0:00

Do you have the ability to be interesting for four

0:02

and a half hours ? No , I don't know that you do ? I

0:04

mean most people don't , right , like ? I'm

0:06

a hockey fan and I love nothing

0:08

more than to sit in a stadium and watch an NHL

0:11

game , for the three hours

0:13

it takes from puck drop until the final whistle

0:15

blows . I don't want to watch a three hour little

0:17

league game or a mites game or

0:19

anything else , right , because there it's not entertaining

0:21

. So , yes , by all means

0:23

dig deep into a topic , but make

0:26

sure that you can be interesting for the entire

0:28

length of that topic .

0:35

Hey everybody , I recently had the opportunity to sit

0:37

down with Evo Terra . Evo , if

0:40

you haven't heard of him before , is one

0:42

of the first , I believe , 50 podcasters

0:44

in the world . He's been podcasting since

0:46

2004 . And

0:48

it was so . It was really interesting conversation . We

0:51

were able to talk about how podcasting has changed

0:53

in the last 17

0:55

years , what has changed , what stayed the same

0:57

, gave me a ton of actionable

1:00

advice for independent creators and

1:02

what should we should be doing when we're creating

1:04

our shows . We talked about the importance

1:06

of things like transcripts and accessibility

1:09

in podcasting . We

1:12

talked about things like why your mic doesn't

1:14

matter and why you shouldn't

1:16

be podcasting If your whole goal is to get rich

1:18

and famous . Super interesting interview

1:20

. I hope you enjoy it . So

1:23

here we go . Here's my interview with

1:25

Evo Terra . All right , well , evo , thank

1:27

you so much for coming on the podcast . What

1:30

was it like to interview Arthur

1:32

C Clark and Ray Bradbury ?

1:34

Oh , a dream come true , a

1:37

dream that I didn't know that I had . At

1:40

the same time , you know I'm typically

1:43

not intimidated by

1:45

very many people and that's probably

1:47

just more egotistic than anything else really

1:49

, but when you truly

1:52

are having conversations with people who

1:54

are legends in

1:56

the field and true masters

1:59

, it's just , it's just mind blowing . Now

2:02

also , let's not forget that both of these men

2:04

, when I interviewed them , were very , very

2:06

old and very , very

2:08

on a different plane than the rest of us . Just

2:13

some , yeah , just just really

2:15

really , you know , again , old

2:18

men , crazy ideas , who have kind

2:20

of gotten a little bit more crazy in their old age . So it's fun . You

2:23

want to let the conversation run and

2:26

just kind of see where it goes , because you realize

2:28

that you're not in control . These

2:32

converse , the things you thought you were going to ask

2:34

these two legends of science fiction . No , they want

2:36

to take the conversation in a different way , and

2:40

that's what you do . You just

2:42

go along with them . But it was

2:44

, it was really really fantastic .

2:45

Rondevru with Ramo was one of the books I

2:47

grew up with and when I first sci-fi

2:50

, they really loved . Obviously

2:52

, most people have read Fahrenheit 451

2:55

or the Marching Chronicles or 2001 . So

2:57

definitely powerhouses of

2:59

sci-fi . How

3:01

did you get connected to Arthur C Clark ? Can you tell us that

3:03

story ?

3:04

So the very first podcast I ever did was a science fiction podcast . My

3:08

partner and I were interviewing science fiction authors

3:10

pre-podcasting . We were doing this for an internet radio

3:12

show and that's how we got into

3:14

podcasting . When

3:17

podcasting came along , we already had like 80 episodes in

3:19

the can . So we kind of cheated and

3:21

we're one of the first podcasts that had a giant

3:24

bat catalog , which was which was lovely . The

3:27

way we got connected with these is I have to owe

3:29

all that to my partner who , of

3:31

the skills he had , one of them was tenacity

3:33

and

3:36

the other one was not realizing and not

3:38

having a good understanding of where he really is set

3:40

in the universe . So we

3:42

kind of felt , kind of felt pretty good about the show

3:44

and really had no qualms picking up the

3:46

phone and , you know , calling

3:49

Arthur C Clark's publicist and saying can

3:51

I have his phone number in Sri Lanka , which is where

3:54

he was living at the time , and

3:56

the same for Ray Bradbury just dogged determination . And

3:59

I'm fortunate I didn't have to do that , because

4:01

I hate cold calling for any reason whatsoever . But

4:05

Mike didn't care and would happily

4:07

just chase down leads and

4:09

continue to dog people until they said yes

4:11

, now also , granted , we've been doing it for several years , and

4:15

this is back in the day where we were getting I don't know a

4:17

dozen books in the mail every

4:20

week from publishing houses all over . I mean , our

4:22

catalog , our library was huge of all these books , so

4:26

they really wanted us to interview people , and

4:28

the reality was both . Well

4:30

, I think Arthur C Clark had a new series coming out . He

4:33

was writing a conjunction with someone else , and

4:36

for Bradbury it was just simply

4:38

all right , he's still talking about his own stuff , so

4:40

let's get him on as well .

4:42

That's incredible . You've been podcasting

4:45

since October 14th 2004

4:48

, which is weird to me because that's

4:50

a few years before Apple invented podcasting . How

4:52

did that happen ?

4:54

Yeah , you're exactly right . It's a little before

4:56

the summer of 2005 when they

4:59

dropped it into iTunes . And

5:01

, yeah , you know , as I mentioned , we had been

5:03

doing the show and we already

5:05

had an RSS feed because we were blogging

5:07

, we had an article written for every one of our episodes

5:10

and we were even embedding a real

5:12

audio player in the code

5:14

. Yeah , because we were really , really

5:16

fancy in 2002 . And

5:19

so when my partner said a

5:22

couple of days before that hey , there's this thing called podcasting

5:24

, I took a look at it and said I

5:26

think the only thing I have to do is

5:28

figure out what this enclosure tag means . And

5:31

while I'm not a developer , I'm a pretty decent

5:33

hack at a lot of things . So I hacked

5:36

apart the blogging platform

5:38

we were using , which was pre-wordpress . It

5:40

was called Moveable Type was the

5:42

name of this . I remember Moveable Type . Yeah , yeah , the CMS we were

5:44

using , but it seemed pretty simple

5:46

to well , if I just drop , you know , dollar sign

5:49

and then enclosure equals

5:51

, and I just I figured out how to get the URL

5:53

of the MP3 file that we had stored

5:55

up on Bluehost or somewhere

5:58

before . There were podcast hosting companies

6:00

that we knew about and there's

6:02

a link in there . I'm guessing

6:04

that's the number of bytes that it is . So I haven't copied

6:06

and pasted that in there , and so I had to hand

6:08

code it every single time . I had to go

6:11

in and edit the raw RSS

6:13

feed each time we published . But boom

6:15

, we had a podcast .

6:18

So how has it changed ? I mean , you've now

6:20

been podcasting for 17

6:22

years . What have you seen change

6:25

in the industry and what's changed for you ?

6:27

I think almost everything has changed

6:29

from a technical

6:31

perspective , you know , but at the same time , so

6:34

much of it has remained the same . You

6:36

know , it's still largely made up of

6:38

people who have something

6:40

to say and have a platform

6:42

they can say it on . We

6:45

people are under the impression that podcasting

6:47

wasn't very diverse as far as the types

6:49

of content you could listen to back then , but that's not true

6:51

. We had radio shows who

6:53

were just repurposing their content In fact , that's

6:55

what we were doing originally . Plus

6:57

, there were NPR types that were already podcasting as well , but

7:00

a huge swath of people whose only

7:02

distribution point was this and they weren't just

7:05

doing interviews . There were really

7:07

cool variety shows . There were audio

7:09

dramas back in 2004 . There

7:11

was everything you can think of that was up . That is podcasting

7:14

today . We were doing it way back then . Someone

7:17

was doing it way back then . There just wasn't four

7:19

million of us doing it way back then . There

7:21

were like four of us doing it way back then . So

7:24

all the things that have changed is , you know , technology has gotten easier

7:26

. The barrier

7:29

to entry from a technology stage whether

7:31

you're buying equipment or whether you're using software

7:33

has come down significantly . People

7:36

are spoiled for choice when it comes to

7:39

where to host podcast episodes . There's

7:41

a lot less guesswork in that and

7:43

, from the listener perspective , that's really where

7:45

most of the big changes have happened , because it as

7:48

much as we complain about the

7:50

hurdle of getting people to listen

7:52

to a podcast in 2021 . I

7:55

implore you to just think what it

7:57

was like when there were no podcatchers

8:00

on mobile phones . When podcasting

8:02

started , it all happened on a computer and

8:04

then someone had to transfer their files from

8:06

their computer to a mobile device

8:08

to listen . And it's still attracted

8:11

listeners Weird .

8:12

There is an old interview that you

8:14

have where you were talking about like moving

8:17

audio files to . It

8:19

wasn't a zoom , it was whatever .

8:20

It was like a Rio or something I

8:23

River was probably what I talked about using .

8:26

And I remember those days like downloading

8:29

episodes into iTunes

8:31

, trying to hook up to an iPod . It's not

8:33

working . Oh , I forgot to do

8:35

it before my long

8:37

car ride and there

8:39

was no way to get another podcast episode

8:42

unless you preloaded everything well

8:44

in advance .

8:45

Yeah , and preloaded means you could probably

8:47

fit around three hours worth of content , because their

8:50

memory was on , these things were really , really small . So

8:52

, yeah , all sorts of barriers that don't

8:54

exist today , which is wild .

8:58

One of the barriers that is still there is

9:01

on the creator side . We all would

9:03

like to be the big podcaster . We

9:05

still have to do the work . Yeah , what

9:09

advice would you give to new podcasters people

9:11

thinking about starting a podcast and

9:13

just trying to find their journey ?

9:15

Well , I think it depends on what path you're on . If

9:18

you so . There really isn't the

9:20

only thing stopping people from podcasting today and I

9:23

recognize that I'm saying this from a position of

9:25

privilege , so I want to make sure that I check myself but

9:27

most people who have the means can

9:29

start a podcast . It is relatively inexpensive

9:32

. You can do it for almost

9:34

free as far as a cost perspective

9:36

goes , if that's what you want . So

9:39

the reality is that anybody who wants to pursue their passion

9:41

in podcasting probably can those

9:43

costs continue to approach free more and more all

9:45

the time . But the one thing that's not free is your

9:47

time , and so people

9:50

have to decide whether they're trading time or money

9:52

to do things . Now I

9:54

really encourage individuals who

9:56

just want to try and play with the podcasting

9:58

space , to see what they can make out of it

10:00

, to do that the same way

10:02

that we did back in the day . You have to define

10:05

what this looks like for you . So go

10:08

and explore and do that . But

10:10

for businesses or people who are professional

10:12

, who have a goal at the end , who

10:14

I really want to do something rather than just see

10:16

where this takes me . There's something I want

10:18

to do Recognize

10:20

that your path is different , because

10:22

the paths have been well-blazed

10:25

, if you will , over the last 17 years

10:27

and while there's always room for new

10:29

paths because this is digital we

10:32

can have an unlimited number of shows or an unlimited number

10:34

of ways to do things there have been a lot of lessons

10:36

learned along the way and people

10:38

listeners have come to expect

10:41

certain levels of quality from the

10:43

certain types of shows they listen to . They're

10:46

willing to forgive a lot for someone who's

10:48

exploring and having fun as a hobby , but

10:50

for businesses who are really trying to do something

10:53

with their show and have a business outcome , you

10:55

need to really up your game . So you might need

10:58

to elicit the services

11:00

of someone who's

11:02

a pro at this and it's not a pitch for working

11:04

with me , but working with anybody out there .

11:06

I was about to say if you're looking for

11:08

a pro to help you look right behind

11:11

Evo over his left shoulder .

11:12

simpler media this is true , we certainly can

11:14

do that , but it really doesn't matter to me what you do . But

11:16

there's just so much that you don't have to struggle

11:19

and learn on your own because

11:21

it's been done , and I would

11:23

say everything's been done . Everything can take

11:25

a new twist on it , but you may need to

11:28

bring someone on who knows exactly

11:30

what they're doing and help you execute against your

11:32

goals .

11:33

There's definitely a sense

11:35

that if you are a brand or your business

11:37

and you are starting a podcast , the

11:39

quality of that show is going to reflect

11:41

on the brand that you are representing

11:44

and so , while it may be a totally

11:46

new initiative for you , but

11:48

if it's a big brand , you

11:50

want to make sure that it comes out looking professional

11:52

, sounding great , that things

11:55

that podcast listeners have grown

11:57

accustomed to , that we know

11:59

. Oh , this is decent quality . There's

12:01

actually links in the show notes , they have good

12:03

cover , art and those things

12:06

actually being taken care of help reflect

12:08

positively on the brand .

12:10

Yeah , yeah , they do . And also I think we're

12:12

getting a lot less forgiving from an accessibility point

12:15

of view . There are a great

12:17

level , there's expectations that have been set and we

12:19

need to meet , because now we can meet

12:21

them and

12:23

so think it's not just dumping audio

12:25

out there . Whether you're a hobbyist or whether you're a business

12:27

doing it , it's not just audio , it's

12:29

the episode details that you mentioned , it's

12:31

having a transcript and a corrected transcript

12:34

on the site , all of the things that are very important

12:36

so that everybody can enjoy

12:38

your content . Yes , I get it , I understand

12:40

it's a hobby , but there is a certain level

12:43

of things you need to do , and hats

12:45

off to the hosting companies , like , I don't know , buzzsprout

12:47

that help you make sure that

12:49

you're doing things in the right way . I mean

12:51

, honestly , I wish that podcast hosting

12:53

companies all of them , by the way would

12:55

push more for some of those standards

12:58

. I get there's a relationship they have

13:00

to worry about with the customers , but I would like to see

13:02

people make much less mistakes

13:04

or at least , when they are making mistakes by missing

13:06

things , understand and be told what

13:09

you're doing is not at the level of acceptability

13:11

. Okay , you can hit go

13:14

if you want to , but really you should consider

13:16

doing these things better , and that's just

13:18

going to happen more and more as we continue . As

13:20

the podcast basically gets more evolved

13:22

and more streamlined , it'll

13:25

be less chance of people making

13:27

mistakes because they don't know that things have to be done

13:29

.

13:30

I remember probably the first time I met you

13:32

in person , we

13:34

had a long conversation about podcast

13:36

accessibility , specifically transcripts

13:38

, for anybody that is hard of hearing

13:41

or deaf . There is a large

13:43

, much larger segment of the

13:45

world that is actually

13:47

hard of hearing than we really appreciate

13:50

and it's a lot

13:52

of people that podcasts can become totally

13:54

inaccessible if the audio quality

13:57

isn't near perfect and

13:59

there's not a transcript . If you have

14:01

great transcripts , it really

14:03

forgives even

14:06

a lot of that . Audio quality issues as well , because

14:08

people can read along with it and

14:11

it gets a lot easier to find stuff later

14:13

on .

14:14

Yeah , you're exactly right . Transcripts

14:16

serve a lot of purposes . I think a

14:18

lot of podcasters have the mistaken assumption

14:20

that transcripts are only for people

14:22

who are completely deaf

14:24

, and that's not true . They're

14:27

just like most things . Deafness is on a spectrum

14:29

Hearing loss . When I have mild

14:31

hearing loss , mine is luckily correctable

14:33

, so it doesn't cause me too much of an issue

14:35

. But that's what not

14:38

only transcripts are for , but all the other things

14:40

that you do to your audio to make sure it's accessible

14:42

, like ensuring that the

14:45

voices are audible , which

14:47

is weird , I have to say this , but I

14:49

say it all the time Make sure that the dialogue

14:51

is able to

14:53

be heard . I know that you spend a lot

14:55

of time on those background effects and that car

14:58

crash sound , but if someone's speaking during it , I

15:00

probably need to know what they say and

15:03

if it's missed , it's missed

15:05

and that's a problem . A transcript can help with

15:07

that , obviously , but also so it can normalizing

15:10

your tracks . So can understanding that not everyone

15:12

listens to your really well-crafted

15:15

, sound-designed audio drama in

15:17

a quiet room with headphones . Many people

15:19

listen in their car with road noise , or

15:21

they listen on a commute when we can commute

15:23

once again . So just making sure that

15:26

the content that you put out there everyone

15:28

can enjoy . I think is so important

15:30

.

15:31

There's also just a great ability for people

15:33

to go back and find old content

15:35

. It's so much easier when there

15:37

are transcripts . So

15:40

in preparation for this interview , I read

15:42

a handful of your interviews from I

15:44

mean some as early as I think like 2006,

15:47

. They were still saved online only

15:49

as transcripts . I found

15:51

a few episodes of podcast pontifications

15:53

, one of which I was on and

15:55

was able to review our transcript . It

15:57

would have been much more difficult to one

16:00

some of those episodes . I could not find audio files

16:02

and

16:04

so one they would have been totally lost . But

16:08

then two there's a very different

16:10

experience for me listening to a

16:12

podcast at 3X , so that I can get

16:14

a lot quickly , versus reading

16:17

, which is probably faster

16:19

than 3X speed . Anyway , I

16:21

retain so much more when

16:24

reading .

16:24

Well , we can't scan audio content

16:27

yet Our brains aren't designed to do

16:29

that . It has to be consumed in a linear

16:31

fashion . I mean , as great as podcasting is , it's

16:33

not like watching a video , where that's literally

16:36

the only thing you can do . At least with listening

16:38

to a podcast , you can walk around the house , you

16:40

know , clean the kitchen , those various things unlike

16:42

video . But still , when you

16:44

really are searching for information and you want to dive

16:47

deep into it , having a transcript or

16:49

, in some cases , having a rewritten

16:52

article , as someone's taken their raw audio

16:54

, the words they put out and then reformatted

16:56

them , having the ability to go back through that

16:58

is super important for a lot

17:01

of reasons . Some people don't have the time

17:03

to listen to your show , so that

17:05

transcript or article that you can create

17:07

will help that person

17:09

stay connected to you . They don't feel like , oh

17:12

man , I missed what they talked about yesterday

17:14

. I can just go back to yesterday's

17:16

episode and do a quick scan and

17:18

get what I need , or make the decision

17:21

to listen and get all of it that

17:23

I needed . But you know , it's a matter of choice

17:25

and that's an important thing in today

17:27

.

17:28

So part of why I mean why

17:31

I know you and why you have

17:33

so much to say about the podcast industries because you have

17:35

been here since the very

17:37

beginning and part

17:40

of that was that you were invited to write multiple

17:42

books on podcasting Could you talk

17:44

to us about some of the books that you've written , that

17:47

experience and maybe what you wrote

17:49

in those books ?

17:50

Yeah , sure , well , I'll do

17:52

what I can because it's been a while . But early

17:54

on in the process , back in 2005 , I

17:56

got a phone call from a guest

17:59

who had been on that science fiction radio

18:01

show I mentioned previously . It's no longer

18:03

available , by the way , you call the Dragon page . It's been

18:05

dead for a number of years . But

18:07

one of the authors I had become friends with

18:09

called me up . I've been

18:11

. He says in his voice I have been asked

18:13

to write a book about podcasting

18:15

. And my reply to him is why

18:17

did they ask you to write a book

18:20

about podcasting ? I mean , he was podcasting

18:22

at the time but I was doing all the work . And

18:24

so he said well , that's why I'm calling you , I need a co-author

18:27

. I said OK , how long

18:29

is the book supposed to be ? Now , all

18:31

this happened when I'm driving 90-minute commute

18:33

home at the time , so I'm probably half through

18:35

that commute . So I asked him the question how

18:38

long is the book ? Because I'm thinking pamphlet

18:40

, maybe a blog post about

18:43

how to podcast . I can't remember . This was 2005

18:45

. There was an FTP file up somewhere

18:47

making RSS feed and boom , it's done . I

18:50

totally understood the project . So I said find

18:52

out how long this book needs to be . And

18:55

he writes . He calls back five minutes later . He says

18:57

266 pages which

19:01

two things were . I thought that's long and also

19:04

oddly specific . I mean

19:06

not a rough number , that's what

19:08

I said . So I don't know about this T

19:10

can you call who are writing this book

19:12

for ? And he said I'll find out . Like these are questions you

19:14

should have done . So

19:16

hang up , calls back a minute later and he says it's

19:19

Wiley's , it's a for dummies book . And my response

19:21

is tell him we'll do it . I

19:23

mean , we didn't even discuss price . We

19:25

hadn't discussed anything . It was like okay , done , because

19:28

I knew that the For Dummies titles will

19:32

attract people . There are people who read For

19:34

Dummies books . There are people who

19:36

say , oh , I'm not a dummy , I don't want this kind of stuff . But there are

19:38

way more people who say , as a matter of fact

19:40

, I am a dummy and I will take that $20

19:42

book off the shelf . They sell themselves Zero

19:44

. I worked in marketing at the time , so

19:47

new , I didn't have to do any marketing of that

19:49

title . But I also had no idea

19:51

what I was doing . I'd never written

19:53

a book before . I'd done a lot of writing before , but

19:55

never in a book form . So I was

19:57

a total newbie to this . But

19:59

unfortunately I had my co-author who'd done

20:01

a lot of this stuff in the past , so I

20:03

basically let him deal with all of

20:05

the hassles of getting it done

20:08

. So it finally came time to

20:10

write the book , and Wiley has an extremely

20:13

specific way you are

20:15

supposed to write Like . You

20:17

are trained to write a For Dummies book

20:19

. It's not just you know , eva Otero writes a book

20:22

and they put a slap to For Dummies . I don't know . I

20:24

had to write it in that particular style . So one of

20:26

the things you have to do is write a sample chapter , not

20:28

a sample chapter . You write the first . You write

20:30

a chapter from the book and it can't be the first chapter . It's

20:32

got to be somewhere inside . So

20:35

I had to . I'm going to write a book on , I think , ftp

20:37

, and I forget what T was writing his chapter

20:39

on . But all I know is one of the things I'm really good at is procrastinating

20:41

, and so I waited and I waited

20:44

, and I waited and finally T got

20:46

his done about two weeks before they would do , which

20:48

is odd for him because he procrastinates more than me

20:50

. He writes his chapter , sends it

20:52

in , and I'm copied on the email . A day

20:54

later they return the email and said we have

20:56

some edits . I open up the Word document

20:58

and it's a sea of red . It

21:01

has just more corrections

21:04

and crossed out and rewrite request . I

21:06

mean , this is , this is in a chapter of a book and , like every

21:08

page , there's most of the things

21:10

are wrong , something

21:13

. Oh my God , this guy knows how to write a book . I

21:15

don't . What's going to happen to me . So I went

21:17

to the bookstore and I bought , I think

21:19

, xml for dummies the closest thing

21:22

I could find at the time to podcasting for dummies

21:24

and I read that book from

21:26

cover to cover twice . No one ever

21:28

reads a dummies book from cover to cover , but I did . I

21:31

read that thing from cover to cover . And then I opened up the giant

21:33

Bible of how to write a book that they did and

21:35

read those things . I went oh , here this makes sense . Okay

21:37

, that on a Sunday night , hammer

21:39

out my chapter . Just hammer it out . Outline

21:41

is already done . Just hammer the chapter

21:43

, send it in . On a Sunday night . They returned it . Three

21:46

changes Whoa . Now

21:49

, that's not because I'm so much smarter than

21:51

T . I didn't have to unlearn any

21:53

bad habits , I just had to learn all of these

21:55

habits . So it basically taught me how to write

21:57

the way for dummies books are written

21:59

and that's how I do everything from

22:02

now on Super short sentences , super short

22:04

paragraphs , all of these things done together

22:06

. So that's kind of

22:08

the how to story . As far as what went in it , you

22:11

know again , we wrote this book in 2005 . We knew

22:13

podcasting was going to change drastically

22:15

. So how do we make it not out of date as

22:17

soon as it's in print ? So we really kept

22:19

it to much more high

22:22

level concepts . So , yeah , we talked about audacity

22:24

, but audacity is still around

22:27

, luckily , and we didn't do a push this

22:29

button and do this button . We tried to resist

22:31

that as much as we possibly could , you

22:33

know . Instead , we talked about you know the value

22:35

of writing , you know episode details

22:37

and how to . Back then it was how to do an FTP

22:40

. No one FTP is their episodes any longer to

22:42

various services . A lot of things that don't

22:44

matter today . But the other good thing about the

22:46

for dummies titles is they refresh them

22:48

all the time . So we got a chance to write the

22:51

second edition a couple of years

22:53

later and I have since stepped

22:55

back from writing the books T is still writing him . Another

22:58

friend of mine , chuck Tomasi , who has also been writing

23:00

for podcasting for a very long time . They

23:02

just came out with the fourth edition . I think

23:04

in November of last year was

23:06

the new version . Oh , and in the middle of that there's

23:09

also expert podcasting practices for

23:11

dummies , which they asked for us to write , which I

23:13

said that's the dumbest book name ever . So

23:15

I'll write it , but at double the the

23:18

payment , to which they said

23:20

yes , which was good news , and I'm glad they gave me double

23:22

the money , because that book came nowhere

23:24

near earning out its advance , because that's

23:27

a dumb title expert for

23:29

dummies . Yeah , well then you find . But anyhow , those

23:32

are the books that I've written in the podcasting space .

23:34

Yeah , I have to ask you this because

23:37

you have written some other books . Is

23:40

it healthy to eat only

23:42

sausage and beer for an entire month

23:44

?

23:45

Very healthy . I am living proof of

23:48

how healthy that can be . Yes , you were speaking

23:50

of the beer diet , a

23:52

brew story which I wrote

23:54

what a decade ago , because

23:56

I had this crazy idea of what

23:58

would happen if the

24:00

only food I put in my mouth , the

24:03

only calories that I put in my mouth for

24:05

an entire month , would be

24:07

beer and sausage . What would happen

24:09

? I did all this because a very good

24:11

friend of mine is a surgeon and

24:13

we were lamenting one day about diets

24:16

and how there's just not a lot of good data

24:18

. There's a lot of survey data

24:20

where they send researchers and they ask people

24:23

what they eat , but there's not a

24:25

lot of real activity

24:27

. Let's track the real food that

24:29

goes inside of someone's mouth . So I decided

24:31

to do that for a month with a beer and

24:33

sausage to see what would

24:35

happen . In spoiler

24:38

alert , it was actually very good for

24:40

me . I lost , I think , 15 pounds

24:42

that first year . I went to

24:44

see that same doctor every single week

24:46

with blood work and full evaluation

24:48

before and after and during . My

24:50

liver enzymes never

24:52

rose above baseline , so I wasn't getting

24:54

that drunk . And

24:57

my triglycerides , the bad cholesterol

24:59

, cut in half on my overall cholesterol

25:01

and down by a third . I lost 15

25:03

pounds . So yeah , do

25:06

it Now . I don't know how sustainable it is long term

25:08

to eat nothing but sausage and drink beer

25:10

. Probably not very sustainable , but

25:12

it proved a point that diets

25:14

are pretty much garbage . If you control

25:17

your caloric intake , you'll probably lose weight

25:19

.

25:19

Yeah , if you eat less , you might lose

25:21

some weight . Surprise , that's a good advice

25:24

.

25:24

Like I tell people , I lost weight on that diet because of

25:26

math . I burn around 2,200

25:29

calories just sitting here all

25:31

day long . But if I only put in 1,500

25:33

calories that's in that deficit

25:35

of 700 calories and it

25:37

has to come from somewhere and

25:40

it comes from the extra mass

25:42

that my body had been carrying for a number of years

25:44

.

25:45

One thing that you're pretty passionate about

25:47

between your history podcasting

25:49

and also your history writing books

25:52

is independent creators

25:54

, and you have a lot

25:56

of thoughts about how people

25:58

who are creating content can

26:00

and should remain independent

26:03

. Can you tell us a little bit about that ?

26:04

Well , listen , independence is

26:07

what most people have

26:10

as their only option . There are

26:12

a lot of people out there offering exclusive deals

26:14

. I remember back when Amazon

26:16

launched the Kindle and

26:19

then very quickly they started doing this Amazon exclusive

26:21

, where authors could publish just

26:23

with Amazon and get a much

26:25

higher royalty rate , but

26:28

that means you couldn't publish to Barnes and Noble and all the other

26:30

places like that , and

26:33

that was great , but that wasn't offered to everyone . And

26:35

we're seeing something similar now in podcasting today

26:37

where some companies OK

26:39

, one company , spotify is throwing

26:42

piles of cash at people to make them

26:44

exclusive and exclusive

26:46

means only on Spotify

26:48

. We're listening to that deal and I

26:50

totally understand why they do

26:52

this . Did I mention giant piles

26:54

of cash ? Right , when you can get a

26:56

lot more money doing it that way ? But

26:59

that path isn't open to most

27:01

people . In fact , it's not even open to

27:03

a small percentage who get that deal . So

27:06

there's always a strong independent movement

27:09

in everything . It's

27:12

easy to be independent in , like podcasting

27:14

, like writing those two things specifically

27:16

Some things that's a lot harder to be an independent

27:19

in like if you're an independent musician . You

27:21

know I was an independent musician back at the turn of the

27:23

century and that's a hard gig . Unless

27:25

a label picks you up , you're not going to be played on the radio

27:27

or picked up in bookstores . But that's

27:29

changed . You know , even in the radio world

27:31

now , or the music world now , that's changed . Any

27:34

artist can have their own stuff on

27:36

Spotify , for example , and other platforms

27:38

that let that listen to . So I think the world's

27:40

becoming a bit more accommodating towards

27:42

independent people , independent

27:45

creators , which is good news because , again

27:47

, the bulk of creation of almost

27:49

everything is independent creators , with

27:52

exclusively exclusivity only

27:54

offered to the elite class , and

27:56

there's always going to be a clash with that . But

27:58

I think that's OK and I mean I don't

28:01

think we're ever going to see a world where exclusivity

28:04

goes away and everything's in a nice level playing

28:06

field . I don't live in that fantasy world , but

28:08

you know there's a lot more people who are independent

28:10

and I think there always will be . So

28:13

let's just find ways to be independent and successful

28:15

, because it's doable .

28:16

What should somebody be doing if they

28:18

know that the path for them is independent

28:20

? So maybe that's actually what's attractive about

28:23

creating content , whether it be written

28:25

or podcasting . They want to be their own

28:27

boss , run their own media

28:30

empire , however big or small

28:32

that they end up being . How should they think about

28:34

it ? What should they do to remain independent and

28:37

also , at least hopefully , be successful

28:39

along the way ?

28:40

Yeah , I mean well , not everyone , but

28:42

some people are going to face a choice in

28:44

that path , because we may start out thinking I want

28:46

to be independent and I want to be in control of

28:48

my future , and these are all very , very good things , and

28:51

I'm not even worried about exclusivity , I'm not even looking

28:54

for exclusivity . But at some point time it might

28:56

happen , you might get that offer

28:58

. Someone will maybe maybe

29:00

send you an email and says , hey , we like your stuff

29:03

, can we talk about our relationship ? And

29:05

maybe that deal of exclusivity

29:08

is float out there to you . So you're

29:10

gonna have to make a decision . What do you wanna

29:12

do ? Is it really important for you to stay

29:14

truly independent or

29:16

do you think , for whatever

29:19

reason , this opportunity is

29:21

better for you to create the content

29:23

that you make ? There's that old adage

29:25

about you know people who you

29:27

know they sell out . The

29:29

record label come along and now I'm gonna sell out

29:31

because I took all the money to do this stuff . And my

29:33

argument to that has always been this I don't believe there's

29:36

a chance of selling out . I

29:38

believe there's only a chance of selling out too

29:40

cheaply . If you do

29:42

, you know , if you get the right kind

29:44

of money . What can you do with

29:46

that ? If Spotify offers you $60

29:49

million for

29:51

your independent podcast , sure you can

29:53

put the $60 million in your pocket , or

29:55

can you use that $60 million

29:57

to launch something even bigger than

29:59

you had previously ? Can you empower other

30:01

people who have similar voices

30:04

to yours , who maybe have underserved voices than yours

30:06

? Can you have them do different things ? So I

30:09

understand that if independence is the most important

30:11

thing , then just stay independent , right , do the things

30:13

that you wanna do . But I would counsel anyone

30:15

to don't automatically

30:17

say , oh , never's a very long

30:20

time , right , so the right opportunity comes

30:22

around . I think it should all be evaluated and

30:24

make sure that what you're gonna do it

30:26

makes it good for you , but also that spread

30:29

the wealth around the rest of the world too .

30:31

I've heard you described I'm not sure if you were

30:33

the person who originated this , but as

30:35

podcasts philosopher , the

30:37

person who's trying to make podcasting better . You

30:41

had a little hint of it right there . What

30:43

should we be doing to make podcasting better ? Wow

30:45

?

30:46

there's so many things we can do to make podcasting

30:48

better . I think I'll answer that question by dealing

30:51

into why I chose that

30:53

particular path of making podcasting

30:55

better . Through the 17

30:57

years , as I mentioned previously , it's gotten a lot

30:59

easier to podcast . It's gotten a lot easier

31:01

to listen to podcasts . It's even gotten easier

31:03

to make money from podcasting , and

31:06

there are all sorts of tools out there that are based

31:08

on ease , ease , ease and all the tutorials

31:10

you hear . Here's 10 easy ways to start this

31:12

, whatever . And I

31:15

felt that there wasn't enough emphasis

31:17

on making things actually better

31:20

, because just because something's easy doesn't

31:22

mean it's better . I was involved in a project

31:24

for several years that helped independent

31:27

authors put their audio books

31:29

that they would self-record out into the world , and

31:31

I gotta tell you , most of them were garbage and

31:34

so , sturgeon's Law , 95% of anything is crap

31:36

and they were . I didn't feel like I was really

31:39

helping make things better through

31:41

that service . I mean I did it . It was important . People

31:44

had their own passion and skill and what out there , so that's fine . I

31:46

didn't feel bad about it . I

31:48

was definitely cutting people off with the knees that wanted

31:50

to put really terrible things out

31:52

there like offensive things . No , no , thank you , we

31:54

don't need that out there . But I really wanted to focus

31:56

more about what things are better , and

31:59

I also wanted to take a

32:01

look at some of the more

32:03

important questions or importance is the wrong way

32:06

to say that deeper questions Like why

32:08

there's a lot of how

32:10

stuff out there but not a lot of conversation

32:12

around why we do things

32:14

and how the changing world

32:17

whether that's technology or geopolitical

32:19

landscaping has changed . How will that

32:21

impact podcasting ? Who's thinking

32:23

about that ? And there are people who think

32:26

about that and a lot of my friends think about that that have

32:28

been it for the longest time . No one really had a show

32:30

about thinking about those

32:32

sort of deep thoughts in the podcasting

32:34

space , and so that's why I launched podcast pontifications

32:37

to do that , to have a

32:39

platform to where I could come

32:41

up with these ideas and thoughts that are around

32:43

ways to not only make podcasting better

32:45

and what the future of podcasting is going to look

32:47

like , but also have tackle

32:49

some of those more complicated questions

32:51

and see what other forces

32:54

macro and micro might impact the podcasting

32:56

world , because that's happening

32:58

every day . The pandemic

33:01

had a huge impact in podcasting . It wasn't

33:03

the impact any of us thought it was going to

33:05

be ? I don't think , but it certainly had

33:07

an indelible impact on what podcasting is

33:09

today , and it's not like that

33:11

change is ever going to go away . So that's

33:13

important for me personally to think about ways to

33:15

make things better , talk about the future and

33:18

think about those deep thoughts around podcasting

33:20

.

33:21

One of the things I talk about a lot . What I

33:23

truly love about podcasting is

33:26

it's a different medium than

33:29

YouTube . It's a different medium than

33:31

blogs or Twitter or anywhere

33:33

else , because it's prioritizing this

33:35

really long form content . We're

33:37

often checking into

33:40

it . I mean there's podcasts that go three , four

33:42

hours . Any podcasts

33:44

are 45 minutes long and we

33:46

can get into a little bit more depth , a

33:49

little bit more nuance and understand

33:51

people's opinions a little bit better

33:53

. And there's a lot more

33:55

bringing people together over

33:57

a podcast and sharing

33:59

ideas than maybe we get

34:01

over on Twitter sometimes

34:04

, where it's mostly us all just taking

34:06

hot takes , the other people's hot takes . And

34:10

it's what I recommend

34:12

podcasts , not just as a listener , but also

34:14

as a creator and also

34:17

to brands , because

34:20

we have to engage with the medium that

34:22

we want to improve and the medium we

34:24

think is the best chance of improving people's lives

34:26

. And I think that podcasting

34:29

, by virtue of being in your

34:31

ears and your

34:33

attention's often

34:35

you're doing the dishes , you're mowing the lawn

34:37

, you're driving or something else you're

34:40

willing to stick with it a little bit longer . You're

34:42

not just there on a Saturday , hungover

34:45

, thinking I guess I'll watch a few dozen

34:47

YouTube videos , right ?

34:49

right , right , right , I think you're

34:51

right in all of that . It certainly

34:53

does allow for I think I

34:56

don't know that a board longer , but I'm gonna go with deeper , deeper

34:58

conversation . I mean , I know that

35:01

and you know this , and anybody who listens to podcasts

35:03

knows that there is a deeper connection

35:05

made when you hear

35:08

someone say something than

35:10

when you read someone who's written

35:12

things , because we have to put our own inflection

35:15

in text and I can only do so much

35:17

with italics and bold , right , I mean , it only

35:19

conveys so much , but

35:21

I can convey a lot more as

35:23

I'm speaking . Anybody can convey a lot more as

35:25

you're speaking . So just the audio

35:28

medium itself enables a

35:30

much deeper connection , if

35:33

you will . When it comes to how

35:35

much the length issue , how

35:37

long you take things , absolutely , there

35:39

are some of the most popular podcasts in the world go for

35:41

four and a half hours . What I like to

35:43

recommend to people when they're thinking about that is do

35:46

you have the ability to be interesting for four and

35:48

a half hours ? No , I don't know that

35:50

you do . I mean , most people don't , right , like

35:53

? I'm a hockey fan and I'm loving

35:55

it right now when we're recording this , it's semi-finals

35:57

for hockey go-habs . I

36:00

don't find that if we're losing on Thursday or night . But

36:03

I've also used to coach youth hockey

36:05

because my kid played hockey all growing up and

36:07

I love nothing more than to sit

36:09

in a stadium and watch an NHL game for

36:12

the three hours it takes from puck

36:14

drop until the final whistle blows . I

36:17

don't want to watch a three-hour little league game

36:19

or a mites game or anything else

36:21

, right , because it's not entertaining . I'm

36:23

good for watching kids play for about 30 minutes and

36:26

that's it Because it's not interesting . Right

36:28

, after seven point times like , oh , you're not going to see the skill

36:30

and whatever . So yes , by

36:32

all means , dig deep into a topic

36:34

, but make sure that you can be interesting

36:36

for the entire length of that topic . One

36:39

of the smartest things to do is , if

36:41

you can't , you'd be interesting for four hours

36:43

. Maybe you can be interesting . 30 minutes

36:45

of time for eight episodes , that'll

36:47

give you the same number . You'll still get the four

36:49

hours out of the day , if that's how long it takes to cover something

36:51

. But you're also going to think about where your audience is

36:53

in their headspace and what they're doing . And

36:56

do they have four hours extra in their week

36:59

to fit another podcast ? You know all those

37:01

questions are out there Because we can make them

37:03

as long as we want . We can also

37:05

make them as short as we want . We get

37:07

our own rules with this and we're

37:09

not beholden to anybody else's schedule

37:11

or a clock or something else . It's

37:13

up to us and our audience what we want . So

37:15

find a way to be interesting for the right

37:17

amount of time . That is my suggestion .

37:20

Some advice I've seen run across a

37:22

few times that you've given is for people to

37:24

kind of do their research , and

37:27

I always take this back to . If you

37:29

want to be the expert , if you want to

37:31

be the person who has the Dungeons and Dragons

37:33

podcast , then you've got to know

37:35

about Dungeons and Dragons and

37:38

you need to be playing it and you need to be

37:40

. I don't know anything , so I'm now pulling this out

37:42

. We've got to have been a Dungeon Master and you need

37:44

to have read the books . And it's pretty apparent

37:46

when people are doing a podcast and they

37:48

are more excited about

37:50

being the personality on

37:53

the podcast versus being the

37:56

actual person who's putting the work into

37:58

creating the show .

37:59

Well , that's the thing I mean . To do

38:02

a podcast , you can . Most podcasts

38:04

are a mix of entertaining and informational

38:06

, and if you're just there to be entertaining

38:08

, you're just there to tell jokes , fine , then

38:11

tell jokes really well , or tell stories really well if that's what your

38:13

skill set is . But if you're trying to impart knowledge

38:15

, even of something as

38:17

mundane as a D&D podcast or any of the role

38:19

playing game podcasts , in order for you

38:21

to convey information you have to be at least

38:23

as informed as the people who are

38:25

listening to your show , and probably

38:28

even more so of doing that . And so I have a lot

38:30

of interests that I will never podcast

38:32

about . I'm an avid disc golf player

38:35

. I love disc golf , but I'm not

38:37

going to make a podcast about disc golf because I don't

38:39

play it that often and I'm certainly not

38:41

any good . And so what am I going to do ? Say , well

38:43

, I went out and threw some plastic in the woods today . The

38:47

end , that would be the full show , right , it wouldn't

38:49

be all that interesting . I've lived through

38:51

this . When I was interviewing science fiction authors back

38:53

in the day , I got to the point where I didn't want to

38:55

do it anymore , at least not until I'd

38:57

read the book and it takes me

38:59

, you know , a couple of weeks to read through a science

39:01

fiction novel and we're putting out a show every single

39:04

week . So that's tough , you

39:06

know . And if I didn't read the book , then I'm asking

39:08

dumb questions like where do you get your ideas

39:10

and what's the book about ? You know

39:12

, these are just dumb questions

39:14

that you don't get a good interviewers either

39:16

read the book or here's the trick they have their

39:18

staff read the book and then they

39:20

give them questions to ask so that they can have a longer

39:23

conversation , to have the illusion

39:26

, if you will , of knowledge about

39:28

that . But somebody else on the team actually did so

39:30

. Yeah , you got to do your research , you got to

39:32

know what you're talking about

39:34

, and that's don't

39:36

forget that . It's yes , I get it . It's fun to

39:38

have a podcast . It's a blast .

39:40

I mean , it's a charge you get by talking to the microphone , but

39:42

you don't want to come off sounding like a moron if you

39:44

can avoid it and you can Just do your

39:46

research and it's going to be

39:48

hard to keep up with podcasting because

39:51

you know and I know and lots

39:53

of our viewers and listeners know

39:55

, it's really hard to grow a show and

39:58

if you aren't enjoying the front

40:00

end work , the research

40:02

, the putting the show together , the recording , it's

40:05

going to be tough to stick with it on the timescale

40:07

that you will need to if you want

40:09

your show to be successful . It really

40:12

is .

40:12

Yeah , you're exactly right . You know I help

40:14

a variety of clients , some

40:16

of which I help do the research on , but most I don't

40:18

. But I'm fortunate enough to be plugged in to

40:21

the the conversations they're having

40:23

with their . They're usually it's a team of people that

40:25

are actually doing the research and it's just

40:27

amazing how much effort

40:30

really goes into a show . It is rarely

40:33

do my clients just sit down and talk with the guests

40:35

. You know they are , have done research , they've got

40:37

good questions . They've taken the time to listen

40:39

to what that person has said on other shows

40:41

and try and not ask them the same

40:43

questions over and over again . They

40:46

figured out what their own unique angle is , which

40:48

I talk about quite a lot . You got to have an angle . The topic

40:50

is not enough . So why is this person going

40:52

to be on the show ? What is your show about and

40:54

what do you want to bring out from them ? All

40:57

that is so important and it can

40:59

take well , it will take hours

41:01

. If you're lucky , single-digit hours

41:03

, but it's not uncommon for it to be double-digit hours

41:05

to really really do your homework . So

41:08

yeah , that's a lot

41:10

of work to make a show worthy of growth

41:12

.

41:13

What do you tell your clients If they say all right

41:15

, I need to have a unique angle that makes

41:17

sense . What's my unique angle ? People

41:20

watching this , what's their unique angle ? How do

41:22

people figure it out ?

41:23

Oh my gosh , it is so hard to do , but

41:25

unfortunately it's not something that someone else can give

41:27

you . That's the problem . It really becomes

41:29

a true process . You know of

41:31

what it is you want to , what you want to get

41:33

to , and everybody's got a different process

41:36

about it . What I like to do , the way

41:38

I figure it out and the way I counsel my clients

41:40

to do that is figure out what your

41:42

topic you're going to talk about . Let's

41:44

do we'll go stick with D&D podcasts for just

41:47

a moment . Right , you're going to talk about D&D . Maybe you're

41:49

not a D&D podcast , but you're going to bring on a guest and you're going

41:51

to bring on Gary Giax who I think

41:53

might be dead , to start a D&D

41:55

back in the day Not that I know , I know and

41:59

you want to talk about something , right . So you've got to figure

42:01

out what your angle is going to be . So I start writing

42:03

out questions , right , and then figuring

42:05

out where the theme is . Is there a commonality

42:08

, is there a thread to this ? And

42:10

then , once I've got a few questions down , the second thing

42:12

to think about is what

42:14

is what perspective works

42:17

for your show . So , if you're doing , you want to

42:19

interview one of the creators of D&D

42:21

for your show and it's

42:23

about oh , let's

42:26

just say that it's it's a music podcast

42:28

, but whatever it's got , it's a pop culture

42:30

and you got music and you want to talk about that ? Great

42:33

, then you might want to lead the conversation into

42:35

something around the themes of music

42:37

. You know fan creative music

42:39

or you know renfair music

42:41

or weird violins and stuff , and you

42:44

can ask questions that are about that . But you've just got to

42:46

figure out and I know I'm kind of giving a non-answer

42:49

here but what is your show's secret

42:51

sauce , what is your secret sauce and what's the guest

42:53

bring ? And somewhere there's a Venn diagram where

42:56

those overlap and that's where you want to be

42:58

. You know , kind of in the middle of that . So

43:00

it actually all makes sense to take

43:02

the conversation and then ask questions

43:04

that way . As long as you're not interviewing Arthur

43:06

C Clark and Ray Bradbury , then your

43:08

angle means nothing . You're just going to talk with these

43:10

guys and see where it goes .

43:11

You're along for the ride , yeah exactly right . One

43:14

of the big red flags I see is when people say

43:17

oh , I want to start a podcast , I've

43:19

got all the gear , I'm ready to go

43:21

. What are the most popular categories

43:24

? Yeah , because

43:27

what does that tell you ? So it asks that .

43:29

Man , it tells me that show's not going

43:31

to live for very long , because

43:33

you know , you and I

43:35

both know that it's the rare show

43:37

that comes out of the gate that gets you

43:40

know a hundred listeners , let alone tens

43:42

of thousands , to make it some sort of a going concern

43:44

, right ? So you got to be in this thing for the long haul . So

43:46

if your decision of what to podcast

43:49

about was predicated on what the most popular things

43:51

are and it's not something you're particularly

43:53

interested in , probably going to burn out

43:55

real quickly on that you might need to

43:57

make it to seven episodes , let alone two or

43:59

three episodes . Yeah , it

44:01

has to be something where you

44:03

really want to

44:06

do this , or you've got piles and

44:08

piles of cash behind you to pay someone

44:10

to do it and also to pay someone to market it , to get it out

44:12

there . You know , one of those two things has to happen . But

44:14

yeah , I see it all the time . You know , hey , I've got all this

44:16

equipment . You know , what should I ? What should I podcast about

44:18

? And it's like I just bought this typewriter

44:21

. What kind of book should I write ? You know , said

44:23

no author ever right , you know , no

44:25

one thinks about that this way . So yeah

44:27

, I get that you want to chase a trend , but

44:29

you might want to just learn the craft first

44:32

. You know , podcast , whatever is interesting to you

44:34

, and if it takes you a month or

44:36

a year or 10 years to figure it out , great

44:38

, do that , and then you can start going . Ok , now

44:40

let's be more opportunistic and let's look at where

44:43

the opportunities really lie .

44:45

I'm now reminded . This , I think , is advice

44:47

from Stephen King , and he said whenever

44:50

he has a writing workshop , the first

44:52

question in Q&A is do you use

44:54

a typewriter or do you use a word processor

44:56

? Is everything done by pen ? And

44:59

he goes this

45:02

has nothing to do with the writing process

45:04

, it doesn't matter . It doesn't matter if you

45:06

are recording on

45:08

a MV7 and SM7B

45:11

or or just

45:13

directly into your phone . Yeah

45:16

, they're . They're slightly different , they're different tools

45:18

and some are going to give you a little bit better

45:20

sound quality . But the

45:22

thing that you've got to learn on

45:24

your own really is going to be the craft of actually

45:27

thinking through a story , kind

45:29

of putting together an outline , actually

45:31

recording it if it's getting

45:33

guests on the right way to craft

45:36

a pitch , or getting

45:38

a good chemistry with your co-host

45:41

or whoever you're podcasting with , or , in

45:43

the case of audio dramas , actually going

45:45

through the real hard work of writing out a

45:47

story . That's the craft

45:50

. The craft is not being

45:52

like , oh the OK , so this cable

45:54

plugs in here , that plugs into the computer

45:56

and now we're set Exactly right

45:59

.

45:59

One of the shows that I'd love listening to , and I'll give an unsolicited

46:01

plug for a podcast called how Sound

46:04

. And how Sound is

46:06

amazing because it is all

46:08

about the craft of audio

46:10

storytelling , and

46:13

you heard a little bit of talk about gear in there , but it's more

46:15

of a wow . This was recorded on

46:19

a eight-bit recorder because

46:21

that's what someone had at the time

46:23

, and this one is done on an iPhone

46:26

because that's what they had at the time

46:28

, when the inspiration struck , when the

46:30

opportunity was there . Now

46:32

, what do you do with the sound ? It's all about how do you

46:34

craft that sound and but

46:37

yeah , oftentimes in the podcasting world , it's

46:39

all about what microphone do you use

46:41

? What DAW do you use ? What

46:43

podcast hosting company do you use ? What

46:45

social media sites do you use ? And none of

46:47

it's important . It's all important , but none

46:50

of it's important , right ? Not at this level . Not

46:52

at this level . When you get further up , then you can start

46:54

having you know companies that go , oh , mv7

46:56

or SM7B . I wonder which one I should . Okay , that's

46:58

a valid conversation eventually , but

47:01

right now , just learn how to

47:03

do the thing and you can wind up changing

47:05

your tool sets out later on , but you

47:07

got to have the craft first

47:09

, right , you know , buy your very first hammer and

47:11

say should I build a house or

47:13

should I build a boat ? What do you think I'm going to do

47:15

? No , you can learn how to work

47:17

with wood .

47:18

Step one I have recently

47:20

started playing golf and I

47:22

hit some ball into the woods and

47:24

someone goes oh , let me look at your driver , why

47:27

don't you try this driver ? And I

47:29

went well , I know that the problem is not

47:31

the driver and they're like oh , what is it ? And I was like

47:33

the problem is that I'm not good at golf . Yeah

47:35

, like I know , this is the limiting factor

47:37

and , at least at the

47:39

beginning . It's

47:42

why we always recommend the Samsung

47:44

Q2U as a mic , because it's

47:46

a great mic . It's not going to hold you back . It's

47:48

60 bucks . You get it and

47:51

then we get you as quickly as we can to

47:53

the real process , which is okay . We

47:55

put the golf club in your hands Right

47:57

Now . You've got to start taking swings at it and

48:00

it's going to be frustrating and

48:02

it's often . You know it's the limiting

48:04

factor and golf is me the limiting factor and

48:07

almost everything is me . And podcasting

48:09

at the beginning , it's getting comfortable with the sound

48:11

of your voice , figuring out how to

48:13

craft an episode and how to pull that

48:16

together in the editing process to make it something people

48:18

want to listen to .

48:19

Yeah . Yeah . It's

48:21

rare that a podcast that is floundering

48:23

is made better because of a bad microphone

48:25

. That certainly happens . There are certainly

48:27

podcasts out there who've got to figure it out , who upgrade their equipment and

48:29

things sound better , but it's kind of

48:31

not going to matter for the longest time . As you said

48:34

, it's not the driver , it's the person driving

48:36

the driver . That is really the challenge

48:38

here .

48:39

We've kind of touched on this a few different times

48:42

with the

48:44

opportunities that have come kind of towards

48:46

you through podcasting . Can you kind

48:48

of just talk a bit about what is the value

48:50

of podcasting ? If we

48:53

take off the table for a second , you're

48:55

not gonna get famous , you're not gonna

48:57

make a lot of money . You're creating

48:59

a show that you love and maybe there

49:01

aren't a ton of people listening . Give

49:04

us the pitch for that person to keep podcasting

49:07

, or well

49:09

.

49:10

I think there is . I think there is

49:12

and I'm gonna take it back to a Friend

49:15

of mine who's another long-time podcasters

49:17

name is Dave slusher . Dave has been doing

49:19

the evil genius Chronicles since the beginning

49:21

of time . He's actually doing this a longer than I have , and

49:23

the same show , by the way . So

49:26

I remember years ago Dave

49:29

was having a conversation on his show

49:31

Because I a lot of us had said you know

49:33

, it's something pretty magical , even if you have a small number

49:35

. And the story I always give to people is you know

49:37

, let's just imagine that Every

49:40

day excuse me , every week you went to your local

49:43

library and you had a regular

49:45

time . You're gonna get 10 o'clock every Sunday

49:47

. You're showing up at this library and

49:49

every time you did that , you walked in their room and there were 30

49:52

people in that room Eager

49:54

to listen to the things you had

49:57

to say . You will probably Keep

50:00

going to that 10 o'clock appointment on Sunday

50:02

forever . Because what

50:05

a charge is that ? To fill a room

50:07

? 30 people listen what you have to

50:09

say ? Pretty awesome , listen . I've been on big

50:11

keynote stages when they've not been 30 people in the

50:13

room , so that's it's

50:15

pretty powerful when you can fill something up like that , and

50:17

so we'd all feel good about that . Yet when we listen

50:20

to our look at our podcast stats , we go oh

50:22

, I'm only getting , you know , a couple dozen

50:24

downloads . You know I'm less than a hundred

50:26

. You know it's nowhere near the average of 120

50:29

or whatever else . I'm not . And again , I just

50:31

remember these people are showing up all

50:33

the time to do that . So that's the story I've been

50:35

pitching . What I heard Dave say one time is he said you need

50:37

to figure out what the minimum Viable

50:40

number is for you , the minimum

50:42

size of the audience that makes sense for you

50:44

as a podcaster . Is it a thousand , okay

50:47

, is it a hundred ? Okay

50:49

? Dave said his number is one

50:51

and he is

50:53

that one . So as long

50:55

as he likes making the podcast

50:58

, as long as it's a creative outlet for

51:00

him , that's good

51:02

enough . It doesn't matter what the numbers drop down

51:04

to . He won't abandon that . So

51:06

I'm not suggesting that your number needs to be one , although

51:09

I would say the minute you're no longer

51:11

interested in your podcast You're probably not

51:14

you should probably recognize that as a warning sign . It's probably

51:16

not going to be good for the for

51:18

a real length of time . So you know , I

51:20

think the advice is You're

51:22

probably , statistically speaking , you're not gonna get

51:24

rich , you're not gonna get famous , you're

51:26

gonna make a dime . In fact , you're gonna spend money

51:29

To podcast , like most

51:31

of us do . It's going to cost you money to

51:33

podcast , but so does everything else that you do with it you enjoy

51:35

. You just bought a thousand dollar

51:37

carbon fiber bicycle . Tell

51:41

me when you win the Tour de France . It's never gonna

51:43

happen , right ? I mean , statistically speaking , that's not

51:45

going to happen . Nor are you going to enter any contest

51:47

or various things . We , we spend money on things

51:50

that make us feel good all the time

51:52

, and I don't know about you , but I think

51:54

I know about you . Podcasting makes you feel

51:56

good , it makes me feel good , so it's

51:58

worth it to me .

51:59

Pat Flynn talks a lot about the value

52:02

of entrepreneurship , even if you

52:04

never make a ton of money off of it , even if you're

52:06

actually an employee for your entire career

52:09

. Yeah , that kind of building

52:11

some of these skills and working

52:13

this entrepreneurial muscle is actually healthy

52:15

for you . And Kind of what I hear you

52:17

saying is sometimes the art

52:20

creation and the exploration

52:22

and just enjoying the hobby are

52:25

valuable , even if the

52:27

likely thing that happens is that

52:30

your podcast ends up in

52:32

the you know low hundred downloads

52:34

eventually . And if

52:37

you could reframe that from

52:39

a number on a dashboard

52:42

as Well . These are

52:44

the people who are consistently

52:46

on Wednesday mornings when they drive

52:48

to work . They pull up my show

52:50

Three times a week . They

52:52

listen to me Pontificate about

52:55

podcasting . You know that people

52:57

can . Actually , if you know that there's real

52:59

people behind those numbers who are actually interested

53:02

in the content , it Really

53:04

changes At

53:06

least you're the way your relationship with

53:08

your podcasting , your craft .

53:10

Yeah , yeah it does . And it doesn't have to be entrepreneurial In

53:12

nature . You know , for a lot of people that have

53:15

no Interest in in trying

53:17

to ever earn money with this , it's

53:19

not even something they would consider because it's more

53:21

just a creative expression . And then there

53:23

are a lot of people who are in the middle . Can I

53:26

make some money and and

53:28

ply my craft at the same time and get

53:30

better at things , possibly ? Or there's others on the other

53:32

, and so it's a wide spectrum , once again , of what people

53:34

want to get out of a show . But you're right

53:36

, we , you need to go beyond . If you're

53:38

fancy yourself checking your downloads

53:41

every other day , I would counsel you to stop doing

53:43

that , you know , and and maybe think

53:45

about more things like how do I get my audience to actually

53:47

just Send me an email to say thank you ? Can

53:50

I get my audience to tell somebody else about my show

53:52

? Maybe I'll get another listener that will email me

53:54

. Well , what else can I do ? How can I foster some sense

53:56

of community so I can get something

53:58

back from the audience ? If I want something back

54:00

from the audience , not everybody does . Podcasting

54:03

is very much a one-way medium . We you've heard

54:05

her to talk to bad . Is it some way you having

54:07

a competition people ? But we're not . You know I'm talking

54:09

to a microphone . If I'm talking to you , you and I

54:11

are having a conversation here , alvin , but the rest of

54:13

the people they're just listening to us and you

54:15

know it's , it's effort . People can shout

54:17

back at their phones , I guess

54:19

if they wanted to say , if they want to comment , but that's

54:22

harder to get to us . So recognize that

54:24

not everybody's going to get right back

54:26

at you . This isn't Twitter . This isn't

54:28

a thing where you put something out there and expect a whole bunch of

54:30

hearts , right ? I mean , the reality is you're not going

54:32

to get a lot of feedback , because it's hard to

54:35

push that feedback out there , but it's nice to

54:37

know people listening . So just you know , occasionally ask

54:39

people , send me a note , say something

54:41

to me . I don't mind people

54:43

asking for that on occasion for some

54:45

sort of feedback and because sometimes just a simple

54:47

email is enough to keep someone

54:49

going .

54:50

I actually got somebody DM me on

54:52

Twitter who I did

54:54

not know listened to one of our shows and

54:56

it was

54:58

more poking fun at us than anything

55:00

. Say , hey , you keep talking about how word of mouth

55:02

Is so important for growing a podcast

55:05

. You had a podcaster on your show

55:07

and you went 50 minutes without

55:09

mentioning the name of her , but

55:14

the thing that I actually walked away with it was

55:16

wow , I

55:18

really got it out my game if this person

55:21

is listening , because I was so excited

55:23

to hear that . So what I had a

55:25

lot of respect for was listening to our

55:27

show . It's fantastic and it

55:29

really is important to get that feedback

55:32

. Do you have any ways

55:34

for people to do that , to foster a community

55:36

around their podcast , especially if it's a smaller

55:38

one ?

55:39

Oh man , it is so hard . I mean , it

55:41

is insanely difficult to do . I

55:44

think the best thing to do

55:46

is try not to bifurcate

55:49

your audience . Don't break it up for no

55:51

apparent reason . There's a natural inclination

55:53

to when you start podcasting , like well , I guess I need

55:55

to get a Twitter account , because Twitter's big in

55:57

podcasting and true Twitter is

55:59

really big in podcasting . Many podcasters

56:01

, many podcasters have them in Twitter accounts . Oh , I

56:04

need to get an Instagram page . Sure , yeah , you do that , and

56:06

I bet we're gonna . Facebook and TikTok's big

56:08

, and then I'll have to get LinkedIn and all these things . Well

56:10

, and maybe you should

56:12

do all of those things . I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't

56:14

do any of those things , but that's a lot

56:16

you know , and you give people

56:19

too many choices to communicate with you and

56:21

they don't know which one you prefer to do . So

56:23

I like to just keep things simple . You know I rarely

56:27

mention my Twitter account on

56:29

my show , which is about the only social media network

56:31

I pay any attention to at

56:33

all . But I'm very consistent

56:35

well , not necessarily very . I'm usually pretty consistent

56:37

about telling people just to email me evo

56:40

, at simplermedia , because

56:42

everybody , everybody

56:44

has emailed , even the kids who say they don't email . Yeah

56:47

, when they're teenagers maybe they don't quite as much , but

56:49

that's going to happen eventually . You're gonna switch over and send someone

56:52

an email at some point in time . But just make

56:54

it simple and repeat it

56:56

. You know one time is not

56:58

enough . Oh , I mentioned this in my show

57:00

last week and no one responded . Well , look

57:02

, people need to hear things several times . It's the

57:04

oh what , okay , that mentality

57:07

. I think they hear like three different times before they're gonna make take

57:09

a move about that . I

57:11

got some really good advice from Drew

57:13

from Sleep With Me podcast

57:15

, right , and he said

57:17

don't . If you ask your people

57:20

to do one thing , and

57:22

one thing only for a year

57:24

, you'll be amazed what the results

57:26

are . But you got to do it for a year , right ? Whether

57:29

that's tell a friend about your show or

57:31

send an email to or whatever else , do

57:33

that same thing for a year and

57:36

you'll be amazed what the results would be . So that's

57:38

it If you want that's . What you really want out

57:41

of it is communication and feedback from your listeners Great

57:43

, pick something and

57:45

repeat it again and again and again

57:48

and again and again , and after a year

57:50

you'll be amazed at the results

57:52

.

57:52

I definitely see this . I

57:54

know we both . I mean , you have a marketing background , I

57:56

have . That is my day-to-day job

57:59

all the time . If you ask people to do five

58:01

things or four things , or three or two

58:03

, they do zero . Yeah , if you ask people to

58:05

do one thing , they might do

58:07

one thing . And I

58:09

see a lot of times people will sign off

58:11

a show or they will at the end of it say

58:13

tell a friend , leave me a review

58:15

, do this , send me an email and

58:17

subscribe on Patreon . And

58:19

I'm like , oh well , no one's doing any of that

58:21

, right ?

58:22

Yeah , you were good for a while

58:24

, and then suddenly , oh and and , because everyone , what people

58:26

hear in their head is and not

58:28

, or they hear , and , and so it's

58:31

like , well , I'm not doing any of those things . That seems like a

58:33

silly thing to do . Yeah , keep it really

58:35

simple , and repetition is so

58:37

terribly important .

58:38

One last question because I want to be conscious

58:41

of your time and thank you for being with us for so

58:43

long . Sure , you were , I

58:45

think , the headliner of

58:48

2014 , the first podcast

58:50

movement , yeah , which probably was

58:52

the first podcast conference ever , and

58:55

we met at a I

58:57

think it might have been at PodFest . Podcast

58:59

conferences , I know , mean a

59:01

lot to you . They mean a lot to me . Once

59:03

this COVID thing , we start wrapping it up , yeah

59:06

, what's the pitch for podcast conferences ?

59:08

Oh man , I love in-person

59:11

meetings with other podcasters . It's

59:13

, it is such a such a great thing

59:15

and I it's

59:17

difficult to communicate the real value

59:19

that you get from a , from a solid podcast

59:22

conference . You mentioned a podcast

59:24

movement in 2014 . Well , actually , the very first

59:26

podcast conferences were in Ontario , california , back

59:28

in 2005 , called

59:30

the Portable and New Media Expo , and then they

59:32

changed the name , like for every year for the next three years

59:34

. The dumbest thing ever . But that's where I

59:36

met that's where I met Gary Leland , who

59:39

was one of the original guys who started the podcast

59:41

movement . Gary and I have been friends since that time and

59:44

the great thing about these conferences

59:47

is there are really multiple

59:50

ways you can connect . There's there's the

59:52

obvious way , which means you can go to

59:54

the sessions , you can listen to the keynotes

59:56

and you can go to the breakouts

59:59

and you can get a lot of information just and just soak

1:00:01

it all in and just . You're like a podcast listener

1:00:03

, that you're a podcast conference

1:00:05

attendee and you're just soaking in the information

1:00:07

. And there are people who get a lot of value out

1:00:10

of that and I love being on stages and providing

1:00:12

that value out to people when I get a chance to go to those

1:00:15

. But then there's the other value

1:00:17

where I get most of my value , and that's

1:00:19

just the conversations that happen

1:00:21

. It's being surrounded

1:00:24

by other people who we all have at

1:00:26

least one thing in common at

1:00:28

least one thing in common as podcasting , and

1:00:30

you never know where the conversations are going to go . So

1:00:33

I find myself having hallway conversations

1:00:35

, lots of conversations in the

1:00:37

expo hall where the vendors are meeting

1:00:41

up with speakers . Afterwards

1:00:43

, seeing someone asked a really great

1:00:45

question in a session , I'll seek that person out afterwards

1:00:47

and talk to them . I

1:00:49

do that so much I often forget to go

1:00:51

to the session I had booked and

1:00:53

occasionally forget to go to the session I'm supposed to be

1:00:55

speaking at . I

1:00:58

try not to do that . I get on my mind now having Lawrence set up my calendar

1:01:01

. I did that once and I won't

1:01:03

make that mistake again . But that's the value

1:01:05

of these podcast conferences is you're finally

1:01:07

meeting your tribe . They're

1:01:09

there in abundance and they have some of them have the same

1:01:12

opinions as you . Some have very different opinions

1:01:14

than you . They got different ways of doing things

1:01:16

. So it is the best

1:01:18

possible way to get an immediate

1:01:20

. This is for me , but

1:01:23

also this isn't for me . I know some people

1:01:25

who've gone to a podcast conference and went oh yeah

1:01:27

, that's too much , I don't really want . I thought

1:01:29

I was doing this and that was it . But now I recognize there's

1:01:31

all this too . I don't want to do this anymore and that's fine too . I

1:01:34

mean I'd rather you know that ahead of time than not

1:01:36

. But just going

1:01:38

and being and experience online that I mean

1:01:40

it's expensive , I get it . It makes it

1:01:42

very . It's out of the price range for a

1:01:44

lot of people because everything's gotten more expensive

1:01:46

. I mean , hotel rooms are 300 bucks a night now

1:01:48

I get it . So get creative

1:01:51

, find people , share rooms

1:01:53

. A lot of these places will have a room sharing service

1:01:55

or get a rent something local and do

1:01:58

it . Whatever you've got to do , if it's

1:02:00

possible for you to go to a conference , just

1:02:02

go and enjoy yourself , because

1:02:04

they are a blast .

1:02:06

It really is awesome because as

1:02:08

podcasters , it can feel a little lonely . We

1:02:10

talk one way through a mic and

1:02:13

we're often the thing we

1:02:15

share with our listeners is

1:02:17

our love of the content . If

1:02:20

it's the Dungeons and Dragons podcast , we

1:02:22

all love role playing games together , but

1:02:25

you're still a little bit like

1:02:27

yeah , but no one understands what

1:02:29

it's like when you lose

1:02:32

a file halfway through an interview

1:02:34

or something crashes , or I've

1:02:36

been doing this editing technique for a long time and

1:02:38

I just don't feel like I'm getting it

1:02:40

. Then podcast movement and podcast

1:02:43

and Black Podfest and she Podcasts

1:02:45

that's probably the four that I enjoy

1:02:48

. I'm biggest fans of you

1:02:50

go and then you start realizing

1:02:52

there's so many people just like

1:02:54

me going through these exact same

1:02:56

questions , having the same

1:02:58

doubts , having the same struggles

1:03:01

, some of whom have accomplished

1:03:03

the things that we're trying to figure out how

1:03:05

to do . It's

1:03:07

so much fun to sit down and

1:03:09

have a beer , have

1:03:12

a conversation with somebody who's doing the same

1:03:14

things as you and you really just make

1:03:16

a ton of good friends every time I go .

1:03:18

Yeah , then you meet those people who are

1:03:20

very successful at what they do and you realize they're

1:03:22

making it up as they go along too . There

1:03:26

are so many things that go wrong for them , that go wrong for

1:03:28

you . They feel every bit as

1:03:30

anxious about things . It's just to me . It's

1:03:32

such a good centering event . For anyone

1:03:35

who's a little nervous , welcome . You're

1:03:38

right . Everybody's going to be out there and we all

1:03:40

can talk about the craft . You

1:03:43

can talk about mics , if that's what you want to get off on , and you

1:03:45

can talk about what bitrate you should use if that's where you

1:03:47

want to go . Whatever

1:03:49

, someone's there who wants to have that conversation with

1:03:51

you , and unlike your spouse who just sits

1:03:53

there and goes , aha , honey , that's

1:03:55

nice yeah .

1:03:57

There was one time I sat , I was sitting with

1:03:59

one of the designers for Buzzsprout , the

1:04:01

lead designer of Buzzsprout and

1:04:03

a team for a very

1:04:05

well-known podcast , who I won't name it , but

1:04:07

they were pretty large podcast . They

1:04:10

said one thing we're struggling with is

1:04:12

how to sell ads . And we have

1:04:14

these ads and we have these ads and they're talking

1:04:16

about it . Our designer who

1:04:20

just chimes in and goes well , what if you sold them as

1:04:22

a bundle and then you bundled a newsletter and you

1:04:24

bundled that with this thing

1:04:26

, and then you did an interview and you also

1:04:28

. He goes , and then you're not selling

1:04:31

on CPM , you're selling . Just what if you this was

1:04:33

the number that you charged and

1:04:35

they look each other and go oh my gosh , that's

1:04:37

so smart , we've got to be doing that

1:04:40

. I tapped it later

1:04:42

and I was like whoa , so

1:04:44

we're all figuring this out together ? Because

1:04:47

they were the people who I thought we're going to say

1:04:49

we tested that 10 years ago . That

1:04:52

would never work . Here's the exact way to do

1:04:54

it .

1:04:54

Yeah .

1:04:55

And instead I realized even

1:04:57

people who are getting millions of downloads per episode

1:04:59

a lot of them they're

1:05:01

still figuring things out , just

1:05:04

maybe at a different level , but everyone's figuring

1:05:06

things out themselves .

1:05:07

Yeah , we are . You mentioned Sheep Podcasts , which

1:05:09

is going to be in Scottsdale , arizona , in October

1:05:11

, and I live in Phoenix , arizona . Are you coming

1:05:14

to Sheep Podcasts ?

1:05:16

I will be there . I believe I will

1:05:18

be there . Sweet , I'm definitely going to be in

1:05:20

podcast movement in August . I'll probably

1:05:22

be at Sheep Podcasts and probably

1:05:25

quite a few more in 2022 .

1:05:26

Yeah , 2022 is my big breakout , but I

1:05:29

can't say no to Sheep Podcasts Coming to my town

1:05:31

. Elsie

1:05:33

and Jessica have told me under no uncertain terms

1:05:35

I'm forced to go , since I'm fully vaccinated

1:05:37

. I have to go now , since that was my excuse

1:05:39

last year . So I said , fine , I will be there

1:05:42

. So I look forward to seeing you there too , my friend .

1:05:44

That'll be great , eva . Thank you so much

1:05:47

for taking the time to chat with us

1:05:49

. Share so much that you've learned over

1:05:51

the years of podcasting and over

1:05:53

, I think , like 2200 podcasting

1:05:56

credits on PodChaser . You

1:05:58

shared a lot of wisdom with us today . If

1:06:00

people want to follow you or learn

1:06:03

more about you or ask you a

1:06:05

question , how should they reach out ?

1:06:06

I'll give you some simple ways to do that . So , as I mentioned

1:06:08

previously , evosimplermedia

1:06:11

is my email account . If you're

1:06:13

a podcaster and I can't believe you're watching

1:06:16

slash listening to this show and you're not a podcaster , so

1:06:18

you should be listening to podcastpontificationspodcastpontificationscom

1:06:22

. You can even just read it . That's

1:06:25

what you want to do . It's perfectly fine . And if you're the kind of

1:06:27

person who wants to go nuts on Twitter , great At

1:06:29

evoterra .

1:06:30

Well , great , thank you so much , evo , and hope

1:06:33

to see you soon . Thanks , buddy , bye .