Blog posts – Photography Explained Podcast

Yes, I have created my own photography podcast this October 2020. It is called the Photography Explained Podcast. In this post, I will tell you how I created the Photography Explained Podcast, brand new in 2020. I will tell you step by step how I came up with the title, the concept, and the plan and also how I physically recorded the podcast episodes and launched the podcast on all the major podcast services including Apple, Google and Spotify. I tell you what I have learned from one of the smartest people in the global podcasting arena who makes this stuff easier than you might think. So if you are interested in creating a new photography podcast, or any other genre of podcast, you are in the right place. By the end of this post, you will know how to create a high-quality professional podcast and launch it globally with the minimum effort, technical know-how, cost or fuss. What is the point of a podcast? A podcast is the number one way to grow your brand and your following in 2020 and beyond. This is the perfect time to launch a podcast. My golden rules of podcasting Here are my 5 golden rules of podcasting Pick a subject you love Pick a subject you know a lot about Make sure you are able to publish consistently Be there every week And get on with it – don’t delay this any longer! Why do I say this? Well, I kept putting this off, for months and months. There were so many reasons I came up with to not do it. And do you know what podcasters all say about their early days? They say this “I wish I had started sooner”. No one is glad that they did not. No one is happy that they put off launching their podcast by weeks, months or years. And I have finally done it! You can do this In the end, it was a lot easier than I thought, mainly thanks to the great advice I followed from Pat Flynn, who is the creator and host of the Smart Passive Income and Ask Pat 2.0 podcasts, both of which I have listened to for years now. This is my version and interpretation of his advice and is exactly what I did. Why have I created a podcast of my own? A number of reasons I have not found a podcast like mine A podcast will help with my EAT (Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness) with Google A podcast will provide links back to my website which are useful I enjoy podcasts I want to be famous! Well, I would like to be well-known in the photography world! It might help pay the bills. Why the Photography Explained Podcast? Well, why not? I wanted something obvious and straightforward – this is pretty much the point of the podcast. Photography stuff explained in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant detail! And I feel that there is a gap in the photography world that I can fill. Are there any similar podcasts? As it turns out there are not. There are of course other photography podcasts but none that just take one thing and explain it in one episode. Why only 10 minutes per episode? I wanted it to be quick and to the point. If I can’t explain something in less than 10 minutes then I have failed. But I genuinely believe that I can explain anything in 10 minutes, and this is why. My explanations are enough to help us photographers but no more – and that is how I know that I can do this. And the 10 minutes help me as it is something that I can do on a weekly basis. Have I created podcasts before? No – this is the first time. So, if you have never done this before just follow what I have done, and you can have your own podcast out there in a couple of weeks no problem. So where did I start? The title – Photography Explained Podcast. I came up with the title in early 2020, and drafted out some episodes then. But it was not until I appeared on the Ask Pat 2.0 Podcast that I progressed this – it was the affirmation from Pat that gave me the kick I needed to just get on and do this. I appeared in AP 1132: How Do I Niche Down and Build a Successful Business Out of My Brand? And this was where I got my affirmation. How else can Pat help you? Here are the resources that helped me get started. Podcast Cheat Sheet 3 Emails that tell you what to do Just go to this page and you will find this good stuff. And the recommendation for hosting is Buzzsprout. More on them in a bit. How do you record a podcast? This was a big unknown to me, and the cheat sheet talked me through the entire process. I am an expert user of Lightroom, but not so good at Photoshop. And when it comes to editing audio I do not have a clue – quite literally. Recording software - Audacity Audacity is free open (contributions welcome) source software for recording audio. It might look daunting but spend a little time on the settings and you are good to go. You can download Audacity to your desktop. But you need to get the settings right – I completely missed this and my first recordings were horrendous. Thankfully, I found this YouTube video from Buzzsprout which told me what to do – I followed this and was good to go. Here is another key bit of information that will help you which I found. https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Improving_Recording_Quality Now I found this a bit of a struggle, but these resources were all I needed. My recording gear All I bought was a microphone – the recommended one being the Samson Q2U (this is an Amazon Affiliate link), which is available from Amazon for £90 - £100. Not cheap but this was the only thing that I bought so not too bad, and excellent quality. I plugged this into my laptop and my headphones into the microphone, checked the settings above and I was good to go! My recording set-up I am doing this in my home office. Well, not my home office as it is too echoey with hard surfaces everywhere. I moved to my sitting room, with my PC on a stool and my laptop on a table, as far apart as possible. I used my iPad for the prompts for my script, made a cup of tea and was good to go! What was the recording bit like? It was a bit strange but ok – I soon got used to it. You have to make sure the sound levels are right but that is in the Audacity set-up. Auphonic Now I am not sure if I have to do this with the thing I am about to come onto, but I will tell you about it anyway. Auphonic does stuff to audio files to make them better. Again it is free for an amount of use in a month, and it does stuff to files. You save files in Audacity as .WAV files and then process them in Auphonic and you get an MP3 file that is good to go. Podcast Hosting I use Buzzsprout to host my podcast and sort out lots of stuff that I do not know how to do. The basic plan costs $12 per month. I am delighted to be a paying customer of Buzzsprout, and can heartily recommend them. Once you have recorded an episode upload it to Buzzsprout and they take you through the rest of the process step by step - it is so easy that even I managed it! And once you have done that there is lots of good stuff to help you with your podcast. I am a Buzzsprout affiliate, so if you sign up using my affiliate link I get a commission. And at the same time, I am and will be for a long time a very satisfied paying customer. Magic Mastering The basic Buzzsprout plan costs $12 per month. That is the plan that I am on. I have paid an extra $6 per month for Magic Mastering, which does stuff to the audio. And that is why the audio quality of my podcast is fantastic! Where can you find my podcast? Apple Google Spotify Yes, really – it is listed on these and it was super easy to do using Buzzsprout. I just did what they told me and it was all sorted! Other podcast providers Yep, there are other podcast providers that I am working my way through this week and next. My website The podcast pages are on my website – the main page is called Photography Explained Podcast. I am trying to write a blog post for each podcast episode, although I might have to ditch this as it is slowing things down. Show notes I write a description in Buzzsprout that is based on what I am going to talk about which appears on the Apple Podcast App, so I guess that this is that done! Episode List This will appear on the web page when I get around to it. Future Episodes and Interaction I am encouraging my listeners to tell me what they want me to explain in return for a shout-out and a link to their website – I hope to be able to get an amount of interactivity which will be great. And that’s it Yep that’s all folks (as someone once said!!) Back to recording for me – please check out my podcast, subscribe, rate and review it. And enjoy it! Rick McEvoy – Photography Explained Podcast #photographypodcast #photographyexplainedpodcast #photography #podcast