Podcasting For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Foreword

Your people are out there. Waiting for you. Whether you want to podcast about pop culture, marketing, bass fishing, or vintage wooden button collecting, you will find an audience if you stick with it and produce a quality show by following the advice in this book. The audience is probably bigger for a marketing podcast than a vintage wooden button collecting podcast, but you never know — there’s probably less competition for the button collectors.

When the Sirens lure you to the dangerous waters of obsessing over your listener stats, imagine your listeners all sitting together in one auditorium. Listening to you. It’s probably more people than your voice has ever reached in your whole life (unless you’re a professor teaching a freshman weed-out class). It’s amazing and a little frightening, and there’s nothing like the thrill of getting your first message from a listener in China, New Zealand, the Philippines, Egypt, or some other distant land you’ve never seen.

There’s something especially intimate about the listening experience too. Listeners imagine what you look like and where you are, and it’s usually better than the reality. They feel like they know you because in their imagination, they have created you.

Now, instead of thinking of them as your audience, think of them as your community. Ask them what they want. Ask them what they like (and what they don’t like). Feature them on your show.

Go beyond the microphone and make things for your listeners, and let them ...