Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss an age-old manner of supporting your podcast business, as well as promoting your podcast show. And this is by incorporating a resource known as THE COMPANION PODCAST. And we have two cases-in-point of success stories about companion podcasts that highlight and promote books written by podcasters who are also authors:

Dave Jackson, podcaster of The School of Podcasting and author of the book, Profit from your Podcast;

and Tee Morris and Evo Terra, podcasters and authors of the original book in 2006, Podcasting for Dummies.

and I will also briefly mention my own experiences with companion podcast shows for my programs of Finance for Startups and Gain Control of Your Day in the earlier years of the podosphere.

Dave Jackson — Profit from your Podcast

In this book, Dave has had an update to his earlier book titled More Podcast Money. This is really just the latest information that Dave has delivered on how to monetize your podcast, should you wish to get money from your podcast. This is a current example of a companion podcast to help promote and sell the book. And it has resulted in a success story, but not one of titanic proportions of revenue success.

Evo Terra and Tee Morris — Podcasting for Dummies

In this original book published in 2005-2006, a companion audio podcast show started by Tee Morris actually had resounding success for the promotion and sale of the book. Now in its third printing, and with a sequel that followed the original book titled Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies, this was the original case-in-point about how a companion podcast can grow your show and provide success for monetization of your podcast show. I myself first learned of this book in 2007, and I did promote it at the first Podcamp in Phoenix, Arizona, when Evo Terra sat in my session when I presented monetization strategies for serialized podcast shows. Of course, that is when I first met and spoke with Evo Terra.

My own experience with COMPANION PODCASTS

In my experience as a professional podcaster, I have had several shows in which I implemented the concept and practice of creating and publishing a companion podcast:

One show was Gain Control of Your Day — this now podfaded show was a training course delivered by audio podcast episodes that used a technology developed by Paul Colligan, (who was a thought leader, a pundit in New Media and podcasting and an author of podcasting books) that mainly dealt with monetization of podcasts. His Technology of “dripping” episodes in his resource called Premiumcast, along with a one-to-one podcast feed for every paying member was key in the initial years of the podosphere. And this method of supporting the course and delivering training by having a smaller companion podcast that introduced the show and delivered content during the marketing and promotion of the show did have some limited success — although the problems that put the nail in the coffin of my success in this endeavor were both a delay in announcing and delivering the show, as well as the introduction of the competition by Apple (which was the 2010 promotional marketing and introduction of the original iPhone 1).
The other case-in-point was my show that was originally called Finance for Startups. Also now podfaded, this show had more success in launching and promoting as marketing tools the course by the same name. Originally delivered as a companion podcast, a late entry also hampered its success, but the audio book that served as a nine-episode companion podcast did see some limited success — as I had a partner that created content and helped me to prepare the podcast episodes. But again, the novelty of the day in 2010 was the latest toy in the podosphere, the iPhone 1. Thus, although you may have the right tactics, the right marketing and sales promotion and the right delivery, the competition in the podosphere may be an obstacle to success in your original plans. So this course was removed from the podosphere in the USA, but my partner had seen limited success in the Australian and other foreign markets for podcasting and online courses.

So, my view of these experiences are that planning and executing a companion podcast is a great competitive tool that can bring success in monetization — but you have to be early enough in the announcement and delivery of the course or the companion podcast that describes your book or course before the competition arrives. And you should be certain that new announcements will not hinder the success of your show.

As Dave Jackson stated, with over a million new podcasts being announced and published in just the one year of 2021, you will have to promote your offering and deliver a companion podcast (mainly for no charge, until you have a purchase-base or subscription-based success for your book or course, thanks to your companion podcast.

Thus, we do wish you well if you wish to create, publish and deliver a companion podcast that will promote your education courses or books or other assets or podcasts that you wish to monetize. You just have to be aware of the vast amount of time that will be used to create your companion podcast and figure in the return on investment (ROI) factors that will be needed to judge its success.

Thank you for your attention.

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the recent article in the podnews.net newsletter that reviews how Evo Terra creates and produces his podcast show of PodcastPontifications.com.

For any podcaster that has known Evo, this would seem like a very interesting story. As I have known Evo since 2007 when I met him in person at a Podcamp conference in Arizona, I considered this of great value. For he has been a master podcaster, as well as an author who wrote several of the first books on podcasting in 2005 and 2007 (i.e., Podcasting for Dummies and Expert podcasting practices for Dummies).

Why this article in the podnews.net newsletter? Well, I guess that Evo got tired of people asking him why he spends 3.5 hours per episode and 4 episodes per week for almost 350 episodes to do his show — and that begs the question of the description of his workflow. So I guess he decided to publish the answer and point people to the article as a reply.

Very much like the situation with Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting show, Dave constantly had to explain and answer the question of how someone can make money from podcasting. And so what did Dave do? He wrote a book, More Podcast Money (which is being updated with a new book, Profit from Your Podcast). And now, Dave can point to the book as a detailed reply once and for all.

Now, for aspiring or new podcasters who may ask Evo the same question (possibly in a webinar or a conference or a presentation), this article from Evo presents itself as a CASE STUDY.

In it, Evo describes the following details of his planning, his equipment, his recording, his production, his publishing — and then he goes into the details of WHY he takes so long (21 times the length of each episode) for final production:

Sound Conditioning: these details describe how his environment for recording is prepared for recording;
Microphone: Shure SM7B mounted on a VIVO swingarm-mount.
Audio Interface: Zoom H6, a portable recorder that has a lot of features and functions for recording either in a studio setting or the outdoors;
Computer: Mac Mini, which is my dedicated studio computer.
Digital Audio Workstation or DAW:
Camera: None, as his show of Podcast Pontifications is not a video podcast. But yes, there is a video version.
Media Hosting Company: Captivate.fm, of which I sit on the Advisory Board. (Disclosure – so does Podnews’s Editor).
Website: PodcastPontifications.com is managed via and hosted by Webfow,
Other Software: as described.
Pre-production: And he delivers a bulleted list in this case study of what a typical schedule is like for him in the preparation and production tasks.
Creating a title and finalizing imagery;

Creating the “script” for the show
Production and live streaming: recording and creating the mp3 file;

Exporting the mp3 file to Descript for a full transcription.
The Writing and written editing: post-production
Publishing & Distribution: this can include scheduling and publishing the video and posting it to appropriate sites and web pages, as well as finalizing the ID3 tags.
Final syndication.

Now, all the details are not given here in the show notes or podcast episode — they are in the podnews.net article. I strongly recommend that ALL podcasters consume this article, so that they can see how a real pro podcaster (i.e., one who wrote the book on podcasting) actually describes his workflow and tasks in the planning, production and publishing of his episodes.

I feel that we can ALL learn something from the old masters (of which I consider Evo one). And some of us may want to compare our own workflow and tasks to see if we need to improve our show with either additional plug-ins, software, or other tasks.

In any case, I feel that any podcaster worth his salt will get enjoyment out of Evo’s article — especially since his sense of humor and his element of “disruption” come out loud and clear in his writing. Please enjoy.

Thank you for your attention.