Podcasts
Hey, all.
So, today I wanted to talk about something near and dear to my heart: podcasts. I've been listening to various podcasts for... years. Almost as long as I've been listening to audiobooks. Hell, some of them are audiobooks in their own right. But here are my thoughts.
If you're not familiar, a podcast is basically a radio show that you can download and take with you. You can get anything from writing advice, erotica, occult, history, gaming, TV reviews, news and anything between. I subscribe to most of these except for erotica and TV reviews.
Essentially, that's what I enjoy about them. They're so varied that you can carry around hundreds of shows with you and enjoy them at your own pace wherever you are. I usually listen to a playlist between audiobooks as a break—my playlist averages 70 hours.
The only problem with them being so varied is that you can get deep into a rabbit-hole. I've culled my subscriptions down from about 125 down to about 75. Many of them are ones that out-date themselves quickly or ones that have "pod-faded"—stopped putting out episodes. Now the ones that I keep generally have less time-dependent information and lean toward history, advice or other things that don't need to be current.
Now, that leads me into the next thing I wanted to talk about: what about making a podcast? Well, funny thing about that... I did it for quite a while. A friend and I ran a podcast about games from Palladium Books like RIFTS, Heroes Unlimited, etc. And let me tell you, it was hard. Not necessarily coming up with ideas for new episodes. That was fairly easy. The hard thing was finding time to record, edit and publish each episode. Don't get me wrong, I loved doing it. But real life intrudes.
My advice, since I've done it both ways now, is to start a blog and try to keep it updated on a regular basis. If you can do this for a good long while, odds are that you will be able to keep up with a podcasting schedule, especially if you're spacing episodes out. If you're crazy and want to put an episode out every week... well, you're nuts. That's a lot of work, and unless you have a lot of time on your hands and something you're really passionate about, it's not going to last long.
The two most important things you can have to make a podcast are time and a passion. A blog is a good thing to start with. From there, you can establish yourself and move into the podcast space. Now, whether you want to 'cast about the same topics you write about in your blog, go for it. I don't know if I would (or will, if I decide to do one), because I sometimes have a hard enough time coming up with topics to write about, let alone talk about for any length of time. I've thought about doing my book reviews as podcasts, but I don't know. Leave me a comment if that's something you'd like to see. Er... hear.
Anyway, there are my thoughts on the subject. If you have any comments, please leave me a message, and I'll respond. I promise I will.
Thanks for wreading!
Jeff
So, today I wanted to talk about something near and dear to my heart: podcasts. I've been listening to various podcasts for... years. Almost as long as I've been listening to audiobooks. Hell, some of them are audiobooks in their own right. But here are my thoughts.
If you're not familiar, a podcast is basically a radio show that you can download and take with you. You can get anything from writing advice, erotica, occult, history, gaming, TV reviews, news and anything between. I subscribe to most of these except for erotica and TV reviews.
Essentially, that's what I enjoy about them. They're so varied that you can carry around hundreds of shows with you and enjoy them at your own pace wherever you are. I usually listen to a playlist between audiobooks as a break—my playlist averages 70 hours.
The only problem with them being so varied is that you can get deep into a rabbit-hole. I've culled my subscriptions down from about 125 down to about 75. Many of them are ones that out-date themselves quickly or ones that have "pod-faded"—stopped putting out episodes. Now the ones that I keep generally have less time-dependent information and lean toward history, advice or other things that don't need to be current.
Now, that leads me into the next thing I wanted to talk about: what about making a podcast? Well, funny thing about that... I did it for quite a while. A friend and I ran a podcast about games from Palladium Books like RIFTS, Heroes Unlimited, etc. And let me tell you, it was hard. Not necessarily coming up with ideas for new episodes. That was fairly easy. The hard thing was finding time to record, edit and publish each episode. Don't get me wrong, I loved doing it. But real life intrudes.
My advice, since I've done it both ways now, is to start a blog and try to keep it updated on a regular basis. If you can do this for a good long while, odds are that you will be able to keep up with a podcasting schedule, especially if you're spacing episodes out. If you're crazy and want to put an episode out every week... well, you're nuts. That's a lot of work, and unless you have a lot of time on your hands and something you're really passionate about, it's not going to last long.
The two most important things you can have to make a podcast are time and a passion. A blog is a good thing to start with. From there, you can establish yourself and move into the podcast space. Now, whether you want to 'cast about the same topics you write about in your blog, go for it. I don't know if I would (or will, if I decide to do one), because I sometimes have a hard enough time coming up with topics to write about, let alone talk about for any length of time. I've thought about doing my book reviews as podcasts, but I don't know. Leave me a comment if that's something you'd like to see. Er... hear.
Anyway, there are my thoughts on the subject. If you have any comments, please leave me a message, and I'll respond. I promise I will.
Thanks for wreading!
Jeff
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