Have a good reason to do it (hint: it’s not making money)
I had the idea of starting the podcast when Jon was looking for a way to practice his audio editing skills. I also knew I wanted to speak with Phil more often, but we rarely just picked up the phone. After recording a few demo versions, it soon became clear that our main purpose for making the podcast was to talk to each other! The podcast is simply a great excuse to meet virtually once or twice a week. The real reason we do this is because we love chatting before and after hitting record.
Go for it – no one’s listening any way
When we first started, I did not enjoy listening to my voice. I was concerned that I would get things wrong. What if I sounded stupid? I could barely even listen to the recordings. Now I listen to them various times before and after we release each episode. I even listen in the car to see how it all sounds. Have I got better, or have I just got used to hearing myself? A bit of both. It’s been helpful that the feedback we normally receive is very positive, but, so far, our reason for doing this outshines any doubts I may have (see point 1).
Connecting with people
For a show with such low audience numbers (we barely get a 100 audio streams each episode in the first 30 days) it has amazed us how much impact we’ve had on some people. While positive feedback is rewarding, knowing that we have provided company to those who are lonely has the greatest impact on us. For all the interconnected nature of the modern era, we seem to all be suffering from some level of loneliness. It is a remarkable achievement if our recollections of games from the 80’s and 90’s can provide comfort to a single person.
Have an audio engineer / producer brother
If you don’t have a brother who can edit your audio, try and find one, and trust their production skills. Knowing we have someone who can edit our boring parts, mistakes, and clean up the sound enables Phil and I to concentrate on talking. Our episodes are much better, thanks to Jon’s editing.
Have a few episodes recorded ready to release
We aim to release our episodes bi-weekly. There have been several weeks when we couldn’t record because of illness, holidays, or real life work. Producer Jon kept telling us to record a few episodes when we could to have them ready and waiting. He was right. If you want to be consistent with release dates then make yourself a buffer for when the inevitable recording cancellations happen.
BONUS: How do we make the show?
We record episodes remotely using Podcastle. After recording we download the audio and Jon uses Cubase to edit them into shape. Jon wrote the intro tune.
Phil then uses that audio and creates a video for the episode. Phil spices things up with comedic images and extra audio such as Sir. Clive speaking, and the West Country Ninja, etc.
We use Acast to distribute the audio version of the podcast.
Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash
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