Unfortunately, the confidence one gains with podcasting bestows neither
Speaker:invulnerability nor immortality.
Speaker:When you're taken down - or perhaps out - do you have a good
Speaker:plan to inform your audience?
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Speaker:Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Speaker:Ultimately, all of us will stop podcasting - you, me, everybody.
Speaker:On a long enough timescale, one day, our audience will never
Speaker:hear our voices ever again.
Speaker:Or, at least, we'll be unable to, for whatever reason, publish an episode
Speaker:the way we've published episodes for an extended period of time.
Speaker:We likely want to let people know what's up.
Speaker:How well are you prepared for that?
Speaker:And, no, this is not me trying to sell you life insurance.
Speaker:Just me helping you think about what you can do when the thing
Speaker:that you do, you can do no more.
Speaker:Now, broadly speaking, I think there are three approaches to how you
Speaker:can plan for this eventual reality.
Speaker:Number one, and for the majority of podcasters is do nothing.
Speaker:Do nothing because it's going to happen, and whatever it is that's happened
Speaker:that is keeping you from podcasting or keeping you from talking to your
Speaker:audience is likely keeping you from doing lots of other things as well.
Speaker:So for most podcasters, explaining their absence during this time of ultimate
Speaker:crisis is pretty low on the priority list, especially if you're podcasting
Speaker:as a hobby or a fun exploration of your creative side, or some other
Speaker:less-than-totally-serious prospect that got you into podcasting, which,
Speaker:again, describes most podcasters.
Speaker:The second option is do something.
Speaker:Maybe not everything, we'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker:But first, do something because surely you can do better than doing nothing right?
Speaker:Now, the good news is because you are a podcaster odds are that you
Speaker:know at least one other podcaster.
Speaker:So in a time of extreme crisis, someone that you know really well who's also
Speaker:into podcasting could probably step up and post an update on your behalf.
Speaker:But that assumes one thing, you've actually done some planning and
Speaker:designated who that person is.
Speaker:Do they know how to publish an episode, even if it's just an episode
Speaker:of them explaining your situation?
Speaker:Do they know how to do that on your particular platform?
Speaker:We can all do it, but do we know the right way to do it?
Speaker:Do we have all the access and the codes?
Speaker:Of course, before that, that assumes that you've set some parameters with
Speaker:the regular people in your life, the non-podcasters, so they know how to
Speaker:contact the person you've designated as your Do Something Person on your podcast.
Speaker:Lots to do there, and that's just do something.
Speaker:The third way to approach this is do everything because there's several
Speaker:flaws in that do something plan.
Speaker:The biggest one being that you probably publish more than just
Speaker:an audio episode of your podcast.
Speaker:You publish more than that most likely.
Speaker:More to the point, there might be people who consume your published content
Speaker:who rarely listen to your podcast.
Speaker:Maybe they prefer to watch the videos that you publish on YouTube,
Speaker:whether they're full videos or clips.
Speaker:Who's going to post an update to YouTube if it's not an automatic
Speaker:publishing from your podcast?
Speaker:Maybe your audience only reads the articles that you create
Speaker:out of your podcast episodes.
Speaker:Who's going to update them?
Speaker:Who's going to write something and post that article?
Speaker:Perhaps they've only subscribed to your newsletter.
Speaker:Maybe they only read your reposts on Medium.
Speaker:Or maybe only your extended Twitter threads or whatever else that you do.
Speaker:How will those people be notified of this big, big problem?
Speaker:Now, if it sounds like I'm describing me and my process I guess
Speaker:I kind of am because I'm really well-connected to a lot of podcasters.
Speaker:So, yeah, my friends could step up and pick up a lot of the
Speaker:slack and get something published out there in lots of places.
Speaker:Also, I use a production assistant.
Speaker:Hi Allie!
Speaker:Allie could do a lot of what I do right here.
Speaker:Also, good news for me, a lot of what I do is automated.
Speaker:It pushes out notifications automatically when things publish.
Speaker:But that's not everything.
Speaker:A lot of my publishing processes are very manual, completely
Speaker:undocumented, and known only to me, locked up inside the gray matter.
Speaker:You might be in a similar situation.
Speaker:So what are my options?
Speaker:What are your options if you really want to keep everyone informed?
Speaker:Well, option one, obviously, is to make it documented, get it out of my head.
Speaker:I could write every single thing that I do down and put a
Speaker:solid What's Next plan in place.
Speaker:That seems like a logical thing that I should do.
Speaker:But am I going to do that?
Speaker:Honestly, I doubt it.
Speaker:I know that I should do that.
Speaker:But things that I should do, I want to do, and I will do, but there's things
Speaker:I should do that I never ever do, and I'm not so sure I probably will do this.
Speaker:Which means, chances are, I will fall back to number one and do nothing.
Speaker:If you don't hear from me for a while, maybe that's what's going on.
Speaker:I'm curious, what would you do?
Speaker:Do you have a good plan?
Speaker:Do you have a partner?
Speaker:Do you have somebody who can step up and take all of the slack?
Speaker:Because I don't, and I wonder what that means at some
Speaker:point, maybe I'll get better.
Speaker:I don't have any Boostagrams for you today.
Speaker:I do want to do one little correction.
Speaker:Yesterday, I mentioned that someone had donated on Breez.
Speaker:Well, that was Matt Madeiros from Castos.
Speaker:Breez just didn't send over his message.
Speaker:So thank you very much, Matt, for the sats and for the nice message.
Speaker:And if you received any value from today's episode, please consider
Speaker:returning some of that value.
Speaker:Lots of places to do that.
Speaker:Check out podcastpontifications.com/sponsor.
Speaker:Some excellent options right there.
Speaker:And on this cheery note of an episode, I shall be back tomorrow with yet
Speaker:another Podcast Pontifications.
Speaker:Cheers!
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo terror.
Speaker:He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
Speaker:Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
Speaker:section of your podcast listening app.
Speaker:A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
Speaker:podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
Speaker:transcript, both created by Allie Press.
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.