Whenever someone asks me for advice on their podcast ideas, there’s always one thing I say before we ever start talking about equipment, software, or technique:
Don’t publish your first episode, until you’ve started recording the eleventh.
Why?
Production of a quality podcast takes a lot more work than people realize. You can’t just show up, gather around a microphone, and do the thing. A good podcast takes planning, coordinating, maybe even some rehearsing. Going through the motions of getting ten episodes ready to go will be an education unto itself. And you should give yourself the luxury of that education.
Educate Yourself
Ten episodes will help you establish a rhythm and a production process. You’ll figure out where the speed bumps and roadblocks are. You’ll have an opportunity to learn from your mistakes before you ever make anything public. But more importantly, you’ll learn if you have the wherewithal to do this thing with some sense of quality and longevity.
In A Word: Sustainability
Podfade is a real thing. Of the hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, many don’t publish more than fourteen episodes. In 2018 Blubrry CEO Todd Cochrane said 75% of podcasts are no longer in production. In 2019, almost 30,000 podcasts stopped releasing new episodes.
Going through the motions of doing ten episodes will help you avoid podfade.
It could be that you ask to guest-host or collaborate for a few episodes on an already established podcast. (There are real benefits to doing this.). It could be that you just want to produce ten episodes of some static content that you keep on your website as some kind of reference.
There is nothing wrong with either of these options, but it does help to know how far you want to go before you go through all the trouble of inventing and producing a podcast from scratch, only to drop it two months into your production schedule because you realize you don’t have the time for it, or can’t get guests to commit, or even that your passion for the subject matter may fade with time…
Don’t Publish Until…
So this is why I say: Don’t publish your first episode, until you’ve started recording the eleventh. Get the education that producing ten episodes will afford you, and move forward powerfully from there.
Contact Podcast Wizardry
If you’re thinking about podcasting but aren’t sure where to start, we can help. Please send us a message so we can put together the right production for your purposes. Together, we’ll make sure your story sounds good (quality), and is easy to understand (resonates with your audience).