The Independent Creator's Playbook

There's a question I get asked a lot, maybe more than any other question related to podcasting except, “Is the blue snowball mic ok?” No, it's not. The question is, “My podcast isn't getting any traction. How long should I expect to wait before I start getting feedback? Should I quit if no one cares?”

If your podcast isn't getting any traction or getting new listeners, I would take a long, hard look at a four things:

How good is your content?

Are you engaging with your audience?

How good is your audio quality and delivery?

Are you writing enough for your podcast episodes?

I don't think “How can I get more downloads?" is quite the right question. The question you should be asking yourself is, “How can I make my show better and more valuable for the audience I do have?” So that's what I'm going to share with you in this episode.

What if I told you that you could build an engaged audience who listens to your podcast every week, sends you email and feedback, gives you ideas for topics, and shares your show with their friends. You'd like that, right? Of course you would.

In this episode I'm sharing ways that you can increase the engagement you get from your audience. By the end of the show, you'll have some new ideas for what you can do to pull your silent admirers out of their shells.

If you've thought about starting a podcast but haven't yet, this episode is for you. I want to address some of the reasons and fears you might have that are keeping you from starting a podcast or any kind of creative output that can help you grow an audience and establish you as an authority in your field.

My goal is to break you out of the mindset that you might be in (the one that is keeping you from starting), and motivate you to start taking the steps towards launching your podcast.

I don't like my speaking voice. What can I do about it?

I've been thinking about this a lot since I started podcasting. It's not that I don't like my voice, but I've noticed that I have some speaking habits that I need to work on. I know this is something that a lot of people struggle with, because I get emails from people who tell me that they don't like the way their voice sounds or that they think they aren't a good speaker.

This is a vicious cycle that you can fall into. If you don't feel confident about your voice, you will speak timidly, which makes other people think you aren't confident, so they won't pay attention to you, which re-enforces your belief that your voice isn't good, and on and on. See how this circle feeds itself?

You have to break out of this cycle. You need to know that it's ok that you aren't a professional speaker yet. No one is born with a natural talent for speaking. It's something you can be taught, and like many things that can be taught, you can teach yourself. So if this is important to you, invest time in learning how to be better at it. It's a process.

Every time you talk to someone in person or on a podcast, you have a chance to improve and do better than the last time. It's up to you to take the initiative and look for ways to improve your speech.

Launching a podcast has never been easier: There are tons of tutorials out there that will walk you through the steps of recording and publishing a show. The real challenge is keeping it going.

Showing up every week, coming up with content and putting out new episodes is time consuming. You might find that it's a bigger time commitment than you initially anticipated.

This is where a podcast editor can help. A good editor can save you hours of time every week by handling the editing and maybe even the show notes and admin work. If you're interested in hiring someone to help you produce your podcast, there are some important things you'll need to know. That's what I'm sharing in this episode.

You can record a local audio file with Skype now. Isn't that cool? https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA12395/how-do-i-record-my-skype-calls

Interview shows are one of the most popular styles of podcasting. If you podcast long enough, you're probably going to end up talking with someone over Skype, and you're going to talk with guests who don't have good microphones and don't understand how important audio quality is, or what they can do to prevent common issues like background noise or room echo. It's your responsibility to clearly explain what you need from your guest. If you leave it up to chance, don't be surprised if they send you a recording with poor audio quality.

I'm fed up with listening to podcasts where the guests sound like crap, so I decided to do an episode about how to get a better audio recordings from your guests (or even your co-hosts).

This episode was originally about hosting a podcast and how to get your show into Apple Podcasts and other places, but the information is outdated now so I'd recommend skipping it.

I now recommend Simplecast for hosting, and here's a tutorial about how to get your show into iTunes (now called Apple Podcasts), Google, Spotify, and the other podcast directories: https://help.simplecast.com/en/articles/2698480-how-to-publish-your-podcast-on-the-popular-podcast-apps

This week I'm joined by special guests Sean and Laci McCabe to talk about how to supercharge your podcast with writing. I've seen how much value listeners get from the show notes for the seanwes podcast, so I wanted to bring Sean and Laci on the show to talk about how to find topics for episodes that will resonate with your listeners, and how to write show notes full of valuable information that will help grow your audience.

In the first half of this episode, Sean shares tips on how to finds topics that resonate with your audience, and how to prepares for episodes by writing outlines. In the second half, Laci – who is now the full-time show note writer for seanwes – shares her tips on writing show notes after the recording stops.

This episode is jam packed with great tips about how to use writing to make your podcast better. I hope it inspires you to take a little more time to prepare for your shows and invest time in writing great show notes that stand alone as valuable posts that your listeners will love and share with other people.

This week I'm joined by special guests Sean and Laci McCabe to talk about how to supercharge your podcast with writing.

I've seen how much value listeners get from the show notes for the seanwes podcast, so I wanted to bring Sean and Laci on the show to talk about how to find topics for episodes that will resonate with your listeners, and how to write show notes full of valuable information that will help grow your audience.

Sean started writing long and detailed show notes somewhere around episode 50 (he currently has over 170 episodes and shows no signs of slowing down). In the first half of this episode, Sean shares tips on how to finds topics that resonate with your audience, and how to prepares for episodes by writing outlines. In the second half, Laci – who is now the full-time show note writer for seanwes – shares her tips on writing show notes after the recording stops.

This episode is jam packed with great tips about how to use writing to make your podcast better. I hope it inspires you to take a little more time to prepare for your shows and invest time in writing great show notes that stand alone as valuable posts that your listeners will love and share with other people.

Editing is an essential part of producing a high quality podcast, but editing can be time consuming and difficult if you aren’t experienced with professional audio editing software like Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, or Adobe Audition.

When I recorded this episode, I was spending roughly 20 hours every week editing podcasts in Logic Pro X. Over the course of the previous 3 years, I had learned a lot about how to edit a podcast quickly with Logic.

When I was new to podcast editing, Youtube tutorials and blog posts were helpful, but I learned a ton just by running into various problems and learning how to solve them.

My goal for this show is to share everything I’ve learned about audio, editing podcasts, and podcasting in general. Some of the content I want to share is better suited to screencasts (so you can see what I’m doing, which makes it easier to understand), but this podcast is a great place to share how I think about editing, which is what I’m going to try to do in this episode.