How Mignon Fogarty Launched a World-Famous Podcast Network and Became Grammar Girl - The Busy Creator Podcast 67

Mignon Fogarty (@MignonFogarty) is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips, the multi-faceted publishing website that produces dozens of topic-specific podcasts based on several characters, the most famous of which is Grammar Girl.

Since creating the Grammar Girl Podcast, Mignon has authored 7 books, collected a host of podcasting awards, and recently assumed the Donald W. Reynolds Chair in Media Entrepreneurship at the University of Nevada Reno.

Our conversation follows Mignon's origins in online business, how she leveraged her early podcast success and existing personal relationships to create a broader network, and how she still prefers to do certain production elements herself.

Show Notes & Links

Mignon Fogarty is a professor — not a doctor — but her students call her by her first name

Britons will call Professors as such, whereas the Americans favour Doctor, when that's available. e.g. Professor Alice Roberts (@DrAliceRoberts), a medical doctor and professor at the University of Birmingham

"There's a lot of power in networks"

—Mignon Fogarty

Tweet This

Grammar Girl (podcast) began as a hobby project whilst Mignon worked as a technical writer. Her clients kept making the same mistakes.

Grammar Girl reach #2 in iTunes within 6 weeks

Modern Manners Guy, Mighty Mommy, Money Girl, et al. were Mignon's friends/neighbours whom she recruited for spin-off shows

The Wall St. Journal picked Grammar Girl as the Web Pick of the Day - 4 Nov. 2006

"New York Publishers" (a synecdoche, of sorts; a toponym, more specifically)

MacMillan Publishing wanted a digital initiative; they partnered

Mignon chose podcasting over blogging alone because she "really loved it"

SEO-friendly blog posts helped folks discover episodes and the show in general

A post on Reddit, in the ELI5 subreddit, regarding colours as last names

"Redheads vs. Orangeheads" a post on Grammar Girl regarding origins of the colour orange in English

Gretchen McCollugh, PhD

Mignon was always "an entrepreneur at heart"; she and a college roommate sold hair accessories

Prescott misses Aardvark and Squiggly, characters from her show

Grammar Girl now has segments — Intro, Quick and Dirty Tip, The Meaty Middle, Tidbits, Announcements, Ads

Mignon uses content from her books and newsletter for podcast content

Many English phrases originate from train talk

Idioms

Fast and Loose derives from an old carnival game

Mr. Adolphe Sax, inventor of the Saxophone

Tall Poppy Syndrome, an Australian phrase

Malapropism

"People write in different ways for different media."

—Mignon Fogarty

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"What texting is, despite the fact that it involves the brute mechanics of something that we call writing, is fingered speech."

—John McWhorter

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"u" has replaced "you" as a pronoun, even in written schoolwork

Andrea Lunsford, of The Writing Center at Stanford, concludes there aren't more errors because of teh Internet

Affect/Effect or They're/Their/There

Google trends allows you to search for phrases like "on accident"

The New York Times could find Haikus within the stories

Google Ngrams to find first appearances

Google News Archive

The Teddy Bear, inspired by Theodore Roosevelt

"The Internet is [still] mostly a written medium."

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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The link between language & design: language → grammar → punctuation → typography → design

The Oxford Comma

"Visual Language" or "Brand Voice" are types of designer personifications

Professor Fogarty Mignon teaches Media Entrepreneurship & Social Journalism 

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty on Amazon and on Audible

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing by Mignon Fogarty on Audible

101 Misused Words by Mignon Fogarty on Amazon

101 Words to Sound Smart by Mignon Fogarty on Amazon

101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time by Mignon Fogarty on Amazon

Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know by Mignon Fogarty on Amazon

"Applesaucing", Prescott's term for re-purposing and re-publishing your content

How Mignon organises and plans a book. Very cool[av_video src='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnSIMqtsgLY' format='16-9' width='16' height='9']

Mignon has written 7 books in 6 years — in your face, Todd Henry!

Fellini

Information Diets

When recording from her home, Mignon uses a walk-in closet with a snowball mic

 Mignon Fogarty on Twitter

 Mignon Fogarty on Instagram

 Mignon Fogarty on Google+

 Grammar Girl on Twitter

 Grammar Girl on Facebook

 Grammar Girl on SoundCloud

Mignon Fogarty tells her story to Leo Laporte on Triangulation, episode 117[av_video src='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8ZH_cdl9M' format='16-9' width='16' height='9']

Tools

Snowball Mic

Pinterest

Trello

Freedcamp

Slack

MacBook Air

Large Apple Monitor

iPod Touch (for social media)

Boomerang for Gmail

Clammr

Audacity

Techniques

Use the script from your podcast as a blog post

Use guest writers for narrow subject matters, especially if they have a PhD in that topic

Assign content and schedule shows about 6-7 weeks in advance

Edit your script for pronunciation — some things are hard to say out loud

Use Pinterest to promote a podcast

Set deadlines for yourself

Hire help to manage you (especially for writing)

Keep two separate phones for your separate social media accounts

Habits

Delegate, especially social media

Uses content from her books and newsletter for podcast content

Workout every morning, before lunch rather than first thing

Make sure to drink caffeine with lunch

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