Latest / Your Mic / Welcome to the Podcast Cemetery

Transcript

Welcome to the Podcast Cemetery · Your Mic

• 0:00
  Close your eyes for a second.
• 0:01
  Actually, if you're in the car, don't do that.
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  If you are not in a car, do it.
• 0:06
  Close your eyes and imagine a cemetery
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  where every headstone is an RSS feed.
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  No flowers, no visitors, just millions of little grace slabs
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  that say episode one, welcome to the show.
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  Episode two, so much exciting stuff coming.
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  Episode three, dot, dot, dot, then nothing.
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  This is the podcast graveyard.
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  And if you've made more than 10 episodes,
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  you're already in the top slice of survivors.
• 0:41
  Welcome back to your mic.
• 0:42
  My name is Freddie Cruz and some stats people throw around
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  include the one that most people don't make
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  it past episode three.
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  And of the shows that get past episode three,
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  a big chunk die before episode 10, much less 20.
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  One analysis put only about 15 to 20%
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  of Apple podcasts catalog is actually active,
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  meaning they release something in the last 90 days.
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  So yeah, the podcast graveyard is huge,
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  but nobody thinks they're going to be there.
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  They all start the same, I'm different, I'm committed.
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  I've got so many ideas and so many interesting stories.
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  Then life swings and suddenly it's been five months
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  since the last upload and they're ghosting their own show.
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  But for context, let's back up and put some language on this.
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  Pod fade, all one word pod fade is when a podcast
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  slowly stops releasing new episodes.
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  No announcement, no finale, just longer and longer gaps
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  until poof, nothing.
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  It can happen at episode three, seven, 25 heck.
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  It could happen at episode 100.
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  The number doesn't matter, the pattern does.
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  So why do people really quit?
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  You've heard the polite version busy.
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  Life happens, timing, true, but also shallow.
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  Underneath the same themes show up over and over.
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  Burn out and overwhelm.
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  People go hard early in the game, heavy editing,
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  long episodes, detailed show notes,
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  social campaigns on top of jobs and families.
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  And then they burn out fast, understandable.
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  Also, they don't have a clear plan.
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  They had ideas for two episodes and vibes for the rest.
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  Once the initial excitement wears off, they hit a wall.
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  What do I make now?
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  Bad expectations.
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  And oh man, do many podcasters have bad expectations.
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  They thought they'd be monetized, viral or known
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  in just a matter of months.
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  And when that doesn't happen, motivation evaporates,
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  which means they were not cut out
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  to be podcast hosts to begin with.
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  Then come the inconsistency spirals.
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  They miss a week than another.
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  Each gap makes it harder to come back,
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  both emotionally and algorithmically.
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  Kind of like going to the gym,
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  where you skip once and sick eyes just once.
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  Then you skip twice now, it's just, you know, twice.
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  And then you skip two weeks in a row.
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  Yeah, like that.
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  And there's technical misery.
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  They hate editing and they don't want it outsource
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  or they can't afford it outsource.
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  They hate gear, they hate all the post-production aspect.
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  So every episode feels like homework instead of enjoyment,
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  instead of fun and podcasting should be fun.
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  No matter what the topic, you gotta find joy
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  in being the host.
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  You put all those aspects together.
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  And eventually the host looks at the mic
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  and feels nothing but dread.
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  And if that's you, you're not weak.
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  You're just a human who's designed a show for fantasy
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  and not for survival.
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  So how do you avoid your own little headstone?
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  First, stop assuming weekly
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  is the only real cadence that matters.
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  It doesn't, right?
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  At Speak Podcasting, we have several clients
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  who publish twice a month all year round.
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  And it works.
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  It does.
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  You could batch four episodes.
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  In other words, two months worth of content
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  over the span of a single afternoon.
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  We've done that.
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  It is sustainable, all right?
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  And a lot of industry stats show
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  that active shows release weekly or biweekly.
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  But that includes teams, budgets, and people
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  whose entire job is the show.
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  And if you are doing this on top of a full-time life
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  and you can't afford a podcast production company
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  like mine, you're gonna need some constraints.
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  Which means you're gonna want to design for survival,
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  not hype.
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  Tactic one, seasons.
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  Instead of, I'll drop every week
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  until the sun explodes, try eight to 12 episodes
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  around a theme, then a planned break.
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  Use the breaks to rest, evaluate, and plan next season.
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  You're less likely to pod fade if pauses
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  are part of the design, not a shameful secret.
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  Tactic two, lower the production bar
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  where it doesn't matter.
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  The graveyard I can tell you is full of people
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  who tried to sound like a full NPR team
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  with one exhausted brain.
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  Ask yourself, could episodes be 15 to 25 minutes
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  instead of 45 to 60?
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  Could you cut fancy sound design
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  and just go for clean, clear audio?
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  One of the most successful podcasts of all time
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  is the Jaco podcast.
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  His show has no music.
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  I haven't listened in a while, but when I was listening a lot,
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  it would just be welcome to the Jaco podcast.
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  This is episode 275,000
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  because he does have a lot of episodes.
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  With me, Jaco willing.
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  That's it.
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  That was the intro, and then he'd get into the hype.
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  Also, you want to ask yourself,
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  if you can simplify the text-based content aspect
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  of your podcast, you know, like show notes.
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  Can you make them enough to be useful
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  instead of tiny novels?
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  Perfectionism is pod fades, height man.
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  Tactic three.
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  Batch, like your life, depends on it.
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  Because it does.
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  Most pod fade guides recommend building a small backlog,
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  three to five episodes before launching
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  or before a busy season.
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  We launched our longest client, The Rose.
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  Their podcast, let's talk about your breasts
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  with 19 episodes in the can.
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  Yeah, that should give you an idea
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  of what it's like to build a system
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  before launching, before going public.
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  That way, if you have a bad week,
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  if you have a misrelease, if you have a sick kid,
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  if you have a skipped month,
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  if you have a flaked out gastro-three in a row,
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  your show does not death spiral.
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  Tactic four, have a content plan
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  longer than whatever I feel like.
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  People who survived past the danger zone
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  tend to know who their show is for,
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  what problems they're solving
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  and what kinds of episodes they're going to rotate through.
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  You're not waking up every single Monday
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  trying to invent an idea from scratch.
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  Even a simple outline, like one solo rant, one interview,
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  one case study, one Q&A per month,
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  makes it easier to stay alive.
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  I just gave you four episode ideas
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  for a whole month right there.
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  One solo rant, one interview, one case study,
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  one Q&A per month, boom, rents, repeat.
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  But here's the twist, all right?
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  Sometimes the right move
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  is to just let the show die.
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  That one Reddit post, the infamous Reddit post,
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  you see quoted a lot.
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  It was quoted on Modern Wisdom.
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  That was where I first heard it.
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  90% of podcasts don't get past episode three.
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  And that's what I'm saying.
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  Episode three, and 90% of the rest,
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  quit after episode 20.
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  It also makes a good point.
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  Sometimes you should kill a project
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  that isn't working instead of martering yourself to do it.
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  There's a difference between, this is hard but worth it,
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  and this is draining directionless,
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  and I'm only clinging to it because quitting feels like a failure.
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  And a lot of pot fade is accidental ashamed quitting.
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  There's power though, an intentional quitting.
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  If your show has no clear purpose,
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  it doesn't energize you even occasionally.
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  If your show is not helping the listener you care about,
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  then you're allowed to end it on purpose.
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  Record a finale, be up front with it.
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  Tell people where else to find you.
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  You're on social media, right?
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  You've got a newsletter.
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  Have them subscribe to your newsletter.
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  Harvest what you learned into the next thing.
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  Closing a chapter with intention
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  is definitely not the same as ghosting your own feet.
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  So two questions to keep you out of the pot fade graveyard.
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  One, am I tired because this is hard or because this is wrong?
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  Hard, you stretched, but you still care about the mission.
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  You're willing to adjust format cadence or scope to keep going.
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  Wrong is you dread the entire process.
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  You wouldn't miss it if you stopped.
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  Two, if this show is worth saving,
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  what is the smallest sustainable version of it?
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  Maybe you switched to seasons.
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  Maybe you dropped to bi-weekly.
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  Maybe you cut the episode length and editing complexity.
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  Maybe you bring on help or a co-host or both.
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  Stats say the majority of shows will never answer these questions
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  and they'll quietly stop.
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  You don't have to be in that majority.
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  So here's your challenge.
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  Write episode eight on a sticky note.
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  Even if you're way past it, all right?
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  That's the ghost that haunts the graveyard.
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  Decide.
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  What do I need to change so I'm still publishing 90 days from now?
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  And if the real answer is I need to end the show
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  and build something truer,
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  be brave enough to give your podcast a proper funeral
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  instead of leaving it unmarked in the dirt.
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  Listen, the graveyard is enormous,
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  but the bar to outlast most of it
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  is keep breathing on purpose.
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  Your show is not a headstone yet.
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  So if you'd like some help ensuring you never, ever, ever podthaid,
• 10:19
  grab the official Speak Podcasting Roadmap now.
• 10:22
  Speakpodcasting.com slash free resources.
• 10:26
  That's S-P-E-K-E podcasting.com slash free resources.
• 10:31
  Appreciate you listening.