The Process of Changing Your Podcast Is...Well, A Process

How are podcasters supposed to embrace "Consistency is key!" when everything about podcasting keeps changing? It's no easy task. But if you approach change systematically, you can make it work for you.

Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

I woke up this morning a little worried that I'm flooding you, the working podcaster, with far too many great ideas for you possibly to implement. Now, even though this is very much not a how-to show, I do surface a lot of ideas that you can implement for your podcast right away, which would therefore make your podcast better and therefore, all of podcasting better, which is exactly what I want to do.

You know I'm a big fan of change, but I've been wondering, is it too much, A, and B, am I practicing what I preach? So I decided to do a quick self-examination to keep myself honest about the things I'm telling you. And I reflected back over the last season, what have I personally, Evo Terra, changed about Podcast Pontifications specifically?

Well, I came up with a list of nine things, which was pretty amazing. Nine different things. I've changed a lot. And some of which you may know about, some you don't. So I'm just gonna run through that list of changes just today.

One: I have completely changed how I do episode prep, as in the way I build the outline for this episode. I'm using an outline. I've always used an outline. Well, maybe not always, but for the first, like, week I use an outline. That's just how I do things. And I create that outline ahead of time. How I create that outline has changed. Basically I flipped the model in the last year. Totally changed the model completely. That's number one.

Number two: all new branding, which I know you've seen. If you haven't looked at your podcast listening app, you will see there's a brand new logo for Podcast Pontifications, looks like a very Zen garden-y like thing. Also, that meant brand new artwork for each of the episodes because one of them previously was kind of crap. And I credit all of that to Nik Gill who is the artist that I engaged, the graphic designer I engaged to do that. I'll put links to everybody that I talk about it in the episode details, by the way. So brand new branding for the front of the entire show.

And when I got new branding from Nik, that, of course, meant I had to update the website because that hadn't been touched in a very long time and by someone who me, wasn't a designer. So I re-implemented a whole brand new website very much thanks to Steve Yong for his help in making the website really pop.

I don't know what number I'm on. Three, maybe? Also, maybe more - I don't know if it's any more or less relevant to things, but I have incorporated corrected transcripts. Now, every episode I publish on publishing now gets a corrected transcript. And that forced me to change how I collaborate with Allie Press, my production assistant, who does the correction of the transcript. We had to work and find a method so that we could still get it done. I could get the data to her so she could correct that transcript in just a few hours, which is super tight change, but we did it. And now every episode that gets published has a transcription associated with it, a corrected transcription, not just an automated one.

I totally switched the service that handles Podcast Pontifications in your inbox. That is the newsletter service that I use to send out to several hundred people now the episode as it's published every day at 10 o'clock. And changing that provider means I had to change the way I publish that information because it's all different now. And it still has to go at the same time every day.

One big change I made that I had forgotten about until I took a sip of the tea that I'm drinking, I'm drinking tea now in the morning. And not really tea, it's a tisane, it's an herbal tea that has no caffeine in it. And the reason I'm doing a no-caffeine tea is I was speaking with some vocal coaches, a voice pathologist actually, and that's one of the things they recommended. Don't do caffeine because it's not great on the vocal chords first thing in the morning, they say.

Which led me to the next thing I've changed, I'm seeing a vocal coach now. Hi, Ruchi! Seeing a vocal coach. I went a few weeks ago and had them stick the big scope down and make sure the vocal folds are looking all fine. Don't do that if you don't have to, by the way. That just is - A, it feels gross, and B it looks really gross. But nonetheless, I've done that and I'm committed to keeping the voice healthy so I can keep doing this.

Speaking of sound, I have engaged a sound engineer. Hello, Marcus DePaula! Super nice guy, knows a lot about the space. Marcus has helped me improve the sound - like this week. Yesterday's episode probably sounds a lot better than the day before that. And this one's going to go through the same process. And that process Marcus now has me doing, it wasn't just tweak a few dials here and there, it's a brand new way I do post-production, totally flipping the model I had on its head and bringing in new tools to the mix.

Also, I think maybe to wrap, I changed the way I produce in-app episode details, thanks to Apple. Enough about that. But nonetheless, I have changed the way that I'm making the in-app episode details. So when you click through on your listening app to get more details, you'll see new stuff. And I was forced to do that because of Apple.

Anyhow, I did all of these things within the last season and most of them this year. So yeah, I am practicing what I'm preaching. I'm making changes to my show constantly. Kind of because that's me, that's just the nature of the person who I am. And I hope to impart some of that onto you. And I'm not done.

One of the things I know about change is it's never finished. I can always get a little bit better and I've got a lot of changes planned for next season. Many of them I will implement almost immediately when the next season, when season four drops in July. All of these are going to make the show better. They're going to make me better. It's going to change the listener experience so you have a better time listening. Lots of really cool stuff.

Now, I keep hinting at these changes coming for season four, and I'm probably going to keep hinting on those as I refine exactly what the roadmap is going to look like. I'm going to start communicating those changes in a few weeks, which, by the way, include some opportunities for other podcasters and podcast service providers.

But I'm only going to be communicating that, I'm going to start communicating that to the people who have supported me thus far. So please go to buymeacoffee.com/EvoTerra, and sign up for a membership so you'll be among the first to know what these changes and opportunities might look like.

Now, no episodes from me on Fridays. So tomorrow's Friday. I will say to you Happy Mother's Day if you are a mother and you are in the US of A. Or anywhere. Just Happy Mother's Day 'cause we should be happy with mothers, I think.

That's it. I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!