And with that, you have officially wrung us dry, collecting all of our experiential wisdom juices to the brim of your mind-cup.
Okay, that’s probably not entirely accurate. There are likely some bits of podcasting errata that we didn’t think would be helpful writ large. For example, your body is about to become a podcasting machine, so how can you physiologically optimize your recording sessions? (Answer: CARBOLOAD.)
Hopefully, by this point, you understand enough of the basics to get started. We’ve read enough manuals of this sort to know that doing the thing is an entirely different prospect from reading about doing the thing. There may be a fair number of you who close this well-meaning tome, never to act on its lessons. That’s fine! We’ll always cherish the time we’ve spent together. How about we meet back here in this same spot in ten years, both wearing red carnations?
For the rest of you, you enterprising casters of pod, you’re hypothetically ready to take the next steps into the arena. What are those steps, you ask?
Really? Like, we just spent a whole honest-to-God book laying out a detailed list of considerations to ponder as you get started in podcasting. What do you want now, a checklist? A TL;DR? Some kind of podcasting vision board? Pearls before swine, we say!
Oh, you just want to know what to do first? Like, as soon as you finish reading, when you’re filled with creativity and drive, and you’re excited to get started immediately? There’s actually an easy answer for that, and hopefully, in providing that answer, we’ll be able to squeeze in one more dank wisdom nug right here in the epilogue:
Do anything.
That’s it. You’ve maybe already done some stuff. Perhaps you’ve already found a serviceable microphone and you’ve familiarized yourself with the DAW of your choosing. Maybe you’ve whipped up a rundown with your new cohosts and hired a talented artist friend to draw up some album art. Or maybe you haven’t done anything at all! That’s fine too.
The point is this: the only thing you need to do to make a podcast is make a podcast. When writing this book, that’s the end goal we tried to stay focused on. We’ve included all the podcast-related things we’ve thought about during our decade or so in the biz, but the second you find yourself endlessly deliberating over one of the topics we’ve covered, you have our explicit permission to jettison that shit.
Don’t let yourself get mired into setting up a professional-grade recording studio before you’ve even recorded your pilot. Don’t put off workshopping ideas with your pals until you’ve devised a lucrative marketing plan. If you notice that something is serving as a roadblock to actually recording the thing, just skip it! Get the cheap mic! Dive in unprepared! If you wait until you’re sure you’re ready to make the best version of that thing, you’re never going to make anything.
Experience will be a far more capable teacher than this book could ever be. As some football coach probably said one time: failure is weakness leaving the body. Or something.
If you find yourself truly stuck in a rut, unable to follow through on this new pursuit, we’ve got an exercise for you. This is something you can do right now, if you want. Just keep the book propped up on the table with one hand as you go, because—and we should have mentioned this earlier—every time you close this book, our consciousness is banished back into the Bibliorealm. What’s that like? Well, it’s a kind of death, so, yeah, keep it cracked, eh?
Sit down at your computer. (Not at your computer? Get your phone.) Open up a voice recorder app. Most OSes come with one. Windows has one simply called Voice Recorder. On Mac, try Voice Memos. On Linux . . . man, I don’t know. Type in the unnecessarily complex string of code required to access some kind of audio-recording software, fuckin’ Mr. Robot.
Your computer probably has some kind of built-in microphone. (Your phone for sure has one, because if not—hey, bud? You sure that’s a phone?) If it doesn’t, you probably have something nearby capable of interpreting sound as computer data. Maybe a webcam, or a gaming headset, or some earbuds? Plug that in. Now, press Record.
And start talking. Really. About whatever. What’s the thing you spend most of your day thinking about? What’s something you wish more people knew about you? What’s the story you tell folks when everyone’s telling stories and you want to really just slam-dunk everyone else’s story right into the garbage can? What are you worried about? What kind of stuff do you think about to help you deal with the stuff you’re worried about?
Okay, now wrap it up. Don’t overstay your welcome. Save something for next time.
And press Stop.
And just like that, you’ve recorded . . .
Oh shit, save! Oh my God, always, always save. I don’t know if we’ve mentioned that enough in this book yet. It’s, like, the most important thing.
Did you save? Okay. Great.
And just like that, you’ve recorded an episode of a podcast. Don’t get caught up in the technicalities. Don’t freeze up because you weren’t as funny or clever or charming as you’d hoped. You did it. You made the thing. That’s the baseline. That’s the thing you’ll be able to make better with the stuff you’ve hopefully taken away from this book.
Next time you record something, try to fix a few things that you didn’t quite nail the first time around. Maybe try recording in a DAW, where you can drop some music over the beginning and end of the track. If you didn’t quite nail the pacing, focus on that this time around. You’re not going to perfect the craft on your second attempt either. Just try again, and fix something, and try again, and think of ways to improve, and try again . . . and so on.
With all that in mind: Yes, friend, podcasting is easy. Considering the full spectrum of the comparative difficulty of potential human endeavors, clicking Record, talking for a while, and then clicking Stop ranks very, very low. But making something worth listening to, something people will remember, something you’ll find creative satisfaction in, can be as challenging and time consuming as you want it to be.
Make something, and then make it better. That’s not just how we learned to competently make podcasts we’re proud of; it’s how anyone learns how to do anything. Just go record something—right now, if you’re able—and then think about how to internalize what you’ve learned from this book. And if you need a refresher, feel free to grab it off the bookshelf, dust it off, and give it another whirl.
Until then, we’ll be twirling, twirling eternally, in the perfect nothingness of the Bibliorealm. Farewell.