WEBVTT 00:00:00.399 --> 00:00:02.479 Don't cram for your podcast. 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:11.679 Thank you for joining me for The Audacity to Podcast. 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:12.719 I'm Daniel J. Lewis. 00:00:12.824 --> 00:00:16.024 Are you running short on time but feeling obligated to podcast 00:00:16.024 --> 00:00:16.664 anyway? 00:00:16.824 --> 00:00:20.024 Should you wing it or just cram like a procrastinating high 00:00:20.024 --> 00:00:21.945 schooler the night before a big test? 00:00:22.105 --> 00:00:24.585 I suggest that not be your perspective here. 00:00:24.744 --> 00:00:27.230 If you'd like to follow along in the notes for this episode, they 00:00:27.230 --> 00:00:28.670 are a simple tap or swipe away. 00:00:28.670 --> 00:00:30.269 Look at the chapters or go to the 00:00:30.269 --> 00:00:35.070 audacitytopodcast.com/cram,cram. 00:00:35.229 --> 00:00:38.750 Number 1, respect your audience's time. 00:00:39.274 --> 00:00:42.715 I grew up in a military family, and my air force officer father 00:00:42.715 --> 00:00:47.114 did well to teach me the importance of being on time. 00:00:47.274 --> 00:00:52.155 But not just on time, quotation marks around that, but early was 00:00:52.155 --> 00:00:52.634 on time. 00:00:53.190 --> 00:00:56.789 Somewhere along the way, I also learned that being late is a huge 00:00:56.789 --> 00:01:00.549 disrespect to others, even if they're not actually waiting for 00:01:00.549 --> 00:01:01.030 me. 00:01:01.030 --> 00:01:05.590 It was like saying, I don't value your time enough to better 00:01:05.590 --> 00:01:07.349 manage my own time. 00:01:07.670 --> 00:01:12.395 Or I've heard some people put it something like, my time is more 00:01:12.395 --> 00:01:14.314 important than your time. 00:01:14.635 --> 00:01:17.275 That's kind of what we're saying when we're late. 00:01:17.275 --> 00:01:19.594 You can apply something similar to podcasting. 00:01:19.754 --> 00:01:23.950 Just because you wasted your time, you can put quotations around 00:01:23.950 --> 00:01:26.670 that if you want, that doesn't mean you should waste your 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:28.989 audience's time too. Yes. 00:01:28.989 --> 00:01:34.429 Build consistency in your publishing schedule and doing so so 00:01:34.429 --> 00:01:37.924 that your audience can reasonably assume that if your episode 00:01:37.924 --> 00:01:42.165 doesn't publish at its normal time, you might have had to skip an 00:01:42.165 --> 00:01:43.844 episode that particular time. 00:01:43.924 --> 00:01:47.924 And your episodes don't have to be a consistent length of time 00:01:47.924 --> 00:01:48.644 either. 00:01:49.045 --> 00:01:52.084 And you can go back and listen to episode 401 for more 00:01:52.084 --> 00:01:53.045 information about that. 00:01:53.099 --> 00:01:57.659 It's okay if your episodes are of varying lengths, an hour long, 00:01:57.659 --> 00:02:01.099 15 minutes long, 30 minutes long, an hour. It's okay. 00:02:01.259 --> 00:02:03.819 So if you find yourself with limited time to prepare for a 00:02:03.819 --> 00:02:08.060 podcast, it is okay to make a shorter episode. 00:02:08.875 --> 00:02:13.275 Just like 5 minutes I can spend with my son is better than 00:02:13.275 --> 00:02:16.555 endlessly deferring promises to him and saying, oh, yeah. 00:02:16.555 --> 00:02:19.435 We'll spend hours together tomorrow. 00:02:19.594 --> 00:02:22.780 And then tomorrow comes around, I say, oh, we'll spend more time 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:24.379 together next week. 00:02:24.379 --> 00:02:27.099 And then next week comes around, and I keep deferring it over and 00:02:27.099 --> 00:02:28.139 over and over like that. 00:02:28.139 --> 00:02:32.939 It would be so much better to spend 5 minutes with him every day. 00:02:33.099 --> 00:02:35.979 I spend a lot more time than 5 minutes with him. 00:02:36.155 --> 00:02:41.914 But my point is that it's more important to give some time than 00:02:41.914 --> 00:02:45.835 to keep putting things off so you can try to make something 00:02:46.074 --> 00:02:46.875 perfect. 00:02:47.114 --> 00:02:50.394 That's what I struggled with when I first started podcasting is I 00:02:50.394 --> 00:02:54.050 kept putting things off because I wanted things to be perfect. 00:02:54.050 --> 00:02:58.050 So my first podcast didn't launch until 2 years after I wanted to 00:02:58.050 --> 00:02:59.409 start my first podcast. 00:02:59.489 --> 00:03:03.729 And even in that podcast, it took 2 years for me to get 9 00:03:03.729 --> 00:03:04.770 episodes out. 00:03:05.115 --> 00:03:08.395 Have a weird thing for 2 years in consistency, I guess. 00:03:08.555 --> 00:03:12.314 But bringing this back to podcasting, unless you have contractual 00:03:12.314 --> 00:03:15.115 obligations, like you have a sponsor or you're working for a 00:03:15.115 --> 00:03:20.155 company or anything like that, it is okay to skip an episode if 00:03:20.155 --> 00:03:25.319 you must. Number 2, always consider quality over quantity. 00:03:25.319 --> 00:03:27.159 This is related to my previous point. 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:30.599 It is more important to deliver quality to your audience than to 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:34.694 guarantee a consistently published episode or a certain number of 00:03:34.694 --> 00:03:37.814 episodes or a certain frequency or a certain length of your 00:03:37.814 --> 00:03:39.335 episodes. Yes. 00:03:39.335 --> 00:03:42.615 It is harder to grow and maintain an audience if you can't 00:03:42.615 --> 00:03:46.294 publish consistently. I know because I've been experiencing that. 00:03:46.669 --> 00:03:51.310 But I think it's actually harder to keep an audience when you 00:03:51.310 --> 00:03:56.430 sacrifice your quality for the sake of the quantity of episodes. 00:03:56.509 --> 00:04:00.189 Like, just getting an episode out because you want to have an 00:04:00.189 --> 00:04:04.194 episode every week and sacrificing the quality of that episode 00:04:04.194 --> 00:04:06.115 just to have something out there. 00:04:06.194 --> 00:04:10.194 Back in my days of TV show fan podcasting, I felt like some of 00:04:10.194 --> 00:04:13.715 the episodes of the TV show we were podcasting about fit this 00:04:13.715 --> 00:04:17.740 kind of thing where it felt like they just needed to get an 00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:21.579 episode out, and it didn't really move along the storyline. 00:04:21.579 --> 00:04:25.100 It wasn't really a good episode. It was just an episode. 00:04:25.259 --> 00:04:28.939 That's okay with meals where sometimes it's like, yeah. 00:04:28.939 --> 00:04:33.504 That was food. At least I won't die today from starvation. 00:04:33.504 --> 00:04:36.305 It wasn't great food, but that's what I needed. 00:04:36.305 --> 00:04:38.225 Well, let's be honest here. 00:04:38.225 --> 00:04:42.225 Your audience's survival probably doesn't depend on your podcast. 00:04:42.464 --> 00:04:45.810 So it's not like they are going to die of starvation if you don't 00:04:45.810 --> 00:04:46.850 publish an episode. 00:04:47.009 --> 00:04:52.209 So instead, think about your podcast in measures of quality, not 00:04:52.209 --> 00:04:52.930 quantity. 00:04:53.009 --> 00:04:56.129 Not the quantity of episodes you publish or the consistency of 00:04:56.129 --> 00:04:59.729 following a schedule or the quantity of minutes in those 00:04:59.729 --> 00:05:00.129 episodes. 00:05:00.394 --> 00:05:05.274 In fact, the measure of quality is almost completely unrelated to 00:05:05.274 --> 00:05:07.115 the measure of quantity. 00:05:07.435 --> 00:05:11.194 Even if you normally publish high quality 1 hour long episodes, 00:05:11.355 --> 00:05:15.355 your audience will appreciate any time you focus on the quality 00:05:15.355 --> 00:05:19.089 of your content more than trying to maintain that consistent 00:05:19.089 --> 00:05:21.569 length or even consistent schedule. 00:05:21.649 --> 00:05:24.689 I think of Seth Godin as a great demonstration of this. 00:05:24.689 --> 00:05:28.370 He's a very prolific author, speaker, and even podcaster. 00:05:28.884 --> 00:05:30.645 He knows how to use words. 00:05:30.725 --> 00:05:34.004 He knows how to go in-depth on subjects. 00:05:34.324 --> 00:05:36.884 But look over at his blog, which I have linked in the notes for 00:05:36.884 --> 00:05:40.084 this episode and in the chapter as well, and you'll see that his 00:05:40.084 --> 00:05:44.689 blog posts are usually quite short, often as short as we'd 00:05:44.689 --> 00:05:47.889 usually think ideal for social network posts. 00:05:48.050 --> 00:05:51.970 But most of his readers will agree that despite the brevity of 00:05:51.970 --> 00:05:55.889 those blog posts, they are always of great value. 00:05:56.495 --> 00:06:00.175 And I don't know how much time Seth Godin actually spends on each 00:06:00.175 --> 00:06:00.814 post. 00:06:00.895 --> 00:06:04.574 Considering his skill, his expertise, I really wouldn't be 00:06:04.574 --> 00:06:07.615 surprised if he doesn't spend much time on them because the time 00:06:07.615 --> 00:06:12.649 that he spends on the expertise is outside of the actual writing 00:06:12.649 --> 00:06:13.850 of the post. 00:06:14.169 --> 00:06:18.810 So he is speaking from vast experience and knowledge and able to 00:06:18.810 --> 00:06:22.569 give a lot of value in a short amount of time without having to 00:06:22.569 --> 00:06:27.610 spend a lot of time preparing that value because he's already 00:06:26.954 --> 00:06:30.714 spent that investment in other aspects of his professional life. 00:06:30.875 --> 00:06:35.834 So if you must cram for your podcast, focus on delivering high 00:06:35.834 --> 00:06:39.914 quality content with whatever time you have instead of trying to 00:06:39.914 --> 00:06:42.314 make the episode be a particular length. 00:06:42.769 --> 00:06:46.449 And number 3, adapt to prevent recurrences. 00:06:46.689 --> 00:06:50.370 Lastly, in this short, but I hope valuable podcast and advice in 00:06:50.370 --> 00:06:54.290 this episode, I recommend that you figure out what contributed or 00:06:54.290 --> 00:06:57.785 continues to contribute to your time management struggle because 00:06:57.785 --> 00:06:59.705 that's basically what this really is. 00:06:59.705 --> 00:07:03.545 It's about failing to manage your time well enough to do what 00:07:03.545 --> 00:07:04.585 you're trying to do. 00:07:04.585 --> 00:07:08.425 And then change what you must so it doesn't keep happening, and 00:07:08.425 --> 00:07:12.910 so you don't keep struggling. Now changing could be anything. 00:07:13.069 --> 00:07:15.230 It could be some other aspect of your life. 00:07:15.230 --> 00:07:17.069 It could be something related to the podcast. 00:07:17.069 --> 00:07:20.830 For example, you might need to lower the expectations on yourself 00:07:20.830 --> 00:07:24.805 for your own podcast instead of expecting, oh, I'm always going 00:07:24.805 --> 00:07:27.685 to go in-depth, and I'm always going to have an episode that's 30 00:07:27.685 --> 00:07:29.045 minutes long and whatever. 00:07:29.125 --> 00:07:32.084 You might need to lower that expectation, and you might even need 00:07:32.084 --> 00:07:34.245 to reduce some promises to your audience. 00:07:34.404 --> 00:07:38.069 Maybe you've promised that you're going to have a 1 hour long 00:07:38.069 --> 00:07:41.589 daily podcast episode, and at some point, you realize, I cannot 00:07:41.589 --> 00:07:43.670 maintain this and live. 00:07:43.750 --> 00:07:46.470 So you might need to come back to your audience and say, I love 00:07:46.470 --> 00:07:47.990 delivering value to you. 00:07:47.990 --> 00:07:50.574 And to keep doing that, I'm going to change the publishing 00:07:50.574 --> 00:07:53.535 schedule to instead of being daily, it will be weekly. 00:07:53.535 --> 00:07:55.535 And the episodes might even be shorter too. 00:07:55.535 --> 00:07:59.375 But I always want to focus on delivering value to you so that 00:07:59.375 --> 00:08:02.894 every episode you get, you will have something actionable and 00:08:02.894 --> 00:08:03.694 valuable. 00:08:03.694 --> 00:08:08.310 That is so much better than promising just to be there every day. 00:08:08.470 --> 00:08:11.910 You're promising instead that when you are there, you will be 00:08:11.910 --> 00:08:15.509 there fully and deliver what your audience wants most. 00:08:15.750 --> 00:08:18.790 Another aspect that you can look at is your life. 00:08:18.790 --> 00:08:22.675 Think about, are you doing your work, your responsibilities 00:08:22.914 --> 00:08:24.194 before your play? 00:08:24.354 --> 00:08:28.034 And your podcast could be that play thing, or it could be the 00:08:28.034 --> 00:08:28.675 work thing. 00:08:28.675 --> 00:08:31.714 And it really depends on your perspective of your podcast and 00:08:31.714 --> 00:08:34.274 where it fits into the priorities of your life. 00:08:34.569 --> 00:08:38.169 And always, I've said this many times before, your life should 00:08:38.169 --> 00:08:40.329 always be the higher priority. 00:08:40.490 --> 00:08:45.129 Your family, your job, your faith, those not in that specific 00:08:45.129 --> 00:08:48.169 order, but those are the things that should be higher priorities 00:08:48.169 --> 00:08:49.129 than your podcast. 00:08:49.424 --> 00:08:52.945 So if your podcast has to suffer so that those more important 00:08:52.945 --> 00:08:56.945 things continue to survive and thrive, then let your podcast 00:08:56.945 --> 00:08:59.585 suffer. The other things are more important. 00:08:59.825 --> 00:09:03.399 But if you're trying to still get a podcast out, then keep these 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:04.360 things in mind. 00:09:04.360 --> 00:09:08.040 And remember that the best thing your audience can say about your 00:09:08.040 --> 00:09:11.639 podcast is not anything about how consistently you publish your 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:15.639 episodes or how long or how short they are, but for your audience 00:09:15.639 --> 00:09:19.774 to rave about how good your episodes are. 00:09:19.934 --> 00:09:23.375 So adjust your schedule, shift your priorities, delay less 00:09:23.375 --> 00:09:27.054 important things, or alter your goals with your podcast so that 00:09:27.054 --> 00:09:31.790 you can deliver the best podcast gift possible to your audience. 00:09:32.190 --> 00:09:35.389 Before I go, special thanks to Brian Inspiner who gave a total of 00:09:35.389 --> 00:09:39.309 1,127 Satoshis across a couple of episodes. 00:09:39.309 --> 00:09:40.910 And also special thanks to you. 00:09:40.990 --> 00:09:44.509 If you go listen to my episode with Dave Jackson on the future of 00:09:44.509 --> 00:09:47.254 podcasting, where we actually instead of talking about the 00:09:47.254 --> 00:09:50.934 future, we decided to focus on the present of podcasting and 00:09:50.934 --> 00:09:53.335 talking about some latest podcasting developments. 00:09:53.335 --> 00:09:56.535 And we would like your feedback on that approach and what you'd 00:09:56.535 --> 00:09:59.975 like to see us talk about more over at futureofpodcasting.net. 00:09:59.975 --> 00:10:01.095 I've got that link in the notes. 00:10:01.389 --> 00:10:05.549 And I'd love for you to try PodChapters free for 7 days to 00:10:05.549 --> 00:10:10.110 transcribe chapter and tag your podcast in about 30 seconds. 00:10:10.110 --> 00:10:11.789 That's how long it takes me on average. 00:10:11.789 --> 00:10:15.365 And I just recently launched a new time saving feature where even 00:10:15.365 --> 00:10:17.924 if you have only 1 podcast, but especially if you have multiple 00:10:17.924 --> 00:10:21.445 podcasts, you could already save presets for each of those 00:10:21.445 --> 00:10:24.964 different types of podcasts that you have, where when you upload 00:10:24.964 --> 00:10:28.799 an episode, then you choose a preset, and that applies to how the 00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:32.000 transcript is generated as well as certain tags are prefilled for 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:33.360 you and some of that information. 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:37.759 But now you can even set those presets to auto apply. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:41.679 So if you do multiple podcasts, like, completely different shows, 00:10:42.095 --> 00:10:46.254 but they all follow us the same kind of file name pattern for 00:10:46.254 --> 00:10:50.174 each show, then you can have those presets auto apply. 00:10:50.174 --> 00:10:52.654 This is even helpful if you only do 1 show. 00:10:52.654 --> 00:10:56.909 Like, all of my episodes always start with t a p, and then it has 00:10:56.909 --> 00:10:59.149 the episode number dot m p 3. 00:10:59.149 --> 00:11:03.070 So I set my preset to auto apply for whenever my filename starts 00:11:03.070 --> 00:11:04.669 with t a p. 00:11:04.830 --> 00:11:08.350 So then it automatically applies the the Audacity to Podcast 00:11:08.350 --> 00:11:12.065 preset, which helps set some of the transcription settings as 00:11:12.065 --> 00:11:14.065 well as some of the ID 3 tags. 00:11:14.065 --> 00:11:17.424 So it's all there for me, and I don't even have to select the 00:11:17.424 --> 00:11:18.625 preset anymore. 00:11:18.704 --> 00:11:21.904 It just automatically applies because it recognizes that's the 00:11:21.904 --> 00:11:23.824 pattern that I've set for my filename. 00:11:23.824 --> 00:11:27.019 So you can try that free over at podchapters.com. 00:11:27.019 --> 00:11:29.740 It's free for 7 days. I'd love for you to try it. 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:34.220 Podchapters.com helps you make chapters for your podcast and tag 00:11:34.300 --> 00:11:38.460 and transcribe and all of this supporting podcasting 2 as well as 00:11:38.460 --> 00:11:42.975 some legacy formats. Try it over at podchapters.com. 00:11:43.054 --> 00:11:45.695 Now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of 00:11:45.695 --> 00:11:49.054 the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own 00:11:49.054 --> 00:11:52.095 podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J. 00:11:52.095 --> 00:11:55.639 Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast.com. Thanks for listening.