Transcripts
It's International Podcasting Day!
Speaker:A day when podcasters around the globe celebrate their craft and their journey,
Speaker:regardless if they've been podcasting for seventeen days, or seventeen years.
Speaker:Hey, speaking of that last one...
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Speaker:Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Speaker:Happy International Podcasting Day wherever you are on the globe!
Speaker:That's the beauty and also the misunderstanding of International
Speaker:Podcasting Day, it's not for people who podcast internationally,
Speaker:like, some international travel or something like that.
Speaker:No, it's for podcasters of every nation.
Speaker:It's a day for them to say, hey, I do this thing, and these other people
Speaker:do this thing, and I want to get together and talk about this thing.
Speaker:Well, to that end, I thought I'd run you through some of the very weird
Speaker:podcasting journey I have taken through this whole time I've been
Speaker:doing it literally for seventeen years.
Speaker:Now, if that sounds terribly boring to you, I apologize.
Speaker:But please stick around to the end because I do have a special announcement
Speaker:about next week's episodes and why - spoiler alert - they will be delayed.
Speaker:Let's get started.
Speaker:So this whole thing started, as you might've heard before,
Speaker:back in the early aughts.
Speaker:I began my podcasting stuff in October of 2004 - yes, almost seventeen years
Speaker:ago - with what was originally an internet radio show, which if you think that means
Speaker:I had some great radio skills, you clearly have not listened to internet radio.
Speaker:We started a show called The Dragon Page, and it was, what I still call
Speaker:it today, two dorks with microphones.
Speaker:That's what we did.
Speaker:We were just two dorks with microphones interviewing science fiction authors.
Speaker:And then things kind of blew up in those early days of podcasting.
Speaker:Very quickly we started a second show called Slice of Scifi, and that was
Speaker:much more media-based, television, movies, those sort of things.
Speaker:Also, it was the first time we built it around segments, different
Speaker:pieces of the show, as opposed to just a straight interview.
Speaker:From there, we started doing another show called Wingin' It, which
Speaker:started out as a variety show.
Speaker:We were going to take the idea of multiple segments and really make
Speaker:it into a full-on variety show.
Speaker:But then, it quickly morphed into a dozen or more people showing up at the
Speaker:studio each with microphones, recording this live, gigantic party every week.
Speaker:And it was my job to run the party and make sure that the show had a
Speaker:flow, if, in fact, it had a show.
Speaker:Along that same time, my partner and I helped launch a YA-focused, a Young
Speaker:Adult book focused show that was called The Dragon Page Cover to Cover.
Speaker:And I was not the host.
Speaker:I wasn't even the editor.
Speaker:I wouldn't do any editing back then.
Speaker:I was just helping out with the structure and the flow.
Speaker:Those shows then led us to create an entire network, which then
Speaker:attracted other scifi podcasters in the '04, '05 timeframe.
Speaker:We started something called Far Point Media, which was, at the time, the biggest
Speaker:science fiction podcast network out there.
Speaker:It was also the only science fiction podcast network in 2004, 2005.
Speaker:Now, parallel to all of that, I started two different projects
Speaker:with different people this time.
Speaker:I was not working with the same crew.
Speaker:I started helping out some of those authors who I'd been
Speaker:speaking with on The Dragon Page.
Speaker:Some of them had the idea of using their book as the basis of their podcast, and so
Speaker:I started something called Podiobooks.com, podcasting plus audiobooks, back in 2005.
Speaker:That became a giant network, which taught me a lot of the inner workings
Speaker:of how you work with lots of different podcasters and provide a pivotal
Speaker:role in lots of people's lives.
Speaker:Also, because of my connection to one of the authors I helped with his own book,
Speaker:Tee Morris, I was asked to write, or help him write, Podcasting for Dummies.
Speaker:I did that in 2005.
Speaker:That also was a lot of work because now I really had to pull it apart.
Speaker:I knew how to do all of the things, but how do I tell people
Speaker:how to do all of the things?
Speaker:That then led to writing Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies, which is arguably
Speaker:the worst book title in the entire world.
Speaker:But out of the book side, at some point in time, I left Far Point
Speaker:Media, the scifi network, and then found myself without a podcast.
Speaker:I didn't have anything to do every Saturday any longer,
Speaker:and I was kind of bored.
Speaker:So I tried my hand at solo podcasting.
Speaker:I started something called Cult Cast.
Speaker:Yes, I know, dumb name, had nothing to do with a cult.
Speaker:It was all philosophical ranting and ramblings about topics.
Speaker:Does that sound familiar?
Speaker:Yes, in fact, it did lay the foundation for Podcast Pontifications later on.
Speaker:Although, Cult Cast wasn't anywhere near focused around podcasting.
Speaker:I think I did, like, eight episodes of that.
Speaker:Also at the time, I started an infrequent podcast, which
Speaker:I simply called Found Things.
Speaker:What it was was - you know, I'm not really sure what Found Things was all about.
Speaker:But I'm sure I had a plan at the time, and I'm sure I thought it was
Speaker:going to be great, but I don't know.
Speaker:Maybe there were four episodes of that?
Speaker:Which have totally petered out.
Speaker:During that time, a friend of mine, named D.
Speaker:Patrick Lewis, local guy here in Phoenix, he suggested that he and I
Speaker:start a podcast together covering the latest craze to hit the world of mobile
Speaker:phones - that's right, the Palm Pre.
Speaker:We started the show called Palm Fu, which would cover all the tips and
Speaker:tricks about having your Palm Pre, and all the new things that were
Speaker:in their app store at the time.
Speaker:And it died.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because the Palm Pre died.
Speaker:It was a terrible phone.
Speaker:But I wasn't done with picking up on things that were not
Speaker:going to last very long.
Speaker:I was a big Google+ fan back in the day, and one of the early people that got on
Speaker:the Google+, and had, I don't know, a million or so people connected with me.
Speaker:So my best friend and I, Jeff Moriarity, started The Books & Beer Hangout.
Speaker:We would use the new Google Hangouts feature to record ourselves and
Speaker:authors in a video thing, which is very common to what a lot of
Speaker:video podcasts are doing today.
Speaker:But it was a lot harder to do way back then.
Speaker:It was mostly a Google+ hangout, but why not make it a podcast, too?
Speaker:And so we did.
Speaker:That actually led me to write a book called Writing Awesome Sales Copy.
Speaker:And I took that book, which was all about writing good sales copy for authors,
Speaker:and I made that into my own podiobook, and it's still up there as well.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So that died.
Speaker:At some point in time, I decided to get back into podcasting with a group.
Speaker:I missed that aspect of more than just me and somebody else doing the interview.
Speaker:I wanted something more.
Speaker:So along with my lovely wife, Sheila Dee, and a very good friend of ours,
Speaker:Debbie Walker, we started something called Evo at 11, which was the more
Speaker:forward parts, if you will, of my personality cranked up to eleven.
Speaker:This time, I didn't want to do any of the work.
Speaker:So I showed Debbie how to do the mechanics from audio editing, to loading
Speaker:to the host, and she did all that work.
Speaker:I just showed up and talked.
Speaker:We did exactly 100 shows of that, then shut it down.
Speaker:So it was a lot of fun.
Speaker:Then, for the longest time, I didn't have a podcast.
Speaker:Until 2014 when my lovely wife and I decided to go leave the country.
Speaker:At the time, I decided to give it a shot, trying a more journalistic
Speaker:style a la Startup back in 2014.
Speaker:I was going to document our travels along the way, which I did.
Speaker:I learned a bunch as we were producing these episodes, spent hours recording
Speaker:live tape in the field, and then more hours listening to that content.
Speaker:And then hours again editing to create a seven-minute long episode.
Speaker:Learned a lot about that.
Speaker:That's also the time I became a big fan of using Hindenburg Journalist
Speaker:Pro, as it taught me to get away from the free tools and into the
Speaker:more pro tools to work really well.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:That show changed names about four different times as we continued
Speaker:to travel around the world.
Speaker:When I got to Bangkok, finally, and serendipitously, I got introduced to the
Speaker:guy who used to run The Bangkok Podcast.
Speaker:So he and I relaunched that show, which had been dormant for several
Speaker:years, and I became the co-host until I actually left Thailand.
Speaker:And that show's still going well.
Speaker:And it was in Thailand where my strategic podcast consulting
Speaker:business was born, Simpler Media.
Speaker:I started producing shows and doing overall podcast consulting for a
Speaker:lot of businesses around the world.
Speaker:Came back to America in 2018, and not long after that started Podcast Pontifications,
Speaker:which you're listening to right now.
Speaker:And I still do some contract work.
Speaker:I'm the host for a variety of podcasts, which you've never heard
Speaker:of, which are very, very niche.
Speaker:I produce lots of different podcasts for lots of different people.
Speaker:I'm the editor for Sounds Profitable, the ad tech newsletter and podcast.
Speaker:And I sit on the advisory board for Captivate.fm, Maps.fm, Scribl, and
Speaker:other companies that are all deeply involved in the podcasting space.
Speaker:And I probably missed several things as I'm going along on this episode.
Speaker:It's not like I kept a diary of these things.
Speaker:Most of the shows that I produced in the past are dead now, but for
Speaker:those that aren't, I will put links to everything in the episode details
Speaker:if you wish to see or listen to what it was like back in the day.
Speaker:I've got one Boostagram for you today.
Speaker:Now it's time for the boost-the boost-the boost- Boostagram Corner.
Speaker:Boostagram Corner.
Speaker:I don't know a thing about crypto.
Speaker:Dave Jackson tossed some sats my way using Fountain, along with the message: "Bravo!
Speaker:Amen!
Speaker:Preach it, brother!"
Speaker:Dave Jackson's also approaching seventeen years of podcasting,
Speaker:so thank you very much, Dave.
Speaker:I appreciate that.
Speaker:Now, speaking of international, I am out of the country next week, and
Speaker:no, I will not be bringing recording equipment to the beach with me.
Speaker:So with that, enjoy your International Podcasting Day.
Speaker:I shall be back on Monday, the 11th of October, for yet
Speaker:another Podcast Pontifications.
Speaker:Cheers!
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
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.
