HOW I STARTED A PODCAST
Part 2 - Six burning questions
I didn’t do exactly nothing in those two years of procrastination. The wheels in my head started turning, thinking about what the podcast should sound like. I knew that it wasn’t going to be a podcast in which I droned on and on about my own ideas about creativity so I started putting together a list of topics I wanted to cover and the people I could talk to.
Early on I reached out to Kevin Shea and Ian Andrew and explained the concept of The Creationists. Each agreed to be the subject of an episode which gave me the confidence to keep putting a plan together.
In September 2019, I finally got off my butt and started looking for answers to some burning questions:
1. What equipment would I need?
Obviously I needed some equipment to record the podcast. I wanted it to sound professional but I was on a very tight budget so I had to take economics in to consideration. At first I thought that I should buy two microphones. I soon discovered, though, that I would need some sort of audio interface to plug the mics in to as well as a laptop. Decent mics would cost $100 each and an inexpensive but reliable interface would be another $200. 400 bucks would be bearable if I already had a laptop. I don’t, so I needed to find another solution.
The easiest solution I found online was to use my iPhone propped against a pillow with a sheet over my head. I actually tried recording the series trailer this way and though the sound quality was adequate it wasn’t what I was hoping for and, certainly, not at all appropriate for conducting interviews. Still, using my iPhone as a recording device was going to be the best option in the short term so I needed to find a microphone that would deliver the goods. By narrowing down my search criteria I found the Shure MV88 microphone. All the reviews said that the quality was top notch and that Shure even had a free app to use in conjunction with the mic to customize the sound.
2. How should I edit the interviews?
This was an easier question to answer. I already had a working knowledge of Garageband so I really just needed to figure out if that would suffice or if I needed to use some other editing software. Most of my research led me to Audacity but that meant learning a new editing tool. I decided that I would stick to Garageband for the first season and see how that worked out.
3. How long should each episode be?
Most of the podcast listening I do is when I’m walking the dog so that means I have about 25 - 30 minutes to listen. I figured that 25 - 30 minutes was also the average. I didn’t want to bore anyone so I decided that if I kept each episode under 25 minutes, people would hang in even if they didn’t think they’d find a subject interesting.
4. Who do I want to interview for the first season?
I knew that Kevin would talk to me about writing his first book and Ian would be willing to sit down and talk about golf course design, so that was a start. I always knew that I wanted the subjects to be as diverse as possible. My wishlist included songwriting, traditional fine arts, architecture, car design and fashion.
I’ve had a long relationship with Jim Cuddy and Blue Rodeo and knew that he had a lot of interesting insights to the process so I was thrilled when he agreed to sit down for an interview. I next reached out to Linda Manzer, a local Toronto luthier who is best known for building custom guitars for Pat Metheny. After a couple of e-mail exchanges, Linda agreed to an interview and also suggested talking to glass artist David Pearl. David designed the glass murals in Toronto’s 407 subway station and when he said yes, he suggested that we tape the interview in the station itself. For a fashion designer, I reached out to Rock-it Promotions who I knew had a large and varied clientele. They connected me with Hilary MacMillan who invited me to her downtown studio. Needless to say, the outreach has been going well.
5. How many episodes constitute a season?
From day one it was important for me to feel like I was accomplishing something. That meant setting realistic goals. I always knew that this wasn’t going to be a daily podcast and I know the frustration of subscribing to a podcast that only shows up once in a while. I wanted to have a consistency to my release schedule and I wanted to choose a number of episodes that I was 100% confident I could deliver. I decided that I would shoot for 6 - 7 episodes that would constitute season one and I was going to have all of the episodes recorded and edited before releasing the first.
6. HOW DO I LAUNCH A PODCAST?
This was the biggest question and the one that caused me so much procrastination. There are plenty of people on the internet who are willing to help answer the question. Of course, everyone has their own idea of the best way to do it. I read countless articles and watched several videos but really wanted to have a conversation with a real person that did it themselves. I wanted to be able to ask questions. So..
I typed in to the search bar “podcast classes in Toronto.”
Among the top searches was a workshop called “How to prep - Launch a Podcast on a Budget”. Eureka!! This was exactly what I was looking for. The workshop was run by Sam Laliberte, a young woman who hosts the podcast What’s Your Free.
The two hour workshop covered a host of fundamentals. There were about 20 of us attending and I’m sure that everyone in the room left with something worthwhile. Sam confirmed that using Garageband was a more than sufficient tool to use to edit episodes. She talked about best practices and equipment basics. My biggest takeaway was an understanding of how to get The Creationists listed on the major platforms (Apple, Spotify, Google, et al). Naturally, it was going to much easier than I had feared.
One of Sam’s recommendations was to use Buzzsprout as a hosting platform. I was already familiar with Buzzsprout because most of my searches for podcast information included links to stories and videos posted by the podcast hosting service. Working with Buzzsprout has turned out to be a godsend. I still had a lot of questions and nerves to deal with in prepping for launch and their online help was always quick with answers to even the dumbest questions.
I had three more questions, two of which only I could answer…
“Is The Creationists available as a title for a podcast?”
“What should the podcast artwork look like?”
”Am I ready to launch?”