Lessons

Lesson Info

Final Q&A

Where would you even pitch a scripted fiction idea to get players involved? Like pitch in order to get people involved in the podcasts like actors and stuff? Yeah, 'cause I'm assuming, I couldn't be all Right, I mean, honestly, so I am part, this is, I wonder, you guys could probably all just somehow get invited, email me, but there are these forums, like there's these lift serves, one is called Public Radio NYC, and one is called Ladio, which is for women and radio, and it's basically like a Google group in which anyone involved in audio, you need to be invited, it's not like exclusive though, like you could add anyone to the list, so maybe I could add one of you, and you guys could like add each other, but it's an amazing, amazing resource for like any kind of, that's how I ended up producing Food for Thought, like there were people who said there's constantly posts, like I need a producer, I need talent, so in a lot of cases, I would suggest a forum like that, even if it's not...

that one, kind of like a Facebook group, or 'cause there a lot of people like, who are obviously hungry to work on new projects, like showcase their talent, even if it's not something, when I started Food for Thought I didn't get paid, even if it's something that's like free, and people aren't getting paid to do, I think it's especially like, as I was saying like this fiction podcasting is kind of like the new frontier for a lot of people, I don't think it would be crazy at all to kind of like post it in a Google group or a Facebook group, and see if there are any actors, that would be interested in participating. I think it would be great. Thank you. You're welcome. So, I have a question that kind of riffs off of your question which is, I don't always have 45 minutes or an hour to listen to an entire podcast, I like all of the segments, I might wanna listen to all of them, when would it be okay to split and record, like that 10-minute chunk of the one segment, and then release it as its own separate entity of a podcast so that you could only like, or would that disrupt the idea of it being a whole podcast that has segments, so I'm just, in my head, I'm playing around with things that I would like to do with my podcast, but realizing that, it won't always be a 35, 45 hour-long one, or is it okay to break it up? I think that it's okay to break it up, I think that there aren't that many, I don't know of any podcasts that do that, I think probably for the reason that it might be confusing to listeners, I think it's probably hard like 'cause again, something that I think podcast listeners and avid fans of a show know, they like put on something, as much as it's frustrating and you kind of get sick of the format, it's like people know what to expect, and kind of like know what they're gonna get, and that's really comforting for people, but I do think like, I know what you're saying about like I end up falling off even my favorite shows, I like fall off around 45 minutes, so it's like tempting to think of like, how can I release that last 20 minutes as a separate episode, I mean that's a good, like that's another one of those things, maybe try it, I don't have any precedent to like share with you, but I think it's something that, again it's kind of like the risk for creating and publishing these podcasts, is relatively low, so it's like you can just do it, and see how it goes, like it's kind of a cool idea, yeah. Does anyone have any other questions? Yes, similar like that. Hi. Hi Thanks for coming today, this is great. I'm a local photographer and I'm not really, I mean, I haven't started a podcast, but I do love listening to them, and I have this passion project I'm kind of thinking about doing, and wasn't sure how to put it out there, but, so I guess my question is, do you think it's worth like putting it out, putting my feelers out by like going live and discussing things, or like, putting it out on social media to gain an audience before like, really going for it with the podcasts? What exactly are you talking about? So I'm doing this passion project, where I'm photographing women on businesses locally, and my six-year-old daughter is interviewing them. Oh, that's so cute, I love that idea. She's super-pumped about it. I feel like that people would love that. Yeah, and she's super-pumped about it. She loves that, so I'm excited about it, but I mean, so it started with just pictures, right, 'cause that's what I do, but I realized I needed an audio content, so that's kind of what I'm exploring. Yeah, yeah, I think it's definitely worth putting out, like some feelers and building an audience on social media, I love that idea of like, it's really cool that you have a project attached to it, and then like the podcast will be an extension of that, I work, actually the podcast that I played the intro, Junk with Tommy Pico, he wrote a book of poetry, that had just been released called Junk, so like essentially like the podcast was almost an extension or a supplement to that book, and it works really nicely to have like, I know that your project is different than a book, but it's really cool to like have an existing project, and have like fans in one medium, and then like translate that into a podcast, I found like a lot of really successful podcasts, 'cause they started like that, so that's perfect, yeah, that's really cool. Thank you so much for being here, this has been great. Thank you. My question is when you're kind of going through your production work flow, what are things that you've added to it, that have made it easier or reflect on management, what you weren't doing in the beginning, but doing now? Right, that's a great question. The first one, and I don't know if this will be applicable, the first one that I think of when I'm working with a team, is setting really hard deadlines for when people need to get edits to you, again, that's not like a universally applicable thing, but it's like if there's something that, so I guess we could say if there are things that are in other people's control, that are like out of your control, make sure that they know exactly when they need to get that to you, and make sure they know that that's not flexible, you know what I mean like, 'cause there was definitely a period in Food for Thought and in other podcasts, where people would send me edit like, if edits were due on Thursday, they would like trickle in on like Sunday and Monday, and the podcasts would have to go out Tuesday, and it's like that just doesn't work. Another thing, I mean, I just think probably, that would be the main one. (laughs) Yeah. Hi, thank you. My name is Alexa, and I wanted to follow-up her question, with like, when you're in that situation, and like you're like hello, the deadline was three days ago, how do you, especially with the podcasts, where maybe like the people you're working with, aren't being paid, it's like a passion project, like how do you softly manage them into like remember, we're all doing this fun thing, and we want it to be of this level of quality, so we've gotta do this? That's a really great question, and it's especially a great question, when it's exactly like you said, coming with like on a passion project, I think I've definitely done passion projects, like similar projects to Food for Thought, and passion projects where people aren't getting paid, where people end up kind of like dropping out, it's like if you aren't, because the key in those situations, is figuring out collaborators and people, who are going to like take it as seriously as you, and also, kind of on that same note, it's like, sometimes people don't wanna take it that seriously, and like maybe that's great, for instance, Junk, I do that with Tommy, my famed Food for Thought collaborator, but like, Junk was so chill, like we had no deadlines, like we had a few deadlines, you know what I mean, but we set about doing that podcast with that expectation that we were both at the same level of like here, you know what I mean, like Food for Thought, we like all need to be here, you know what I mean, and it's like, I think when you're finding collaborators, and figuring out who you wanna work with on this project, it kind of goes back to that we were talking about, like what does success look like, and what your goals are, so, from the beginning, you have to make sure you're on the same page as people, and if people aren't living up to kind of like the expectations for the whole group, I mean, it can sucks like you have to manage people like that and be like the bad guy, but it's just kind of like I think, when I'm pretty stern on projects like that, I just tell people like you need to step it up or leave, (laughs) basically. Hi. (laughs) (laughs) Hi, we have a question from on line, from Caroline Fertilare who says do you have best practices for finding a podcast name? She says I'm really curious about that one. First practice is searching in iTunes to see if it already exists. That has happened so many times where like, I come up with a podcast name with people I'm working with, or myself, and I Google it, and it's already in existence. Best practices, otherwise, I like ones, that are like relatively short, like two to three words, there's really not a complete best practice, another thing that I do is kind of like, think about what the cover art might look like, and what I have a vision like for the cover art, and see how kind of like, the title of that, might fit into that, I think titles that are memorable are great, but then again, I think of the example I just used, called Rise Together, which like isn't that memorable, and it's constantly on the top ten of iTunes, so I think it's something that is, I like to do two to three words, and make sure it doesn't exist, that's my main tip. (laughs) Hey. Hi, thank you. So following up on that question, googling something to see if it exists, and you're saying that bring some extra content for say, a book that's being released, it's kind of like DVD extras on a website or something. I'm working on a podcast for a client, who is releasing a book in September, called Mismatched, and I'm wondering, if I were to find that name for that podcast, then what do I do? Oh, if Mismatched is already a name? Yeah, I haven't looked quite yet but, That's a really good question. There are podcasts with the same name, like you will see tons, actually another round, which I gave you an example of, is like Heaven and Tracy talking, and there's another round podcast, which is like two bros, like two frat bros talking, and like everyone in the comment, like all the comments were like, this is not the another round I was looking for, like this is not the show, so I think it, unless it's like copyrighted or trademarked, I think you can, like you can use it and if you're really tied to it, like in the case of like having a book title, and that's a really nice, I love that name for a podcast actually, you can probably still use that, I would just check to see if it's like trademarked, or something, I'm not sure how you would go about doing that but email people, yeah. Alright, thanks. Well, I think that it is time to wrap up, Alex, thank you so much, can you give us some, just kind of your final thoughts, bunch of people out here, in the studio audience, online, who are really in that beginning phase and so, kind of your final words of wisdom. Yeah, I mean, my final thought is kind of echoing, the first thing that I said to you guys. I've had so much fun and so much like, it's been so creatively rewarding to work on some of these passion projects and these weekly podcasts, I think that you guys are in a perfect position to do that, and I'm just excited for all of you to kind of get into that, and hopefully find new collaborators to work with, and new creative outlets, it's gonna be really fun. I can't wait to listen to everyone's show.