School of Podcasting: Expert Tips for Launching and Growing Your Podcast

Today we talk about setting up a premium podcast feed, what tools that I've used, (Thanks to Andrew for the question), in our interview segment we talk with Scott Eiland who start the baseball experience a little over a year ago. That podcast lead to him creating the "This week in wrestling" podcast. That platform lead him to now getting paid to produce another sports based show. It didn't happen over night, and there were some lessons learned along the way. Scott Eiland understands the power of podcasting.

I've talked about the Levelator software before. It's good for leveling out audio where there are slight differences in volume between a podcast host and guest. It works on both Mac and PC. I learned about Auphonic at the New Media Expo. It's a pretty cool FREE tool, and that is web based and performs many of the same tasks that the levelator software does (and more). You can process a wav file or an mp3 (or other files) and that goes to output as well. It will add ID3 tags to your files and if you are trying to create chapters in an mp3 file it can do that as well. Check it out at www.auphonic.com

Thanks to everyone who has purchased the book More Podcast Money. I had a blast writing it and I'm glad people are finding it helpful. If you search books for "podcast" it is currently ranked #3. For more information go to www.morepodcastmoney.com

Andrew  asked about creating a premium podcast where one part would be free, and the other (deeper) episode would be premium. In regards to protecting the files, I have used Wishlist in the past, but when I wanted to "Drip" content, there is nothing that beats the features and support of Digital Access Pass. It's not the cheapest tool on the planet, but its always getting better, and has TOP NOTCH support.  I liked the community around wishlist, but for me I wanted the dripping feature. I've also used Magic Members which wasn't bad (dripping) but not as easy as Digital Access Pass.

The other thing to think about is if you are breaking up an interview into parts, make sure each part can stand alone. I use to listen to a podcast that would just fade out the interview in the middle and ask you to subscribe. I found this just frustrated me. Also when you first start out you won't have an audience. Thus, you may be creating content for an audience that doesn't exist yet. With a tool like Digital Access Pass you can these in advance and have years worth of content ready to "Drip" when the audience does show up.

Want to not only hear Dave Jackson but SEE him (with "Saturday hair!" ) check out this interview with Jim Collison on The Average Guy Network.

Dave comes back for a second episode on Music Radio Creative Podcast with Mike Russle where they talk about the future of podcasting.

Smart Passive Income

Start Taking and Recording Today

Jay Mohr "Mohr Stories"

Mark Gungor

Adam Corolla

Daniel J Lewis of the Audacity to podcast

Nick Suberling of Start Taking and Recording Today

Cable to connect Audio Technica 2100 to your Roland R-05 see it here

Robert Chazz Chute of "All that Chazz"

In today’s show we talk about the power of podcasting, as I talk about a person who purchased a fitness program after listening to one of my podcasts (and how integrity comes into play). I talk about some cool WordPress themes and some great insights into podcast promotion from Max Flight.

I have been doing the Logical Weight Loss podcast for three years. I did some podcast consulting for David Greenwalt who turned out to be a fitness guru. He was nice enough to let me check out his Lifestyle University and  I liked what he was doing. He just launched his once a year class Lifestyle 180, and I decide to join and have Dave on my show. It wasn’t a giant commercial, but instead we just provided some facts and let the audience decide if they wanted to join me. The good news is a listener heard my podcast, and immediately signed up (and I earned $56 commission).

In the past, I’ve used Thesis until they updated to version 2 (and I feel they ruined it). I purchased iThemes Builder (which I used in the past) only to find their “Style Manager” had a problem. So I went in search of a drag and drop WordPress theme and I found Pagelines. This at is a free WordPress theme that is free (do a search in your WordPress install for pagelines). The free version has a ton of easy to customize features. The pro version is $139.

The Builder Theme is $80 and it allows you to customize the colors, fonts, etc in their Style Manager. Then you can drag and drop your layout. It makes it super easy to design your website. Their are TONS of “Child Themes” that you can get access to and add to your website (A Child Theme is a premade layout and style that can save you time).

Max flight produces the Airplane Geeks and Podcasting Passion podcasts. Today we talk about how new podcasters learn that creating the podcast is only part of the process. You need to get the word out about your podcast. Everyone always says, “Great Content” is the best tool for growing your audience. I always have said that you need to figure out who your audience is, figure out where they are, and go there and make friends. Then tell them about your podcast. Today Max provides some tips on how you can get your audience involved with helping to spread the word.

We hear how he is using Facebook, Questions, and regular segments from his audience into his Airplane Geeks. Max also produces the Podcasting Passion podcast

Speaking of podcast promotion, booktourradio.com and refocuspodcast.com to the podcastclicks.com website (a banner exchange program for podcasts only). We had over 14,837,913 impressions last year and we delivered 182,923 clicks to their websites.