[TheChamp-Sharing]

SHOW NOTES

Quick overview of this week's show:

• How I plan, record, and publish this podcast
• The equipment and software I use
• How podcasts helped me build my personal brand

TRANSCRIPT

In this week’s episode, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of The Writer’s Journey Podcast and talk about how I design, write, and record this show. Stay tuned.

***

Hello, and welcome to episode 16 of the podcast. I thought I’d take some time this week to talk about how I record this show.

Believe it or not, this podcast is a pretty minimal effort for me.

I only do podcasts if I can make them easy on myself. Otherwise, they can eat up a lot of your time with not much benefit in return.

So I’m going to walk through every step of how I do this show.

 

Designing Each Episode

 

I broke the show into weekly themes. This helped keep some variety while also giving listeners an idea of what to expect.

The first week of the month, I talk about the writing life.

The second week of the month, I read a page from my sketchbook.

The third week of the month, I go behind the scenes of something in my career.

The fourth week of the month, I give an update on my writing progress.

My ultimate goal is to be able to turn on my microphone and just talk.

Because I’m doing a solo podcast, I have to work a lot harder to keep your attention since I don’t have a co-host or a person to interview.

So to do this, I break each show into segments, and my secret is that I’m usually doing something to catch your ear every 60-90 seconds, which equates to about 150-200 words.

[INSERT SOMEONE SAYING “WHOA”]

See what I did there?

When I’m writing the scripts for each episode, I start thinking about what kind of sound effects and audio I want to use. I imagine every episode as a three-act play, with a beginning, middle, and end. If I need a sound effect, I grab a public domain sound from Freesound.org.

I also think in 150 word increments and evaluate where I can “break” the content up. That could be a sound effect, a joke, a turn of thought, music, whatever. I find that small cues at certain intervals keep you listening. It’s called a pattern interrupt, and something I learned to do quite effectively with video.

I break up the larger segments of the show with a transition sound, which you’ll hear…right now.

 

Writing the Scripts

 

Since I have a pretty good format established, the next step is to write the script.

I set a hard stop for myself at around 1,000 words, sometimes a little more. I find that this number translates nicely into about a 5-7 minute show.

It usually takes me about 20 minutes to write, edit, and proofread each script, which is a little over an hour for the month’s episodes.

I have fun when I’m writing these episodes, and it takes nothing for me to sit down and write 1,000 words about myself, my writing, or my thoughts on something. I don’t have to think twice about it.

And because I am a one-draft writer, I trust myself to come up with the best thought the first time, and I spend only a few minutes reviewing what I wrote.

 

Recording and Editing the Show

 

I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, take a shower, sit down in front of my Blue Yeti microphone, which is on my desk. I open Adobe Audition, the program I use to record and edit.

I hit the record button and I start talking.

If an episode is 5 minutes, it’ll take me 6-7 minutes to record because I’ll occasionally make a mistake.

I then edit the audio, cut out the mistakes, do a few engineering things to the audio to make voice sound louder and fuller.

For example, here’s a sample of how I sound before sound editing: [CLIP OF MICHAEL SPEAKING WITH BAD SOUND]

You can tell it’s pretty quiet and not quite so full.

And here’s what that same audio sounds like after editing. [CLIP OF MICHAEL SPEAKING WITH GOOD SOUND]

Once I’m done editing, I cut the audio into smaller chunks so I can share it on Anchor and share snippets of each show on social media.

Then, I upload the audio to Libsyn, my audio hosting company.

I also have a template blog post that I use for each episode. I copy and paste my script into WordPress and that’s all I need to do.

I use Canva to create a thumbnail image for my blog. I have a simple template for this, and I grab images from a royalty-free website to add some color to it.

I schedule the podcast and blog post to go out around midnight on Thursday.

I also have social media automated to share every time I release a new episode, so I don’t have to do anything with this.

 

And That’s a Wrap

 

That’s it. From a monthly perspective, I can design, write, record, and publish all of my podcast episodes in 2-3 hours.

Once I become more successful, I can scale this and outsource it to someone. When I do that, we’re talking around a 1 hour per month commitment for what I think is a pretty high value show.

All of that to bring good content you to fine folks.

If you’re interested in starting a podcast, you can check the show notes for links to all the equipment and programs I use.

If you have a message, then I recommend looking into podcasting. It’s a wonderful, cost-effective way to build an audience, just like I’m doing for this show.

 

My Podcasting Gear

Blue Yeti USB Microphone (Affiliate Link): https://amzn.to/2I7voeX

Adobe Creative Cloud (which contains Adobe Audition): https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html

FREE Alternative to Adobe (Audacity): https://www.audacityteam.org/

Free Sound Effects: https://www.freesound.org

Canva: http://www.canva.com 

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me.” – Roy Lichtenstein

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!