PodCraft | How to Podcast & Craft a Fantastic Show

In a world of AI chatbots, it's easy to have your shownotes drafted up in an instant. But how do you create shownotes that are actually good?* That's one of the questions we'll be answering on today's episode, along with considerations around audio ads, variety shows, and email list signups. 

Thanks to our listeners who sent in this week's voice questions. Why not submit one yourself? 

Listener Podcasts

• Family Histories Podcast
• She Needs Grit
• All About Home Construction
• Tweet Trends

Resources Mentioned

• The guide to podcast trailers
• Where to advertise your podcast
• How to create great podcast show notes
• The IndiePod Community
• Rephonic's 3D audience graph
• SparkToro

*Alright, so these shownotes aren't exactly mindblowing. But they do the trick, do they not? ;-)

We love getting voice questions from our listeners and members of the IndiePod Community. On this episode, we've four more to answer, courtesy of: 

• Matt Hepburn - Interview Bookers
• James C Taylor - My Amazing Woman
• Flloyd Kennedy - Am I Old Yet?
• Michell Harris - The Conversing Nurse Podcast

In our last episode, we talked through some of our podcast shortcomings. This time around, we dig into two voice clips where listeners Marty and John highlight some areas they'd like to improve.

John's podcast is called Build a Presentation Muscle, whilst Marty's is Nepal Now. 

Please send us your own voice clip and tell us what "podcasty stuff" YOU'RE not very good at. We might even be able to help! 

And, for Matthew's charity appeal, here's a link to the JustGiving page. 

If you're going to teach others how to podcast, does that mean you need to be brilliant at everything yourself? Well, hopefully not. Colin and Matthew can think of a few gaps in their skill sets. On this episode, they talk through them and explore ways they might be able to improve. 

They're also asking the question, what are YOU not very good at? Please send us your voice feedback, and we'll try our best to feature it on a future episode! 

Following on from our previous episode, some of the advice given was "do less". But what if you want to do more, in the most efficient way possible? That's precisely the purpose of this episode, where we talk through some of our top tips to ship your show. 

Also mentioned: Our Podcast Show London review 

Working in Seasons

Read about how to plan a season, along with every b enefit you’ll get.

Sailing Solo

Read about the solo format, and its p ros and cons.

Then, find out how to create a great monologue. 

Smart Repurposing

Your first step here is to try recording a blog post in audio form. Give it a go!

Then, find out how to script & present content for smart repurposing in future. 

Read how to create a blog post that’s easy to repurpose smartly. 

Going Live the Right Way

Try recording a live session with the following structure: 1. Welcomes and content sourcing, 2. Solid content, directed by audience feed in section 1, 3. Q&A and Goodbyes.

During sections 1 and 3, you run audience interaction, and during section 2, you just deliver content, no interaction. Then, repurpose section 2 alone for a great audience directed, smartly repurposed podcast episode!

Interview Booking Systems

See how I run my interview booking routine. 

I use Book Like a Boss for all my book ings.

Planning in Notion

Use Notion.us, like me , to create well structured content series plans, and to organise all the material around it, from interviewee research to sponsor deals.

Interview Prep

Read Out on the Wire by Jessica Abe l for great advice on how to get great stories from people.

Plus, read the following article:

How to prepare for a great interview 

Live Recording

You can record right into the Alitu Podcast Maker app, and have it do the cleanup and add your music, automatically.

Vocal Warmups

Our guide to the best vocal warmups for podcasters.  

Do you ever find yourself thinking, "I have so much time to work on my podcast, I struggle to even fill it"? 

No? 

Well, let's see what we can do about that, then. Here are nine great podcasting time-saving tips for you to try out. 

1. Batch recording 
2. Use fewer tools
3. Do fewer things
4. Don't multitask (and, time block)
5. Click/MEE editing 
6. Speeded-up editing
7. Use templates
8. Utilise dynamic ads
9. Automate and outsource wherever possible

Download numbers can vary from platform to platform, which causes frustration and confusion among podcasters. Why do some services show much higher numbers than others? Are they interpreting downloads differently? And what else can we do to measure the performance of our podcasts?  

We'd also love to get some voice questions in for future episodes. Go to thepodcasthost.com/question to submit. If we play yours on the next episode, we'll send you a copy of The Podcast Host Planner and our Podcast Growth book.  

Open podcasting has always been vitally important to how the industry works. Still, it’s hard to talk about without getting super technical or glazing over in the middle of the conversation. This is because those conversations often start with the most tech-savvy industry folks – not your average podcaster – and certainly not your average podcast listener.

But open podcasting is crucial to our industry, and the way things are moving, it’s at threat. So much so that a coalition known as the Podcast Standards Project has assembled on a mission to protect it. 

In this episode, we’ll look at why open podcasting is so important to independent podcasters and what we can do to protect it.

Check out our full blog post: Why We Need To Protect Open Podcasting (& How You Can Help!) 

Open podcasting has always been vitally important to how the industry works. Still, it’s hard to talk about without getting super technical or glazing over in the middle of the conversation. This is because those conversations often start with the most tech-savvy industry folks – not your average podcaster – and certainly not your average podcast listener.

But open podcasting is crucial to our industry, and the way things are moving, it’s at threat. So much so that a coalition known as the Podcast Standards Project has assembled on a mission to protect it. 

In this episode, we’ll look at why open podcasting is so important to independent podcasters and what we can do to protect it.

Check out our full blog post: Why We Need To Protect Open Podcasting (& How You Can Help!) 

If you’ve ever used a smartphone to take a GPS-enabled audio tour, such as one available through Voicemap, you’ve used locative media. Locative media is a way to share digital content via GPS triggers in the real world to increase personal interaction. It puts digital content and real places together to make an experience greater than the sum of its parts. On this episode, we talk about how you can utilise it to help enhance and grow your podcast. 

• Link to our full guide on Locative Media & GPS Audio 
• Season 17 of Podcraft 
• Submit a Question to Podcraft