Expert Podcasting Practices For Dummies®

Chapter 48. Podfade Prevention

In This Practice

• Reaping the benefits of taking a break

• Reconnecting with your passion

• Saying “no” to one more podcast idea

Podcasting For Dummies gave co‐author Tee Morris the closest experience ever to what it must be like to be the obsessive‐compulsive TV detective Adrian Monk. As star Tony Shaloub says (with all the vulnerability he can muster), “It's a gift …and a curse.”

What is? Well, for one thing, all that validation. Tee had been a writer of fiction for years, but while writing under the For Dummies brand, he wound up invited to all the right parties, hobnobbing with the stars, getting the “A‐List” treatment…. That was the “gift.”

The “curse” came when — less than a month after the book's initial release — the podcasts featured in the book started disappearing, one after another. What was going on? Because podcasting was still a new medium, no one really considered the possibilities of a podcast ending, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was the same assumption behind a blog — you never think about a show calling it quits or reaching a conclusion.

Then the term was coined by Scott Fletcher of Podcheck Review: podfading.

As easily as it can happen to you, it can also be prevented.

Factors That Contribute to Podfading

Podfading is the community's scarlet letter to podcasts that launched out of the box strong only to scale back production values around the tenth show, then change posting frequency, and then finally stop. In much the same manner as a Roman ...