Expert Podcasting Practices For Dummies®

Chapter 50. Change of Passion, Change of Podcast?

In This Practice

• Re‐evaluating your podcast

• Honoring your podcasting commitments

• Overhauling your podcast

• Switching to a new audience

Like most things that make their way to the Internet (remember the dancing gerbils and all those e‐mail forwards you still get, even though they've been circulating since the beginning of time?), the vast majority of podcasts are driven by passion. Whether it's a love of cooking or the need to rant for hours about their neighbors, podcasters have a strong internal motivation to create their shows. They podcast not only because they want to, but almost because they need to. That makes these podcasts personal — almost intimate — and it's a factor that draws listeners in and keeps them coming back.

However, time moves on, things change, and podcasters may become interested in something else. Given the fast pace and the intense information saturation on the Internet, you can quickly get burnt out on doing a podcast, even if it's a topic you love talking about. It takes a lot of effort to research, write, record, and produce a podcast on a regular basis, and the schedule can be a little grueling. When you start wishing you could spend your podcasting time doing …well, just about anything else, it might be time to take a step back and see exactly why you're producing this program.

Performing an Annual Evaluation

So you've been creating your podcast for a while now, and it just doesn't have the same lure as it did ...