now, my goodness, going back to the old days. But the fact of the matter was I'm live to tape. And the great thing about Live to tape obviously is it doesn't take a lot of time. And we'll go into this a little bit here, but Live to Tape is one. Then you got live plus some production. And I think of shows like the podcast Ask the Podcast Coach by David Jackson over at the school podcasting his Ask the Podcast show. Mostly live, a little bit of production, but gets the thing out the door pretty quickly. Then there are what I want to call assembled shows. And we're going to go back to Dave Jackson for this one. The school of podcasting is an assembled show. He might do the interview on Tuesday, he might get a voicemail from somebody else on a Wednesday. He'll take all this stuff, he'll put it together and he'll assemble the show. It's not a moment in time. It's not a live to tape, even with a little bit of production. It's several moments in time. Time, that's another option as well. And then of course you have the super produced shows, you have startup now, you have serial and you have some of the people who can spend a year putting a show together and God bless them. But it's not what I am able to do. It's not what I think a lot of you are able to do. Now why does this matter? Is this just so that I can produce a you Know, an infographic for the different types of podcasts. No. Part of the formula in monetization, part of what you look at in monetization, which is a big topic for you all listening to this. This is my audience, you, the podcast reportees, if you will, you are truly interested in how do we monetize. Well, part of the monetization formula is the fact, how much time does this take? You know, if it takes me five minutes to make 20 bucks, that's great. If it takes me five hours to make 20 bucks, we got a problem. If it takes me five weeks to get 20 bucks, you know, we got a real big problem. And so the formula for monetization is we gotta figure out how much time this takes. And live to tape doesn't take a lot of time. Super produce takes a lot of time. And people forget this part, that this does damage. And the funny thing is, and I've shared this the last couple of weeks, not everybody wants super produced. You know, I was talking to somebody who said, paul, I really appreciate this show because it's just. It's just you with your thoughts in and out very, very quickly, and I appreciate that. Not everybody wants super produced. Not everybody wants all the things edited out. Some people want just honesty, raw honesty. And maybe if a show's taking you five hours, what if there's a format to do it in one hour? How does that change? Does that fix monetization? What does that do? Well, Paul, what about quality? Are you just saying make crap? No, I'm not saying make crap. I'm just saying that content is more important. Sound and content is more important than format and content and your audience. And that connection is much more valuable than anything else. It's kind of what I've been trying to say with the show. It's kind of what I've been trying to do with this show. We need to get to a place very, very quickly where we judge the value of the show and we monetize the value of the show not based on what microphone and what sponsor and what guest, but the content and the market to message that the audience has from you, the podcaster. Content will always be more important than sound. I don't care what your guru says. That's just the simple case. No one has ever stopped listening to anything I've ever done because I wasn't using a heil mic to do it. That's another one to tweet out there. Now, sound as good as you can, do what you can to have the best professional voice you can for the money that you have. I'm actually doing something this afternoon episode I'm trying a little bit something with sound. I'd love to hear from you if you hear a difference between past sounds. Now, the problem is I've got some sort of phlegmy cold thing going on right now, so hardly the best day to do a test. But if you hear a lack of noise and some other things, I'd really be curious there. You know, do what you can to sound as good as you can, but don't let that get in the way of the format. My better sounding is not me buying a new microphone. My better sounding is not me, you know, doing the format or spending a ton of time in post production. My. And trying to sound better. This episode comes from me doing what I can within the confines of what it is that I've got. You know, when it comes back to quality again, if a sponsor is judging you by your audio and not your audience, find a better sponsor or a better model. The connection in podcasting, and we've been chatting about this over the last couple of weeks, it's not how many downloads we get so that I can shove another GoDaddy ad down your throat, it's what type of content you produce for an audience who wants to hear it and an audience who wants to be part of it. So there we go. What I'm doing, I spend an hour a week on this show, max. I do my outline, I do my mind map, and I record. I hit the record button. Usually if I do something Funky in the first 3, 4 minutes of the show, I'll stop, I'll go back. But after that, I go live. During the middle of this here, I'm talking about a cold. I hit the. The cough button for a second there. There's going to be a bit of a pause. You know what? I'm not going to have the editor go in and do it because it's just not necessary. You're getting the content that you need. And if it is necessary, somebody give me in the notes if you've been thinking about leaving the show. But because I left a half a second of a blank cough space, let me know. But gosh darn it, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one. I spend about an hour a week on this show, which frees me up to do other things. If I want to do this show as a hobby, an hour a week hobby is fine. If I want to do this show, you know, any other topic, an hour A week is fine. If this show was taking me 10 hours a week, I don't think the revenue would be worth it. If this show was taking me 40 hours a week, I definitely know the revenue wouldn't be worth it. So I have developed a show format and this goes back to the whole question of what kind of show are you making? I developed a show format that lets me get this out to not have to worry about having a massive audience. I highly recommend that you do the same. Now I'm doing other things. I don't just produce the podcast report. I know that comes as a surprise to most of you. I've got my consulting work, my clients. I've got the book that I mentioned earlier at the beginning of this. I've got a new thing I've launched called Legal Podcast Music. Definitely take a look at that. There's going to be some very, very cool announcements to Legal Podcast Music. I've got some more podcasts coming and I can do that because I only spend an hour a week on the show. What if your show took five hours a week and you're burning out? Could you move it to an hour a week? Just change the format a little bit? Would your audience care if it wasn't super produced? Would your audience even notice if you did something radically different to it? And I chatted to this last week? You could reboot the show. You could do season two with a different format. You could do a whole bunch of things if you want. But. But what kind of show are you making right now? Are you happy with the show that you are making right now? What kind of show should you be making right now? You answer those questions and you might find yourself at a better place pretty quickly. That's it. That's what I got for you. This week. We are all over social thepodcastreport.com Twitter, Facebook, Google. It's all there. Go ahead and follow link. Like that kind of stuff. We'd love to have you there. If you want to comment the blog, you can head out to the podcastreport.com 37 we're running that. If you want to get the transcript from today's episode and the mind map that I created for this, go ahead and text hashtag ep37 as an episode 37 to 500-389-71290 links@the podcastreport.com 37 I don't have any right now other than the book. I didn't fill that part out on the mind map. So I'll put in a couple of things there right now. Not quite sure sure what they are, but they will come. Show hotline 503-897-1290 if you want to leave some voicemails, some thoughts, go ahead and do that. What this is where to listen. You can grab this@the podcastreport.com period./itunes if you want to do the Apple thing. Slash Stitcher if you don't. Pocketcast if you want to do the independent Australian thing. Tunein if you want to do the Microsoft phone thing. IHeartRadio overcast. It's all there. Subscribe though. Get this on a regular basis. Sometimes we don't go this short. Sometimes we go longer. This might be the shortest one we've done yet, but that's kind of the way these things go. If you want to email me, I'm at the podcastreportoutlook.com if you want to review. I'd love it. If you want to pick up the book, a link is in the show notes. That's it. Let you go. Talk to you next week. Bye.